Health Communication

COMM 515/393: Health Communication

Health Campaign

Your Assignment: To bring together everything you learned, you will create a health campaign to address a public health issue impacting the Gannon or Erie community.

The Details: You will work in groups to create a health campaign on an issue of your choosing. This should be a full scale campaign that includes extensive research and planning. This is similar in content but more detailed than your creative brief. It will include:

· Goals: What is the overarching goal or purpose of this campaign? You may have 1-3 goals for your campaign. Goals are short statements that describe the overall reason for the campaign.

· Situation analysis: The situation analysis examines the environment in which you are creating your campaign. It will require secondary research. Think about the issue you are addressing, potential problems associated with it, information about the environment in which you are implementing the campaign, etc.

· Research: You will need to conduct some form of primary research and analyze it to determine the best ways to reach your audience. Understand what messages and mediums will work and use those to devise your strategies and tactics. You may also want to assess attitudes and knowledge to help you determine appropriate content.

· Target audience analysis: You need to explain your audience segments and what you know about them. You’ll want at least three narrowly defined audience segments although you may have more. Break these down into primary and secondary audiences. Provide basic demographic and psychographic information as well as reasons for targeting each group.

· Key messages: Based on your research and audience analysis, develop key messages for the campaign. The messages should make sense considering what you know about the issue and the audience. You will need a primary and secondary message for each audience. These messages will help form your strategies and tactics.

· Objectives: You will need to provide SMART objectives for your campaign that detail exactly what you want to achieve. You should have at least 3 objectives for your campaign and may have more depending on the issue.

· Strategies: You will need to provide strategies for each objective. Remember that these are general plans through which you will achieve your objectives and they usually focus on an audience, message, or medium. You will have multiple strategies per objective.

· Action/tactical plan: Your tactics will build upon your strategies and help you to meet your objectives. These should be concise but detailed enough that someone reading the plan knows exactly how to execute the tactic. You will have multiple tactics per strategy.

· Evaluation plan: Based on your campaign plan, explain how you will determine if you met your objectives. You should provide the criteria as well as the tools for evaluating the success or failure of your campaign. You will need at least one evaluation tool for each objective but may have more.

In total, your campaign plan will likely be 25-30 pages. It may be more, depending on your use of charts, graphs, images, or additional appendices. The longest portions of your plan will be your situation analysis, research, and target audience analysis. You’ll likely have at least 4-5 pages for each of these sections. The remaining sections are primarily formatted with bullet points and numbers, similar to the creative brief.

There is no particular format required for this project but it should be professionally organized and designed. Use your skills and resources as best you can to create a professional plan. Plans should also be well written and free of spelling and grammar mistakes.

In addition to writing your plan you will also be required to present your plan in a professional presentation to the class. Any or all of you may be involved in the presentation; that is up to you. The style and structure of your presentation is also at your discretion. The only requirement is that your presentation be at least 30 minutes long. A question and answer session will follow. Think of this as you pitching this campaign plan to a group who will be deciding whether or not the plan is feasible, appropriate, and should be implemented.

What you need to turn in: A typed copy of your campaign. One copy per group. You may also provide any appendices for your project including research or creative materials that you designed for the campaign. These materials are not required but can be provided as supporting material if you choose. You must also turn in an outline, or slides from your presentation.

Grading: You will be graded on how thorough, detailed, and appropriate your plan is. Sections that are missing, lacking detail, or do not include relevant content will result in a deduction of points. Plans that are not well written, properly formatted, or include spelling and grammar mistakes will be marked down. Your presentation will be graded for professionalism, time, and content. Presentations that are not well delivered, do not meet time requirements, or fail to include relevant and appropriate content will receive a deduction in points. The plan is worth 150 points and the presentation is worth 50 points.

This assignment is worth 200 points total and must be submitted by the beginning of class on December 4. Students who submit late assignments will be penalized according to the policy on the course syllabus unless the absence is excused. You should email me or visit my office hours with any questions or concerns about this assignments.

Good Luck!