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EVENT MARKETING FALL 2016
“GET BRANDED”
November 30, 2016
Table of Contents
Overview of Event pg.3
Departments and Names pg.3
Logistics pg.3
Event Experience pg.4
Our Brand Promise & Goal pg.4
LinkedIn Partnership pg.5
Event Experience Associated Costs pg.5
Schedule of Event pg.6
Locations with room layouts pg.6
Technology pg.9
Activity Punch Card pg.9
Staffing pg.10
Inside Signage pg.10
Detailed Event Descriptions pg.11
Event Experience Follow Up/Reflection pg.16
Financing pg.17
Budget, Spending, Associated Costs pg.17
Prizes pg.17
Refreshments pg.17
Promotions pg.17
Social Media pg.17
Post Social Media Boosting pg.18
Free Advertising pg.19
Library Window Painting pg.21
Appendix A-Guest Speaker Schedule pg.22
Appendix B-Guest Speaker Contact Information pg.22
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Appendix C-Calendar To-Do List pg.24
Appendix D- Supply List pg.25
Appendix E-Detailed To-Do pg.27
Appendix F- Classroom Announcement Schedule pg.29
Appendix G- Comprehensive Contact List pg.29
Appendix H- Coke Grant Application pg.30
Appendix I- Individual Narrative Reflection pg.35
Appendix J- Calling Artist Advertisement pg.44
Appendix K-Get Branded Event Flyer pg.45
Appendix L- Window Design pg.46
Appendix M- Get Branded Logo Design pg.47
Appendix N- Staffing Schedules pg.48
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Overview:
1. Project Background and Description
Name of Event: Get Branded
Date of Event: November 30, 2016
Purpose: Get Branded is an interdisciplinary networking event targeted at students who are
preparing to enter the professional world. With this event, we intend on all students who attend
regardless of major, to leave with a sense of comfort that they will have the tools to allow them
to succeed. We will be offering the following support tools:
• Resume Building
• Interview Prep
• Guest Speakers
• Head Shots
• LinkedIn Support
Partnering with LinkedIn, we have set a goal to hit 2,000 users logged into their professional
network.
Below you will find detailed directions regarding each department’s names, completed tasks and
information for each event within Get Branded.
2. Departments
Event Experience Logistics Financing Promotion
Heather Fillion
Emily Crawford
Megan Moores
Sam Tracy
Amara Decker
Dan Deluca
Courtney Farnham
Marissa Milano
Miranda Mountain
Danielle Moustafa
Stephen McCluskey
Kira Huseman
Andrew Bluestein
Vivian Kattel
Morgan Scott
Sam Paquin
Jenny Peet
Brittany Rivard
Sarah Royle
Harrison Shaw
Andy Boule
3. Logistics
The rooms that are reserved and times are:
• Hage Room from 9AM-4PM
• Room 119 from 9AM-4PM
• Room 123 from 9AM-4PM
• Room 109 from 1PM-4PM
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(Please find below details on each room in the Event Experience section)
The Bradford room in Center Lodge is occupied on the day and the Fire Place Lounge cannot be
reserved during the week.
Important Reminder Dates:
December 1st (Thursday) is our confirmed snow date.
Our due date for the room lay out is for October 28th (Friday). By this time, we need to have the
plan to Sara Grady.
Tasks to be completed:
* Still working on getting sample layouts from her. Sara Grady will also be getting us the
information for the 50/50 raffle paper work that we need to fill out for the kindles that we will be
giving away, these papers will be given to Michelle in the Student Activities Office in the HUB.
She also got us the forms to do the bake sale.
* Logistics will be developing a signup sheet for staffing for the event, creating a Duty list per
event, for designated time. After developing this list, we will then calculate how many volunteers
are needed to help support the event. (Note: event experience) Logistics will also coordinate the
clean up after the event is over.
4. Event Experience
Our Brand Promise & Goal
When first designing our event, Get Branded, we created a brand promise that depicts what we
guarantee attendees will walk away with. By taking advantage of the guest speakers, LinkedIn
support, resume help, headshots, and interview practice, the people who attend our event will:
• Be more prepared for the professional workplace
• Be more effective at professional networking
• Understand the value of LinkedIn and how to effectively use it
• Have a professional LinkedIn presence and gain more connections
• Hear from recent Plymouth State Alumni about what it's like to enter your professional
career
The event will take place on Wednesday, November 30th from 10-3. By the end of the event, our
goal is to have approximately 2,000 people logged in to LinkedIn. This goal will be achieved by
a range of LinkedIn users; from those completely new to the platform to those who are making
simple improvements to their profile. There is something for everyone at Get Branded.
