Overview

This public relations promotional campaign for Premium Travel is designed to offer a Spring Break for college students with a written guarantee that our agency will deliver a hassle-free vacation.  College students have experienced many problems or inconveniences on Spring Break in the past.  These problems have included; changing of scheduled flights, changes in hotel reservations, less than standard hotel conditions and extra charges.  These problems have had an affect on the students involved in the travel plans, their parents, and the hotel or travel personnel who are forced to solve the problems. 

As a result we plan to use the Spring Break 2000 as our kickoff year.  We propose to market this guarantee to college students immediately after Spring Break of this year and to continue to market in a variety of channels up until our kickoff year.  We intend to change any negative attitudes that may exist in the minds of students concerning Spring Break.

The second objective is to have college students put their full trust back into the idea of Spring Break.  This objective will create favorable attitudes about Spring Break travel and eliminate the worries that students once had about their vacation plans.  These objectives proposed will be met by informational and emotional appeals in the campaign messages.

The target audience of this campaign is all college students in the United States.  Although our target audience is all college students in the United States, we are also going to put a lot of focus on targeting private universities. We chose to use private universities as a main focus of our target audience because of the available amount of disposable income that their families may have.  When students have access to a higher amount of disposable income they are not primarily concerned with price and are more concerned with the safety and guarantee of their Spring Break travel.  Through our primary research we found that students from families with a higher income level are more concerned with a Spring Break that is hassle-free rather than an absurd low price.

The campaign uses a variety of different media to convey its messages.  The central theme for the campaign is the message, “Put your TRUST in us, Avoid a Spring Break BUST!”  The kickoff year for this campaign will be in Spring Break 2000.  The channels we propose to use to filter our messages are college newspapers, flyers, brochures, and the Internet.  Press releases and flyers will appear in college newspapers of private universities.  Brochures will also be sent to a number of reputable travel agencies to make them aware of this upcoming campaign.  This campaign will focus on changing negative feelings about Spring Break into favorable attitudes.
 

Premium Travel is offering a new and exciting Spring Break package to college students all across the country.  The problems behind this new program are such:  it is entering a market with well established travel agencies that have long history of supplying spring break packages.  Premium Travel’s budget is very small, thus allowing it to advertise on small scale.  A PR program is needed because it is new and the best way to get the word out is through publicity and promotions.  College students today tend to be attracted to materials and products that are highly accessible and recognizable.

Goal

The primary objective of this campaign is to change negative attitudes that may exist about Spring Break among all college students in the United States.  We plan to use Spring Break 2000 as our kickoff year.  Accomplishing this involves re-establishing positive images of Spring Break among the target audience.  The campaign focuses on the trustworthiness of Premium Travel in comparison to other Spring Break travel agencies.  The message of the campaign “Put your TRUST in us, Avoid a Spring Break BUST!” is used throughout the entire campaign and illustrates our primary objective.

Target Audience

The target audience for the campaign is based primarily on demographics.  Demographically, the target audience is college student’s ages 17 – 26 years old.  We are targeting both males and females.  Our target audience consists of those college students with a family income level above $75,000.00 or those students who may be earning money at a part-time job. We will solicit press releases and flyers in colleges that are only private universities.  We chose to target college students enrolled in private universities because this will help us to reach our target audience of a higher income bracket.  Although, we chose to use private universities to advertise our campaign in order to reach our target audience we are aware that all college students will have access to our campaign through the Internet. Geographically, the target audience will be all college students in the Unites States.  The target audience includes those students who have been on Spring Break before and those who may not have been on Spring Break previously.  We feel that our campaign tagline, “Put your TRUST in us, Avoid a Spring Break BUST” will target both of these groups.

The higher income level of the target audience is important for the following reasons:
1) Our agency does not offer absurdly low prices
2) Our agency offers average priced trips with a guarantee to be hassle-free
3) Those not concerned about money as much will be concerned about the safety of their travel plans

This information is a result of the data collected from our primary research.  Spring Break surveys were distributed to 12 male and 13 female college students asking questions concerning their financial situations and their Spring Break concerns.  (See the appendix for a copy of the survey distributed)
 

The message concept of the promotional campaign is “Put your TRUST in us, Avoid a Spring Break BUST!”  There are many elements that provide the target audience with reasons to comply with the message.  There was primary and secondary research conducted for the selection of the campaign message.

Three messages were initially created and then pre-tested on fifteen college students that would fall into our target audience.  The three messages used in our pretest were: 1)  Spring Break Guaranteed  2)  Fun, Sun, Surf, Ski, with an Absolute Guarantee  3)  Put your TRUST in us, Avoid a Spring Break BUST.  The college students involved in the pretest were asked a number of questions concerning these three campaign messages.  Some of the questions asked were a direct result of an earlier response made by the college student. 

