By

CameronPotter,SonnaPugh,TarynPilkington,HannahPeyton,MeganMoore

PublicRelationsandAwarenessCampaign

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TABLEOFCONTENTS

PUBLICRELATIONSANDAWARESNESSCAMPAIGN

RESEARCH 2

KEYFINDINGS 3

PUBLICS 4

GOALS,OBJECTIVES,STRATEGIESANDMESSAGE 5

TACTICS 6

TIMELINE 7-8

BUDGET 9

EVALUATION 10

APPENDIX (11-17)

INSTAGRAM&TWITTER 11

FACEBOOK&SHIRTDESIGN 12

5KFLYER 13

DE-STRESSWITHPETSFLYER 14

GENERICINFORMATIONALFLYER 15

ONLINESURVEYQUESTIONS 16-17

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RESEARCH

• Door-to-Door Surveys (Formal Research) o Will use campus reps to answer the following

questions: 1. How many students living off campus have pets? 2. How many have had pets for more than 1 semester? 3. What is the leading reason for abandonment/return? 4. What is the number of houses that allow pets in lease? 5. Were the pets brought from home or adopted? 6. Does the student live alone or with roommates? 7. What sophomores are planning on having pets in their next house? 8. How many students living off campus returned/abandoned their pets?

• E-mail Quizzes (Formal Research) o We will send out an email to a random sample of students from the Miami

Listserv to find out how much they know about the responsibilities related with pet-care. The will be incentivized with prizes and asked to participate again in the future to get their prizes.

• Interviews (Formal research) o We will interview a representative from the Animal Adoption Foundation in

order to gain more information about the rate and frequency of returned pets in the past.

• Focus Groups (Informal Research) o We will hold group meetings of current sophomores who were planning to

live off campus in order to gain an idea on their interest levels of having a pet while off campus.

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KEYFINDINGS

Door-to-door survey 1. 1 in every 12 off-campus houses currently has a pet. 2. 61% of houses with pets have had said pet for more than 1 semester 3. 1. Too much of a commitment, 2. Adopted without landlord consent, 3. Overall

cost 4. 42% of Oxford houses allow pets within the lease 5. 13% brought their pet from home. 87% were adopted. 6. 89% live with roommates. 7. 40% of sophomores have thought about having pets next year off campus. 8. 32/84 animals adopted by students from the AAF in the last year, have been

returned.

Email Quiz From the random sample of 200 students, the average grade on the quiz was a

40%, which is by no means passing.

Animal Adoption Foundation Interview From our time spent with the AAF representative we were able to discover that they found homes for 84 animals last year but sadly 32 of them ended up back in the car of the AAF through abandonment.

Sophomore focus groups Through the focus groups we were able to tell that about 40% of lower classmen were leaning towards having a pet while living off campus next year.

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PUBLICS Primary:

• College students, ages 19-22 - off-campus living at Miami University. • Sophomores ages 18-20, living on campus with a want to live off

campus, next year.

Secondary:

• Anyone who isn't a student on Miami’s campus. Teachers, workers, family and both collegiate and high schools near by. Also any followers of social media.

Intervening:

• Student papers and other local media writing articles on our campaign and about AAF

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GOALS

To raise awareness among college students about responsible pet ownership and decrease the rate of returned or abandoned animals by off-campus college students.

OBJECTIVES

• To decrease the rate of returned or abandoned animals by off-campus college students by 30% over the course of our 1-year program.

• To increase knowledge about the responsibilities involved with pet ownership by 40% over the course of our 1-year program.

STRATEGIES

Our strategy is to inform students on how important it is to take care of their pets, we will do this by informing students of the responsibilities of owning dogs by using research done, and to gain support for our cause by showing students what happens to dogs when they abandon them.

MESSAGE

Almost half of all animals adopted from the animal adoption foundation by students don’t stay with them, and are abandoned or returned. Help keep animals from being returned by educating yourself on what it means to own a pet in college.

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TACTICS

Advertising

• Spreading flyers around campus and through the Miami listserv periodically to spread our message and to make our presence known on campus.

• Create Facebook page

• Create Instagram page

• Create Twitter Page

• Use ads in Newspapers and articles in The Odyssey to get people to start conversations on our topic. Use funny titles like “Frat Hound or a Way to get Girl’s Attention?” or “Can you take care of a pet when you can barely take care of yourself? A question we all really need to discuss”.

Education

• Set up booths in a variety of places on campus to reach a larger audience, and inform people of what we will be doing, our messages, pet care information. Also provide links to help keep people updates.

• Have events in Armstrong to help students “de-stress with pets”, while also learning information about pets that are left behind, and the learning proper pet care. AAF will be here as well to give out information.

• Education sessions aimed at mainly at sophomores informing them of the rules of living off campus and all the places that allow you to have pets.

• Have before program during program and after program surveys to show the growth of

knowledge from our program. Chosen out of a random sample of students to find out how much they know about the responsibilities related with pet-care. If students participate in the first, midterm and final survey in the program they will be entered to win the Grand Prize of an Apple Watch, or a chance to win 1 of 10 $20 gift cards to chipotle at the end of the campaign. The rest get a coupon for free guacamole with chip purchase at Chipotle just by taking it each time.

Fundraising

• Have a 5k to raise money for the AAF to help animals find fur-ever homes and to get publicity for our cause. All runners will be educated on pet care.

• Have campus reps from Miami University’s campus to make sure we have volunteers and people reaching out to students. These campus reps will pass out flyers for the 5k and De-stress With Pets day and go door to door and advertise the message the shelter is trying to get across. There will be 10 volunteer campus reps.