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LinkedIn Partnership
In preparing for our event, we considered a partnership with LinkedIn. In order to
accomplish this partnership, we need to reach out to the company and identify individuals within
the organization that would be key in generating this partnership. One way we can help create
this co-sponsorship would be utilizing Plymouth State University's own Professor Robert
Nadeau. Through his network and vast knowledge of LinkedIn, we could leverage his connection
to the subject matter to help build a relationship within the organization. If we succeed in
creating a partnership with LinkedIn and they agree to help sponsor our event, we would have
access to many more resources. We may be able to have someone from their staff on site during
the event. We could have "know how" or "how to" tutorial videos to help reinforce the things our
staff members would be teaching students they sit down with. We could have someone from
their organization speak about how to leverage LinkedIn connections and how to build a
professional profile and network. We may even be able to incorporate LinkedIn into our
promotions and advertising. It may help draw more students to the event if the partnership
creates a stronger appeal. We could have shirts for staff members that make the helpers easily
identifiable. These staff shirts could have the connection to LinkedIn on them and their logo.
Some members of the LinkedIn organization that we could reach out to would be Chief
Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President, Communications, Shannon Stubo or Pat Waders,
Senior Vice President, Global Talent Organization.
*12/8/16- Unfortunately, after multiple attempts with Professor Nadeau’s help we were unable
to gain a partnership with LinkedIn. Through networking and LinkedIn emails sent out, there
was no response. However, Nadeau is certain we will one day have a partnership with him.
Utilizing his skills are always beneficial. –Margaret
Event Experience Associated Costs
Our associated costs are determined by the prizes that we purchase for Get Branded. Those
prizes include:
• Four Kindle Fires
• *Two $10 Cafe Monte Alto Gift Card
• *Two $15 Biederman's Gift Card
• One $30 PSU Bookstore Gift Card
We did not provide speakers and volunteers with lunch. We gave each volunteer 2 raffle tickets
to submit in the drawings. The detailed to do calendar for Event Experience can be seen in
Appendix C. The supply list can be found in Appendix D, and the in depth to do list for pre-
event, day of, clean-up, and post-event is located in Appendix E.
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Schedule of Events
Locations
Event: Get Branded
Located: Plymouth State University
Hartman Union Building
Booked Rooms:
• Hage Room
• Room 109
• Room 119
• Room 123
Contact Person for Booking: Sara Grady Assistant Coordinator of Student Activities
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Hage Room
Room Capacity:
Booked from 9am to 4pm
This room will be used for our guest speakers, as well as for
refreshments, snacks, and potentially our raffle table. We
chose this room for guest speakers because of the great
layout, projector equipment, and podium. This room is also
the largest that we will be using for our event, and will be
great for networking with alumni after speaking with each
group throughout the day. When entering the room, there will
be rows of chairs set up for people that will attend and listen
to our speakers. To the right, there will be a few tables for
refreshments and snacks that will be offered to attendees
throughout the day. Along the left side of the wall, there will
be a table for our raffle and activity punch cards. If we can get
permission from the Event Coordinator, we are hoping to
actually set up the raffle table in the hall. This will help to
avoid disruptions while the guest speakers are talking.
Room 123
Room Capacity:
Booked from 9am to 4pm
This room will be used for attendees that would like to get a
professional headshot taken. The tables will be pushed up
against the walls, with a few left out for photography
equipment and computers. The final layout of this room will
depend on how the photographer needs the room set up to take
the pictures. We will be bringing in the photographer to get a
feel for the layout of the room prior to our event. Below you
will find the blueprint layout of room 123 for our event.
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Room 119
Room Capacity:
Booked from 9am to 4pm
This room will used for the LinkedIn workshop portion of our
event. When entering the room, you will see four cluster
tables with eight chairs surrounding each cluster. There are
two additional tables along the back wall with three chairs.
The two tables in the back will provide a more one on one
experience. The projector will be set up in the front of the
room to display walk through tutorials on LinkedIn and other
information that may be useful when setting up a LinkedIn. In
the back of the room, there will be two tables for some
refreshments and helpful handouts that attendees can take
with them. Refreshments may include; water, coffee, muffins,
candy, etc.
Room 109
Room Capacity:
Booked from 1pm to 4pm (Time Sensitive Room)
This room will be used for resume building and
interview practice. When entering the room, you will see
individual tables set up throughout the room. There are
tables with three chairs, and there are some tables that have
two chairs. This will give attendees a choice on how large
of a group or how small of a group that they would like to
work with. The tables with two chairs is great for those that
prefer to work one on one. The projector is in the front of
the room if we choose to display any helpful information
that may be relevant to resume building and interviewing.
There will also be a table along the right side of the wall
for refreshments that we will be offering. Refreshments
may include; water, coffee, muffins, candy, etc. Below you
will find the blueprint layout for room 109 for our event.