The questions asked:
What was your first response when you read the message?
Did you picture any visual images?
Did it evoke any feelings/emotions?

All of the responses were evaluated and reviewed as to what the opinions or feelings of these messages were.  We found that the third campaign message illustrated the objectives of our campaign best.  One response that we considered heavily was that the second message did not mention Spring Break at all.  This was one of the biggest reasons why we chose to eliminate message number two.

The secondary research we conducted was very useful.  We used data from existing Spring Break websites that included remarks or comments by college students who have taken previous Spring Break trips.  One of the websites also included a list of possible problems that may exist on a Spring Break vacation and ways to avoid these problems.  These sites provided a lot of useful information concerning the past history of Spring Break and what some future consumers concerns may be. 

This campaign uses a rational appeal.  The contents of these messages usually emphasize facts, learning, and logic of persuasion.  In order to meet the objective of re-creating the image of Spring Break as positive, the campaign must inform the target audience about our agencies credibility and quality.

The media vehicles that have informational appeal are brochures, newspaper advertisements and the Internet.  Print media is very useful with informational appeal styles because they allow the target audience to refer back to the information and have the ability to relay a lot of information. 

Advertising on the Internet allows us a cost-effective means to provide information but it uses an emotional appeal as well.  The Internet not only allows the consumer to get the most updated information, but is also gives marketers more freedom in terms of creativity in their ad execution styles than print media.

Positive emotional appeal is a major part of the campaign message relying heavily on imagery and sensory attractiveness.  The messages in these ads are not complex and focus more on catching the positive arousal for Spring Breakers who plan vacation in exotic places. 

The research behind the campaign determines the types of messages and message styles implemented.  The primary and secondary information gathered aided in choosing an effective campaign message.
 

The types of communication channels that should be used are ones that would have complete exposure to college students all across the country.   We have decided that the channels that would be most efficient in achieving this are the following:

1. NEWS RELEASES - sent to the editors of all college newspapers right before the campaign begins.  The reason we chose a news release was to make sure that the message behind our product is understood up front.  Also it is a good way to present the new division to our audience directly.

2. TV ADVERTISING - send one advertisement  to all college TV stations during the campaign. It would consist of a single frame advertisement informing the audience what Excursions entails and how to get more information.  This would work best because college students tend to tune into the local college channels for movies as well as information about upcoming campus events.   By having an advertisement on these channels more students would be exposed to the availability of the new division of Premier Travel.

3.  Pamphlets - these would be distributed to RA's, student organizations, and the Greek community throughout the various college and university campuses across the U.S.A..  They would have information about prices, travel packages, and destinations to inform the students within their organizations and dorms about what the company is offering.  They would also be sent out  to various travel agencies to be used to inform customers more about what the packages that they might purchase contain.

4.  Fliers -  These would be distributed to throughout the various college and universities across the USA.   They would have information about prices, travel packages, and destinations.   This would be best because it is tangible - meaning that the students on the campuses can take the flyers and pamphlets back to their rooms, houses or apartments.  This brings the knowledge of the product into their "homes".  When the time comes for them to choose what travel agency to go with, they would have the Excursions material available for them to read over again.

5.  Internet - establishing an extension of our web page to include out new division of  travel, Excursions.   This makes it easy for more people to gain even more information about the travel opportunities offered by the company.   Most people tend to use the internet more these days than ever before to find the best products.

Evaluating the effectiveness of the Excursions campaign can be done in a few ways. Some questions that pertain to the effectiveness would be, “Did the recipients of the message understand it? and was the desired organizational objective achieved?” (Wilcox, 193) To answers these questions, we would first compare the number of spring break trips taken this year and the number taken the following year  after the Excursions campaign. This will help determine the successfulness of the achieved objective to a certain degree.
 Secondly, by collecting data from the travel agency and travel agents, the number of people within the target audience that booked spring break vacations can be found. Reviewing the travel agencies’ databases containing demographic information about their customers can do this.

To find out the customers’ level of satisfaction with their travel experiences through Excursions, the travel agency along with the accommodation sites will provide tourists with a reply/comment card at the end of their vacation.

A 1-800 number will be placed on all advertisements for any information the potential customer may have about Excursions. The number will run the agency in order to keep a record of the growing interest in Excursions. This will be in use throughout the promotional period.

Another way to measure effectiveness that goes along the same line as the 1-800 number is the amount of requests Excursions receives. The amount of requests for materials concerning the Excursions’ spring break packages can also show the effectiveness of a public relations program.