My Life After the PR Degree

My Life After the PR Degree
By Candice Jones

When I first came to OU the only thing that interested me was writing. As I began to scope out majors, I landed on Journalism. I began my college career as a journalism major with hopes of one day becoming a news anchor. I realized very quickly that journalism was not for me. Although I enjoyed certain aspects of it, I did not like the writing portion. Ever since I was a little girl I have been writing. Mostly fiction when I was younger and these days more “real life” writing. I became discouraged with the journalistic way of writing. I do understand its importance and do love my major; however, my true passion is creative writing. After studying abroad with the Gaylord College of Journalism in London and Paris I switched to PR. I remember the day I changed my major to PR. We had just left Bloomberg in Paris. Bloomberg's PR consultant showed us around and had planned our visit for that day. Now that is a dream job!
After going through a life changing experience last summer, I realized I should pursue my biggest passion in life, writing. After taking one semester off I plan to go to graduate school for professional writing. I hope to one day publish a book and do free lance work for a magazine. My ultimate goal is to one day do PR for Marie Claire. This is my favorite magazine for many reasons and would like to do some free lance stuff for this magazine as well.
Good luck to everyone graduating in a couple days! I hope you pursue your dreams and find a job that makes you happy! Congratulations class of ’08!

ILSY to Bridges: The Campaign

ILSY to Bridges: The Campaign

By

Candice Jones

From the moment my group, High 5 Public Relations, pulled the name ILSY out of a hat back in January, we knew we had a great semester ahead of us. It has been so wonderful to work with such an amazing non-profit agency. We couldn’t have asked for a better client. Debra Krittenbrink, executive director of Bridges, has been so incredible to work with and we all feel as though we have contributed to a great cause.
Today was our event. As we all stood around mingling with guests and getting to know the board, everyone kept saying what an amazing job we have done. High 5 along with PR Perceptions and Team Purple have been working diligently on this campaign all semester. Although we still have one more hectic week preparing for our presentations, it felt incredible to stand at our event today and see the results of our progress for Bridges.
It all started with a little research. We conducted surveys as well as a focus group to get a better understanding of what the public thought of a name change for this organization. Our survey results told us by just hearing the name, Independent Living Services for Youth, most people understood the sole purpose of the organization. However, ILSY does not roll off the tongue so smooth and the acronym is difficult to remember. The board of ILSY decided on Bridges which we all agree fits the agency well.
My group’s target audience was young professionals. We were in charge of revamping the current Career Coaching brochure and increasing awareness among young professionals in Norman. For the Career Coaching brochure we hosted a photo shoot to capture some current pictures of young professionals working with students. Our goal with this brochure was to show the potential success of a student paired up with a mentor. High 5 also attended a meeting at Norman Next, a new organization for local professionals. We handed out a fact sheet and talked to the young professionals there about Bridges’ Career Coaching program.
As of now we have 15 days until graduation. We did it girls! I am proud of each group that worked for Bridges this semester. I was the event coordinator for today’s event and I just want to thank you girls for making my job so easy. Everyone did their part and each team worked together to make today’s event as well as this campaign such a success!

Giving True Beauty a Chance to be Beautiful

Carstarphen
JMC 4403—PR Campaigns
Blogs—Contemporary PR
Spring 2008
02-23-08

Giving True Beauty a Chance to be Beautiful
By Candice Jones

The well being of women has always been a concern of mine. Maybe it is because I am a woman or maybe this concern stems from the previous oppression placed on the women of our history. I usually root for the under dog. Whichever reason gives me an underlying passion for women’s issues; I must say I commend Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty for taking action.

As we all are aware of the oppression put on women and greatly admire the forerunners of the Women’s Movement one question remains, what issues are we dealing with today? We are voting, we are in the career force, we are doctors, lawyers, and maybe after this 2008 election the President of the United States. This is an exciting time and our generation gets to reap the benefits of those who fought on our behalf. One thing still sticks out in my mind and it is something that affects each and every woman, our appearance. We live in a society where you can get just about anything altered. For heaven sakes, you can get butt implants, makeup tattooed on your face, hair extensions, lipo suction, breast implants etc. Some people are having plastic surgeons alter their face to look like certain celebrities. We live in a time where eating disorders are most prevalent. One in one hundred adolescent females are starving themselves; four out of one hundred college women are bulimic. It is a sad and frightening world in which we live. Are the women of today oppressed by a distorted view of beauty causing destruction of self value and worth?

In 2006 Unilever’s top selling brand Dove started a worldwide campaign that features average women of all ages, shapes and sizes as beautiful. This is a refreshing campaign and I have to say I buy more Dove products. This marketing/PR/communications campaign was and still is genius. Not only are they empowering women, Dove is giving us women a chance to redefine beauty. As female communicators we must applaud Dove for their motivation, dedication and success with this campaign. Agencies behind the campaign include: Ogilvy and Mather, Edelman Public Relations, and Harbinger Communications . What a great campaign to give true beauty a chance to be beautiful.