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Technology
At the beginning of the event planning process we created a master list of technology
needed for the event. Which listed what technology we needed in each room on the day of the
event. We estimated that we would need 35 laptops, 15 power strips and 15 extension cords. We
were able to get 9 laptops, 5 extension cords and 5 power strips from the Classroom Technology
Department, who delivered and set up all the computers before the event and then came and
picked all the computers up after the event ended. Then we were able to get another 9 from
students in the event marketing class who didn't need their computers for the day. We set up a
drop off and pick up time for everyone, which overall worked well. Terri was able to provide us
with lots of extra power strips and extension cords that we didn't end up using. The number of
laptops we originally estimated was much more that we actually needed. The day of the event we
had a total of 18 laptops, 5 extension cords and 5 power strips which worked very well with the
number of attendees and with the room layouts.
Hage Room (Speakers):
• 1 laptop
Room 119 (Linked-in):
• 14 laptops for linked-in support
• 1 laptop for slideshow on the projector
• 5 extension cords
• 5 power strips
Room 123 (Headshots):
• 2 laptops
Activity Punch Card-Potential Raffle Idea
For our event we are going to have an activity
punch card. These cards will be handed out when people
arrive to our event. Punch cards will be located in each of
the rooms to make it convenient for those attending.
There will be five "mini" events within our large event
and each of those five activities are on the punch card.
When attendees complete a "mini" event they will get that
part of their card punched. After completing all five
events they will be able to enter our raffle and have the
opportunity to win a prize. (However, Megan and Maggie
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have discussed the potential of changing it from 3 events instead of 5 to be entered into the raffle
for an increase on “chances”)
Post Event: Raffle System Used
We did not end up using a punch card approach. Instead, each room had a different color
raffle ticket. Blue was LinkedIn, Yellow was Professional Headshots, Pink and Red Were
Resume Building and Interview Practice, and White was Guest Speakers. Students were given a
ticket after being engaged with the various mini events. They could then drop this raffle ticket
into the bin of their choice corresponding with the various prizes. The raffle table was set up in
the back of the Hage Room. This was one of the things the early crew set up. A group of
members of our class arrived at 7 am to begin the set up process. More members showed up at 8
to assist. Official set up began at 9, but at this point the event was almost all ready.
Staffing
It is important to note that we will need volunteers and staff members outside of just our
class. These students or faculty members will need to be asked or invited as well as followed up
with just prior to the event. It will be our responsibility to supply them with any necessary
materials or technology that may be required. As staff members, it is important that we are
readily available to assist students, direct and attract potential attendees, and lead and manage the
event. We could look into having uniform shirts that make us easily identifiable. We will need to
make the safety of our attendees and staff our main priority. We want to deliver a successful and
safe event that exceeds expectations. It is also important to realize that our event runs through
typical lunch hours. We need to consider providing lunch for those volunteering, helping,
speaking, or supporting the event in any other way. We need to make sure every station is well
maintained, staffed, and sufficiently equipped. Logistics tackled the difficult task of staffing the
event. (See Appendix N for Staffing Schedules)
Inside Signage
Heather, Sam T., Megan, Emily, and Brittany went to Terri's before the event to create
signs for the various rooms at the event. This was day 1 of 2 at Terri's. Day 1 consisted of
painting signs. Day 2 was used for more painting of signs, creating a raffle sign, creating arrows
for around the HUB, decorating the raffle bins, and drilling holes in the signs.
We have thought carefully about the signage for our event corresponding to the brand
image we aimed to create. The colors of all the signs and decorations incorporate orange, blue,
and white which are the colors of our logo. (See Appendix M for Logo) In addition to these
colors, an outdoorsy and artsy touch is also assembled into the décor using wooden signs and
birch trees.
Post Event: Outside each room was a birch tree with the corresponding sign for that room. Each
tree had three balloons located directly above the sign. The tree was secured to a tree stand using
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zip ties to hold it all together. When entering the hub from the main entrance downstairs,
students saw a giant tree with many branches decorated with balloons and a sign reading "GET
BRANDED 10-3". Upon entering those doors, the main staircase was decorated with blue,
orange, and white balloons with a gigantic sign made up of every room; its name, location, and
time. At the very top of this sign was another "GET BRANDED" sign. There were also blue and
orange wooden arrows that were zip-tied to the sides of the stair railing pointing towards the
upstairs. At the bottom of the staircase to the left of the Daily Paws were two arrows on either
side. One was blue, and the other orange. These arrows were pointing up the stairs and were also
decorated with three balloons each. Other posters were also displayed in the hub, descriptions of
which can be found in the Promotions section of the proposal.
