Advertising 489, Advertising and Public Relations Campaigns, must be an incredibly fun course, taught by Stacy James at the University of Nebraska College of Journalism. It's a hands on senior-level course, where students create a marketing campaign during the semester for an actual client.
We were incredibly fortunate to be the client of this Spring's class. These students spent the semester creating police officer recruitment campaigns for us. In January, myself and several other staff members had a great meeting with the class at police headquarters. We had a far reaching conversation about who were trying to attract, what we have to offer, and what sets us apart. Although we have huge numbers of applicants, we were interested in recruiting more successful applicants--high quality men and women with solid educations looking for socially-significant work, and prepared for the complexity and challenge of policing.
The students took the seeds from their initial meeting with the client, formed into two teams, conducted their own market research (including focus groups of recently-employed LPD officers), and created two competing campaigns. Yesterday, they presented these campaigns to about a dozen LPD staff members and to members of the faculty at the J-College. They even had donuts for the clients.
It was unbelievable. The quality of the work, the enthusiasm of the students, their professionalism and delivery were just top notch. The results were advertising themes, printed materials, radio and TV spots, web sites, posters, brochures, cards, CDs, public relations events, and more. These are all concepts that we can implement, and the presentation included materials and price quotes we can run with when we find the cash.
The two teams, BallyHoo and Under the Radar, had quite different approaches, but also some similarities. They both honed in on the importance of using great electronic communication--especially dynamic web content--for this target audience. They have obviously crawled all over my blog, which explains the uptick in hits from the UNL domain.
I'm sticking up some of the printed display materials they prepared around the department for everyone to see, and we'll be trying our best to incorporate some of this great work in our future recruitment. Very well done, teams, it's clear you love what you do!
22 comments:
Very nice. It is obvious that the poster shows a male or a female. It shows no sign of race, even though the application asks that question. Also it is good that the college students are doing more than just getting drunk. It is interesting that "out of state" is important to a reader. That is good beings so many people leave this city and state for other places.
Well this misled two of us. I had to read twice to see that it was a "mock up"
Pretty tasteless if you ask me. Is not there protected classes i.e sex, age and so forth?
I think the poster mocks the sincerity of equal opportunity...City and County hiring is "who do you know" not "what can you do" Neff said
The hair has to go , it looks like a Broadway production or just not right.
I'd like to second Anon 8:55's comments. Applicants should be able to track it down AND, most importantly, have a natural curiosity making them to do so. Also, as a former student of Stacey James, congratulations to her on guiding her students to do some great work.
I interpret the silhouette as "picture yourself here" not a political statement about equal opportunity. Lighten up people.
Not everything has some deep political meaning. Although I have noticed the disappearance of the jolly Green Giant and Sprout...hmmmm
Wow, very impressing. Hopefully the ideas will be put to good use. Great job!
To Anon. 6:39 AM. It doesn't matter, we only recruit within a 4 block radius of the station and expect everyone else to come to us.
I have seen some very interesting recuriting campaigns from other departments. They offer relocation, true laterals
(including placement on the pay scale). Irving Texas will even reimburse you any expenses incurred traveling for the hiring process if they hire you. I know, I know, there's no money here. So we shouldn't complain when all our applicants come from two Sunday ads in the Urinal-Star. In looking at the ad campaign posters at the station it looks as if the department has decided that it doesn't want any one with experience. None of the ads would appeal to any one that knows the reality of the job.
5:07
...and I'll bet you really really know the job. Why don't you go to Irving and be happy? Otherwise, spread your attitude privately and quit complaining about everyone else.
Wow, sorry I hurt some feelings. I'm pretty sure that having been a cop for nearly 20 years I do know the realities of the job. I am happy here. I don't want to go to Irving Texas. I want those people working in Irving and a hundred other places to consider Lincoln. The posters in the station are slick and would appeal to those considering entering Law Enforcement not those already doing the job. But I guess I'll just keep my opinions to my self from here on out unless those opinions are all sunshine and flowers of course.
We have to do some major recruiting.
This is what the competition is doing. (Sorry, I couldn't find a pirate recruiting poster.)
One campaign shows similarities to
href="http://www.volunteergenie.org.uk/picture/1192026122.jpg">this one.
Curious how recruiting in the UK has been....
I saw the signs at the PD. I think they are cool.
Yes, we DO have a recruiting page, but is is a joke. Take a peek at the the competition is doing. Now, compare any of these, easy to navigate, interactive, pages with high speed video's and now, you tell me which dept you would choose if you lived in another state and made your application decisions based on the website, like many of the out of state population do....
www.joinopd.com
www.lapdonline.org
www.dallaspolice.net
www.sjpd.org
http://www.siouxfalls.org/Police.aspx
or ours which is very difficult to find on a simple google, which is how I found the others above.
http://lincoln.ne.gov/city/police/rcrting.htm
Now, which DEPT would YOU pick?? And that my friends is called advertising
2:26-
Very nice catch. Here's the repaired link. The campaign theme is indeed very similar to BallyHoo's concepts, but I've got to say I like BallyHoo's silhouette images even more. How did you happen to find that?
6:16-
Which is precisely what this project was about. We've got some good work by the J-College, but we're going to need some cash to implement. I wasn't suggesting that our current recruitment page was cool (although the actual content is good.) I'd love to have an updated recruitment site with some video interview clips, virtual ride-alongs, cool graphics. Some of the J-School concepts for the website are quite nice--I'll try to post a few screenshots later.
Chief,
Located the UK add on google, everyone's favorite search engine.
Now, I need to figure out my tragic blunder in the html code....
The PD in Sheridan, Wyoming has a pretty minimal web presence, but once an Officer has their LPD pension secured and is looking for greatly-improved hunting and fishing activities, it could be worth considering. There are a few short videos at that link with current Sheridan PD Officers.
How about:
Join LPD to make a difference,
Stay for the pay and benefits.
Couldn't we have at least loaned them a hat with the accurate badge???
The hat isn't off that much 11:33. It's just as ugly as ours is.
All the recruiting poster would have to say is this single quote by Albert Einstein,
The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
Albert Einstein
To "do something about about it" visit our website at......
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I am an advertising genius! Maybe I'll stop working nights and go into advertising....
TO;
I am an advertising genius! Maybe I'll stop working nights and go into advertising....
I think you should just keep to cleaning the toilets.
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