Relay For Life Classroom Campaign PSA

          For my final project in advertising & imagery, the class was divided into four groups that would serve on an advertising campaign for Relay For Life. These groups are PR, video, audio, and print. I am involved in the print group. My team is responsible for creating eye-catching print advertisements encouraging and urging people to participate in Shepherd University’s annual Relay For Life Walk next year that is held every spring semester. There are three theme ideas that my classmates/ “coworkers” are developing for a cleverly executed finished project on each group topic, the themes are as follows: Pirate, Super Heroes/Comic Book, and “Rockin’ Relay” (a fifties rock and roll vibe). Work that has been produced for the pirate themed relay have been focusing on pirate like objects such as treasure maps leading to a trail for gold, representing the “cure.” The “Rockin’ Relay” 50s theme, which seems to be enormously well liked over the other two themes yields images emulating “blue suede sneakers” on pavement, records, jukeboxes, and slick greased hair. The theme that is my main focus is the Super Heroes/Comic Book. I used drawn images of comic book custom designed super heroes that represented a different type of cancer, and put them on a background that is a picture of a track that is used for running and walking. Each character is giving information about when Relay is happening by way of speech bubbles accompanied by comic book phrases such as “boom!” or “pow!.” I am very pleased with all of my print team’s fine efforts. Our local Relay campaign seems to be including all of the types of advertising that I haven’t seen in the past year that I have been at Shepherd University. For example I have not seen video footage or have heard announcements on the radio. Although, there is always room for improvement.    

            After reading an interesting publication from the Advertising Educational Foundation passage entitled “Public Service Advertising,” by William M. O’Barr, our advertising campaign is not as sophisticated as the information posed, which is understandable because we are amateur students. For example, the Ad Council agency for PSAs includes their messages in multiple languages like Spanish. They also carry a bigger budget than Shepherd. But they both are trying to send out a persuasive message that will make you want to listen or partake in events. Also, the amount of creativity that is put into PSAs are being utilized at the Ad Council and our local University.

                I believe that the strength of our work could be a little stronger, but overall it is beginner level success. If I could change some of the courses of action for this campaign, I think that we should have investigated more information about relay for life itself, and have a little more input from other advertising teams for better communication. Overall, I think that Relay for Life will be a triumphant cakewalk with many people involved, enjoying and appreciating the well thought out creations of its theme created by comm. 406!