Event Descriptions within Get Branded
Guest Speakers:
We discussed having seven total guest speakers to represent each of PSU'S newly
designed clusters. The seven clusters include:
• Arts & Technology
• Education, Democracy, & Social Change
• Exploration & Discovery
• Health & Human Enrichment
• Innovation & Entrepreneurship
• Justice & Security
• Tourism, Environment, & Sustainable Development
We felt it was important to target all students on campus, not just the students within the
College of Business Administration. Therefore, our guest speakers will represent the diversity on
campus. We want to cater to the different areas of interests across campus. We want to have
guest speakers that students can relate to by inviting fairly recent graduates. Professor Dautcher
does have access to and relationships with recent grads that are interested in giving back to the
PSU community by visiting campus and speaking at events such as this. We want each speaker
to spend some time talking about their history and their experience and then also allow time for
students within the audience to ask the speakers any questions they may have. We decided the
Hage Room in the HUB will be the best room to hold this aspect of the event because of the
larger capacity and open concept. It has a stage like platform and is often used for guest speakers
on campus. We will need to decide whether members of Logistics or Event Experience will be
responsible for contacting and coordinating guest speakers. We want guest speakers to have 20
minutes’ intervals of speaking followed by an additional 20 minutes for Q & A with students.
We really want this to be an engaging learning experience for the students participating and
attending. The Q & A will allow this to be student-driven and targeted to their questions and
interests. We will have guest speakers throughout the entire event and our hope is that the
speakers will stick around to interact with students and engage in the event without dictating
their every word, we will need to provide speakers with talking points we want them to cover.
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Then they have a starting point and a direction to go in. This will allow us to control the message
and keep messages relevant to our brand promise, mission, and goals. We will need to make sure
required technology in the room is working beforehand such as microphones, speakers,
computers, projectors, and monitors. We will need to make sure the room is prepared ahead of
time with necessary equipment such as outlets, extension cords, tables, and a podium. We need
to also provide water to each speaker as a courtesy. If any speaker has special needs or wants
they will need to be addressed and met on a situational basis. We will need to critique and create
a uniform invitation for all our invited speakers and guests. We will also need to designate
someone to follow up a week and a day in advance. This person will be in frequent contact with
the speakers to keep them updated with any possible changes and this will be the person the
speakers become comfortable and friendly with. This person will be the contact leading up until
the event and the day of. It is important to have someone that the speakers know coming into the
event that they can arrive and be greeted by. It will be important to follow up with the guest
speakers with a thank you and maybe asking for feedback regarding their experience at the event.
Post Event: We had guest speakers representing each of the 7 newly designed clusters on campus
as we had planned. We had 2 speakers for one of the clusters. Please see the comprehensive
schedule of alumni speakers, their graduation year, their job title, and the cluster they represented
in Appendix A. Each speaker approached their presentation in a different way which was more
than fine with our team as it allowed every presentation to be unique. Heather Fillion was in
charge of contacting guest speakers. She met with Rodney Ekstrom, the Director of Alumni
Relations, on November 3rd
in his office. Rodney provided Heather with a list of potential alumni
speakers. He had given her at least 1 name per cluster, some had 2 or 3 options. He also provided
their job titles, their contact information, and which cluster they would best represent. Heather
sent the first round of emails on November 4th
. She picked speakers from the list Rodney had
given her by looking at their current positions. She thought about what jobs sounded most
exciting and interesting and considered what students would enjoy most. By November 10th
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speakers were confirmed for the clusters Art & Technology, Innovation & Entrepreneurship,
Health & Human Enrichment, and Education, Democracy, & Social Change. Heather then
reached out to Rodney for more names on November 11th
. After receiving the names for more
potential speakers, another round of emails was sent on November 14th
. Rodney assisted in
following up with alumni he knew would be great speakers for the event. Some of the
individuals had just simply not had the time to reply, but Rodney's follow up served as a friendly
reminder to many. Heather then heard back from 3 more alumni and only 1 cluster was
remaining. The Justice & Security cluster was the most difficult cluster to fill. Campus Police
Chief, Steve Temperino, was our first choice, but was unavailable for the event. I believe, if
contacted early enough, he would be a great addition to this kind of event. There were many
alumni that were not able to attend so they reached back out to Heather via email. She did have 1
speaker confirmed that then had to back out. She rearranged some names and was able to fill the
gap. Not all alumni responded to emails. Heather also used LinkedIn as a means of
communication and it proved to be a successful approach with some alumni. Every alumnus that
was asked was interested in this event and interested in speaking even if they weren't able to
attend. The original list of potential speakers is provided in Appendix B. Heather worked hard to
provide each speaker with our event's expectations. Some speakers prepared presentations, while
others cared to keep their presentation more informal. Student attendance was lower than
expected. Some speakers had an audience of 6 people while others had an audience of 22 people.