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TIMELINE May

• May 1st: Ten campus reps are selected. • May 10th: Emails sent out to Miami University Listserv- On and off campus, which are

from the foundation with facts about having pets while in college. Links to the Animal Adoption Foundation provided.

June • June 10th: Second email is sent out to remind students of Miami about the problem at

hand and informing them that will be conducting door-to-door surveys during the first week of August. Links to the Animal Adoption Foundation provided.

July • July 10th: Third email is sent out to remind students of Miami about the problem at hand

and informing them that we will be conducting door-to-door surveys during the first week of August. Links to the Animal Adoption Foundation provided.

August • August 4th: Interview AAF representative • August 12th: Campus reps pass out flyers about focus group. • August 13th: First email quiz sent out to the Miami Listserv. • August 25th: First Door-to-door survey to students off campus to assess if their

household has any pets. • August 27th: Conduct a focus group talking about pet ownership during college in

Armstrong. • August 27th: Campus reps pass out flyers around campus to raise awareness about

pet ownership in college. • August 28th: “Oxford Pets” Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages are launched. All

will have consistent daily updates from campus reps of our program from the campus reps.

September • September 4th: Ads in the Miami Student, and an article in The Odyssey are published. • September 13th: Set up booths around campus with puppies to help draw people in

and give them information about the AAF and links to our social media sites to stay updated,

• September 20th: Have campus reps set up booths around campus with puppies. • September 27th: Have campus reps set up booths around campus with puppies.

October:

• October 3rd: Post on social media and have campus reps pass out flyers for the upcoming puppy stress relief day at Armstrong.

• October 10th: To raise more awareness, we host a “De-stress with pets” day in Armstrong Student Center where students can take time away from studying and come play with the animals from a local shelter.

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November • November 4th: Send out an email to the Miami Listserv notifying students that they will

have the ability to participate in a quiz for AAF and could win a prize soon. • November 7th: Second email quiz sent out to the Miami Listserv evaluating the

knowledge of the responsibilities related with pet care. • November 25th: Have campus reps set up booths around campus with puppies and

give students information about the AAF and links to our social media sites to stay updated

December • December 5th: Campus reps constantly updating social media to provide followers with

information. • December 12th: Campus reps constantly updating social media to provide followers

with information • December 19th: Campus reps constantly updating social media to provide followers

with information January

• January 25th: Second door-to-door survey done by the campus reps (with puppy dog) is conducted for off campus households to report any change (aka did households get pets, get rid of pets, get another pet etc.)

February • February 2nd: Have campus reps post flyers promoting our educational sessions about

off-campus living and pet ownership. • February 10th: Education session in Armstrong aimed towards sophomores and Greek

life. • February 15th: 2nd Education session in Armstrong aimed towards sophomores and

Greek life.

March • March 3rd: Have campus reps pass out flyers around campus to raise awareness about

pet ownership in college • March 6th: Have campus reps pass out flyers around campus to raise awareness about

pet ownership in college • March 12th: De-stress with pets event in Uptown Square.

April

• April 6th: Campus reps pass out more flyers for the upcoming Furry Friends 5k. • April 15th: Furry Friends 5k - this 5k allows animal lovers to run for a cause. • April 20th: Last online quiz sent out to the Miami Listserv evaluating the knowledge of

the responsibilities related with pet care. • April 25th: Interview AAF representative

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BUDGET

Prizes Out of Pocket

Apple Watches x2 $1080

10- $20 Chipotle gift cards $200

Refreshments

4 Pizza Hut Pizza x5 (Focus Groups, Informational, De-Stress w/ Pets, 5k) $772.25

8 Sodas x5 $42.8

Rented Space

Rented Room (Armstrong Pavilion, x3) $240

Uptown Park 3 hours (De-stress with pets) $150

Uptown Park 3 hours (5k) $150

Ads

Ads in Miami Student $88.23

Flyers

2000 Flyers (Focus groups, 5k, hand-outs) $300

5k Supplies

Banners $34

Speakers with microphone (3 hours) $150

Plastic cups $50

Water jugs $50

Gatorade Packets $36

Website Sign-up $20

T-shirts $1415

Total $4,778. 28

Budget $5,000.00

Remaining Funds $221.72

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EVALUATIONWe chose a random sample of students from Miami to take a small quiz online to

find out how much they know about the responsibilities related with pet care before school begins, available on August 13th. We then gave the same quiz to the same people on November 7th and compare the responses to each other. Then, towards the end of the year, after a school year full of awareness raising we held one last quiz on April 20th. This quiz was given to the same people that the first two were given. Ideally we wanted the scores to improve due to the multiple programs we held and our daily social media engagement with students. We hoped that campus reps along with a good turnout for our education sessions and the 5k motivated students to be educated, prepared pet owners. As you can see in our graph, the average for quiz 3 was a 90%, surpassing our goal of having an average of 80% on the 3rd and last quiz.

We also interviewed a representative from AAF to learn more about the past abandonment rates. In that first meeting, on August 4th, the representative explained that the past year had been a record high for animal abandonments with 32/84 (38%) of adopted pets ending up abandoned. Our goal was to decrease this number by 30%, hoping to only have 26% pet abandonments. By our last meeting with the representative, we had successfully surpassed our goal and reached a low of only 19% pet abandonments. Only 17 animals were abandoned and put back into the care of the Animal Adoption Foundation out the 91 adopted over the course of our campaign.

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IniXalSurvey MidtermSurvey FinalSurvey

Averagegrad

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EducaLonSurveyResults

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APPENDIXTwitter

Instagram

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Facebook

5k T-Shirt Design

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5k Flyer

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De-Stress Day Flyer

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Generic Informational Flyer

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Online Survey Questions used for Evaluation

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