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We had to pull a lot of our classmates that were spread throughout the event to sit in the Hage
Room so the speakers wouldn’t be presenting to an empty room. The Alumni Relations Office
provided each speaker with a small gift. Heather greeted each speaker at the door and then
introduced them to the audience. Every speaker spoke for roughly 20 minutes and then spent the
following 20 minutes answering questions from the student audience. Heather reached out to
Public Safety to verify where speakers should park. Lots 301 and 214 were acceptable. Our class
sent each speaker and Rodney a thank you note following the event. Rodney was instrumental in
the success of this event and stopped by multiple times throughout the day. Heather arranged 5
speakers to be there in-person and the other 3 presented via Skype. She made practice Skype
calls the Monday before the event with those speakers to ensure the connection worked. There
were only minor technical errors during one of the presentations and it was just the quality of the
Skype call. Heather followed up with speakers 3 days before the event to verify parking, arrival
times, where to go, and expectations. The Hage Room was set up beforehand by the HUB staff
with rows of chairs, a computer, a microphone, a podium, and a projector. Some speakers
brought handouts, others showed video clips, and some just had an informal conversation with
the students. The speakers ranged in experience and ages. Every speaker presentation was
different and unique. We gave students white raffle tickets for the drawings after they attended a
guest speaker presentation.
LinkedIn Workshop:
Post Event: The LinkedIn workshop was being held in room 119 (the Senate room). It took place
throughout the event, from 10 to 3. Sam T. was the member from Event Experience who
prepared the material for this room, and Heather provided candy, pens, tablecloths, and created
the networking poster mentioned below.
This workshop was held for one-on-one help with improving and creating LinkedIn
profiles for the attending students. Students were able to sit down with our volunteers and staff
members so they could get a personal experience on how they could improve with LinkedIn.
This workshop mainly focused on attendees improving their LinkedIn profile, and setting it up if
they didn’t already have one. We planned to have an equivalent amount of staff
members/volunteers to the attendees that were in the room; if not a few more. However, not
enough staffing was available.
Regardless of the staffing issue, felt it was important that every attendee had help at all
times so they didn't feel lost or unnoticed. In order to achieve this, LinkedIn staff members
were trained by the staff guideline handout which summarized the PowerPoint presentation given
to our class by Professor Nadeau earlier this semester. In addition to this were student handouts
in the form of a checklist for profile improvement. The creation of these handouts were inspired
by Pinterest as well as some other online researching. If a staff member was not available for
immediate help, the checklists allowed students to work on their profile independently until
someone could get to them. There were approximately 8 laptops provided by Classroom
Technology (PSU IT Department) for LinkedIn use, 4 were provided by students in our class,
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and attendees were encouraged to bring their own. The projector showed a looping PowerPoint
presentation of Top 5 Tips for LinkedIn Success with background music playing to keep the
room feeling inviting.
On each table were pens, paper and bowls of candy for attendees to take as they pleased.
Refreshments were also being provided on the table directly in front of the first entrance.
Additionally, there were be a poster for attendees to provide their name so that they could
connect with other attendees as well as members of our class on LinkedIn. After completing this
workshop and following PSU on LinkedIn, attendees were given a blue raffle ticket which they
could enter in to any of the four raffle bins in the Hage Room.
Resume Building:
This event is all about how to make yourself professional, unique and perfect for your future
employer. A huge aspect of that is being able to present an employer with a great resume that
shows them why you are perfect for that job position. We want to give students the opportunity
to not only work on their resume, but also get advice and help in all the areas that their resume
may be lacking or where it could become even better. We will contact the Center for Student
Success (Erik Pavesic) to help us find faculty that is familiar with resume building skills from
different departments, who would be willing to sit down one on one with students or in small
groups to help them improve their resume. Our goal is to have a total of 6 people giving resume
help. This event will take place in 109 from 1pm- 3pm along with interview practice. We will
need to contact the IT department to get 3-4 laptops, chargers and extension cords so that
students with their resumes online can access them and edit. Also we will need utensils like pens,
paper, highlighters, sticky notes for marking and making notes on resumes. We will also need to
provide example resumes with different major background and layouts to help students visualize
what a professional resume looks like. The volunteers will be contacted in advance and then we
will follow up as the event gets closer to verify that they will still be attending and to go over
their expectations and go over details like parking, food, etc.
Interview Practice:
Interview practice is very important when preparing for your professional future.
Students tend to get nervous or just avoid the interview practice all together so our goal is to give
students an environment that makes them comfortable about practicing. We will offer one on one
interviews as well as group interviews to help students feel more comfortable about the
practicing.
Similarly, to resume building we will contact the Center for Student Success (Erik
Pavesic) to help us find faculty that is familiar with interviewing skills, who would be willing to
sit down one on one with students or in small groups to simulate an interview. Our goal is to
have a total of 5 people doing mock interviews with students. The volunteers will be contacted in
advance and then we will follow up as the event gets closer to verify that they will still be
attending and to go over their expectations and details like parking, food, etc. This will take
place in room 109 side by side with resume help, from 1pm-3pm. We will need paper, pens,
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highlighters and sticky notes for our interviewers to take notes. We will also need to provide the
volunteer interviewers with some questions they can ask. And we will also need a printout for
students being interviewed with some questions they could ask and some tips for a future
reference as well.
Post Event: Interview practice was held with Terri. Erik Pavesic and Jess Morel from Career
services were utilized in Resume Building within the same room. Due to Erik’s involvement in
Get Branded, he asked to set a table up to help promote the Mentor Program at PSU and we
agreed it would be beneficial to have at the event.
Headshots:
The headshots will be held in room 123 throughout the event, from 10 to 3.
Photographers from the Art Department will be contacted (go through Jon Anderson or
Scott Bulgar). We need to tell the photographer/student that this will be a great opportunity for
them as well to build their resume and their headshots so they are excited and will be committed
to our event. We should try to get at least two photographers, so we can make sure the process
runs smoothly and that there isn’t a line or crowd created. It would also be nice to have two of
our staff members or volunteers at the most present in the room so they can make sure all
attendees get their headshots done and that they can then be directed to the next event. It could
be a possibility to provide some ties or nice dress shirts just in case an attendee shows up without
knowing that there would be headshots being taken. (Jenny emailed professors on October 7,
2016) The photographer(s) will bring their own equipment (cameras, lighting materials, etc) We
can provide a backdrop and possibly use the brick wall in the room as an alternate background.
There are tables already in the room, so to make more space we can push them aside and use one
or two for the photographer and his or her equipment. It would be good for us to provide a laptop
as well for the photographer, so the students can view their photo after it is taken. The laptops
can be borrowed from IT in the Lamson Library.
Post Event: With failed attempts to the Art Department, Sam and Megan stepped forward and
offered to be the photographers for the day. When the students arrived for their headshots, they
wrote down their first and last name, as well as their PSU or personal email and phone number
on a half sheet of blank paper. Their first shot was of that student holding up the information so
that we knew who is who when sending out the pictures after the event. When emailing the
pictures to students after the event, the message read as follows:
Hi ______,
Thank you so much for coming to the Headshots event at Get Branded. Attached are your
pictures from the event!
Thanks,
Megan & Sam
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Reflection & Follow-Up
It is important to reflect upon how successful our event turned out. We can determine this
by things like considering the attendance and measuring the amount of LinkedIn profiles created
and/or improved upon. While not everyone will need to start from scratch, it will be imperative
that we measure the overall presence on LinkedIn. One way to reflect on this would be to have
people join Plymouth State University's LinkedIn page and count the number of people joined
during the time of our event. In any case, we will need to gain some sort of insight as to how
successful we were! (A narrative reflection for each individual can be found in Appendix I)
Another important thing to do post-event is to reach out and thank all parties involved in
our event. Nearly all of the participants will be joining us for no monetary compensation and our
event truly could not go on without them. This list will be pretty giant, and therefore the most
efficient way to go about this is to create a broad outline of a thank you that will be general
enough to fit all parties. Once this is constructed, we can personalize the appropriate parts such
as who it is addressed to and thanking them for their specific role in the event.
A draft outline for this thank you could be as follows:
Dear __________,
On behalf of the Event Marketing class at PSU, we would like to thank you for taking part in our
even Get Branded. (Insert specific role here).
We know your time is valuable and are grateful that you shared some of it with us. We look
forward to any opportunity we have to work with you in the future.
Thank you again!
Sincerely,
Get Branded 's Event Marketing Team
In Appendix G is a comprehensive list of known participants and contacts involved with Get
Branded.
Post Event: We hand wrote these thank you cards on December 2nd
, the Friday right after the
event.
17. 17
5. Financing
Budget, Spending, & Associated Costs
With the bake sale we were able to raise $341.29. Our initial goal was $500 so we didn't quite
meet our goal but we still raised a fair amount.
We plan on using the money to pay for prizes, refreshments, and advertisements.
Prizes
For the raffle we had four different raffle boxes. Students could decide what they wanted to win
and throw the ticket in that box accordingly. We had four Amazon Kindle Fire, two $10 gift
cards from Monte Alto, two $15 gifts cards from Biederman's and one $30 gift card from the
PSU bookstore. Members of the class went to Terri's house before the event to decorate the raffle
bins and create a raffle sign. These members were Heather, Megan, and Sam T.. Heather
provided the raffle bins. We drew names of winners following the event and contacted them via
phone call and text. Some winners picked up their prizes then. Other winners made special
arrangements for coordinating a pick up time and location.
Refreshments and snacks:
We received the Coke grant and received $400 worth of products (Coke, Coke light, Sprite and
Water). In addition to that we provided all sorts of different snacks (Chips, cookies, chocolate
bars). Maggie went and bought products from BJ's for $98.21. The leftover drinks and snacks
were donated to the Pemi Youth Center on Main street. Terri and Brett brought the leftovers
down following the event. (See Appendix H for the Coke Grant Application)
6. Promotion
1. Social Media
A. Facebook
September 13th
, 2016- Get Branded Event Page was created
• 310 students invited to the event page
• 59 students interested 54 students attended
• Page likes: 45
• Goal: Reach 2,000 Facebook friends
• First Facebook posting occurred on October 27th
• Starting on October 27th
, one month prior to event, one social media post
was made every week
• Starting on November 13th
, two and a half weeks prior to the event posts
were made 2-3 days of the week
• Starting on November 20th
, one and a half weeks prior to the event, posts
were made every day (except for Thanksgiving)
• A week before thanksgiving break we posted about the event once a day
until the event happened.
18. 18
• Day of event posts were made with pictures of the event itself and of the
event schedule
• Guest Speakers, Dress for Success, LinkedIn Workshop, Resume
& Interview Preparation
Post Event: Looking into our Facebook insights we got a total event reach of 4,837 with 424
responses from the date of creation of the Facebook page until the day of the event
B. Instagram
September 28th
, 2016- Get Branded first Instagram post
• 30 posts, 215 followers, 1,559 following
• Create hashtag to boost brand awareness
#getbranded #whatsyourbrand
• Use to advertise individual events & prizes
• Make "spotlight" posts featuring Alumni. Alumni spotlight posts were
made November 20th
through November 27th
.
C. Snapchat
September 28th
, 2016- Get Branded snaps a 24-hour post of the LOGO
• Helpful for week and day of event
• Post story updates the day of, or day before, the event of each workshop to
ensure traffic
• Story updates were made on day of event of the
• Snap stories of Event Marketing staff hard at work
• Snap stories were posted during the Library window painting on
November 18th
of promotions staff working
• Create a Geofilter that our target audience can use to add to their personal
Snapchat accounts and a mile radius of unaware students can be exposed
to the event
Post Event: We created a Snapchat Geofilter contest for Plymouth State students. The
promotional flyer for the contest was created (appendix and sent out on Facebook and Instagram
November 4, 2016. We gave students about two weeks to create their designs and send them in
on November 20, 2016. We did not receive any designs, therefore a Snapchat Geofilter was not
used the day of the event.
POST SOCIAL MEDIA BOOSTING
1. Individual posts can be boosted to reach more people, along with more posts the
better. Always continue to talk about event
2. Set target audience, interests, radius, etc. In order to ensure that we'll reach the most
amount of people
Pre Event: Terri Dautcher used $15 of our event budget to boost social media posts on Facebook
the week of the event.
19. 19
2. Free Advertising
A. Word-of-Mouth
• Talk about event to friends
• Speak in front of classrooms
• Share event with professors
B. In- Class visits
(see Appendix F)
• Coordinate with each team to help spread the word in General
Education and Major classes
• Develop list of professors from each department to talk to
• Contact professors in advance (around 2-3 weeks) to ask for
permission to speak during their classes
• Develop "elevator" speech to read to each class to promote event
• Go out in teams of two to the classes and promote on the scheduled
days we set up with professors
• Create and bring small flyers to give out to classes we speak to put
our social media pages and prizes on the flyers as well.
Post Event: The promotions team did not go out in teams of two and contact professors asking
permission to speak in their classes. We found it more effective to have everyone in our class
speak in at least two of their other classes. An excel sheet was created to log and keep track of
who spoke in their classes (See appendix F). Ten people from eight different majors spoke to
their classes, reaching 417 students.
C. PSU Clubs as
• Create list of on campus clubs and organizations we could talk to
(Pace, MAPS, Greek Life, etc.)
• Promote our event to the clubs. Physically go to one of their
meetings to promote, or promote via email, to the club leaders
letting them spread the message
D. Logos, Flyers and Posters
• Logo for event was sketched and digitally made November 3rd
(Appendix N)
• Find out if we need permission to put our posters and flyers up in
various buildings
• Include date, time, workshops, prizes, food, social media pages
• Place large posters in the hub and more in different department
buildings on campus
• Banner with logo and event information was painted on
November 4, 2016 and was hung in the hub fire place
lounge on November 2, 2016
20. 20
• The flyer for the event was created November 8th
(see Appendix
K) They were displayed on projector screen in the Dining Hall the day
of the event and on TV screens in Hyde Hall. They were
also displayed on TV screens in the Ice Arena during hockey games.
• Flyers were posted on campus starting November 14th
in Mary
Lyon, Pemi, Langdon, Smith, Grafton, Silber Center, Rounds, Boyd,
Samuel Reed Hall, Memorial, Lamson Library, Hyde, D&M, The Hub
and Dining Hall
E. POTENTIAL VIRAL VIDEO
• Have people talk about desires/potential fears after graduation
• Have students talk about how LinkedIn in has helped them
• Importance of networking in ALL departments
• Have fun aspect involved
• "HARLEM SHAKE"
• Post Event: The vision of the video changed after doing
some filming. The video showed Pemi talking to college
students about event. Pemi went to the hub to look up
Facebook page and met some friends along the way. The
video was posted onto the Get Branded Facebook page
November, 28th and reached 980 people.
• Link to Facebook Video:
https://www.facebook.com/GetBrandedPSU/videos/113280
4133502967/?pnref=story
F. Press Kit
• Contact Clock
• Write a press release
• Capture photos
Post-Event: a press release was not completed for the Clock, Alumni Guest Speaker Names and
times were not given in time to complete the press release.
3. Expenses for Promotions
A. Prizes
• Kindle Fire
• Gift cards
• PSU gear (can we have the school or bookstore donate?)
• LinkedIn merch
• Post Event: We could not connect with LinkedIn before the
event, therefore we could not give out LinkedIn
merchandise. The three kindle fire tablets, PSU Bookstore
gift card and the Biederman’s and Café Monte Alto gift
cards were given to the winners starting November 30th
21. 21
4. Library window painting
November 18th, 2016
11/ 7 Met with Elaine Allard, Interim Dean for Library, for window display
approval (Lamson 216)
11/10 - 14th
meetings to discussing minor details
Design
Date of application
Clean up
11/18 Promotions Team organized a concept and displayed it across that windows
of the library.
• Concept involved the "Get Branded Logo", time, and date of the event
• Materials used were paints, brushes, and other materials to maintain a
clean environment (Student provided)
• (See Appendix L for Window Designs)
Post Event: Scheduled cleanup was for 11/30 - 12/1. There was not a predetermined group of
students to clean the displays. A logged list of students and time should have been scheduled for
clean up immediately after the event.
22. 22
Appendix A
Guest Speaker Schedule
Time Name Year
Graduated
Job/Title Cluster Represented Method
9:00-10:20 PREP/SET-
UP
PREP/SET-
UP
PREP/SET-UP PREP/SET-UP PREP/SET-
UP
10:20-
11:00
Gi (Jeanette)
Indoccio
1983 Psychotherapist/Licensed Clinical
Mental Health Counselor, Board
Certified Life Coach,
Mindfulness Teacher, and
Hypnotherapist
Health & Human
Enrichment
In-Person
11:00-
11:40
Matt Wilhelm 2004 Co-Founder and Executive
Director Old Sol Music Hall
Arts & Technology In-Person
11:40-
12:20
Gene Martin 2009 Executive Director, NH
Democratic Legislative
Campaign Committee
Education, Democracy,
& Social Change
In-Person
12:20-1:00 Dana Strom &
Steve
Lanciani
2012 Scientific Programmers for the
National Weather Service
Exploration &
Discovery
Via Skype
1:00-1:40 Harold Roy 2005 Founder & CEO EPECARE
INC., Mass. General Hospital
Special Police Officer
Tourism, Environment,
& Sustainable
Development
Via Skype
1:40-2:20 Chad
Johansen
2015 President and Owner of NH
iPhone Repair
Innovation &
Entrepreneurship
In-Person
2:20-3:00 Jillian Fifield 2016 Police Officer, Littleton Police
Department
Justice & Security In-Person
Appendix B
Guest Speaker Contact Information
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION. DO NOT SHARE. FOR USE FOR PROF. TERRI DAUTCHER'S EVENT
MARKETING FALL 2016 CLASS ONLY
Arts & Technology
Matt Wilhelm '04, Old Sol Music Hall, Manchester, NH mbwilhelm@gmail.com, (603) 377-6214 40
Bruce Road Manchester, NH 03104
Education, Democracy, & Social Change
Gene Martin '09, NH Democratic Party, Manchester, NH gene.p.martin@gmail.com, (603) 289-6860 895
Belmont Street Manchester, NH 03104
Exploration & Discovery
Dana Strom, National Weather Service, Meteorological Development Lab (Wash DC area)
dana.c.strom@gmail.com, (978) 821-7581 2211 Greenery Lane Apt 204 Silver Springs, MD 20906
23. 23
Steve Lanciani, Scientific Programmer at the National Weather Service (Wash DC area)
stephen.lanciani@gmail.com, (508) 981-5611 43602 Evergold Terrace, Unit 201 Ashburn, VA 20147
Health & Human Enrichment
Gi Indoccio '83, life coach with Graceful Awakenings (Seacoast, NH) gracefulawakenings@gmail.com,
(603) 343-2172 31 Bellamy Woods Dover, NH 03820
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Chad Johansen '15, NH iPhone Repair (603) 325-7814, chad@nhiphonerepair.com 1 Hardy Road
Bedford, NH 03110
Justice & Security
Harold Roy '07, Founder and CEO of EPECARE, an international Haitian-American nonprofit
organization based in Boston, MA that specializes in disaster/emergency readiness and staff development
training for schools and hospitals throughout Haiti. Special Police at Mass General Hospital, Boston.
hroy1111@gmail.com, (617) 606-2881
26 Temple Street Revere, MA 02151
Jillian Fifield 2 Kittredge Lane Littleton NH 03561
Appendix C
Calendar of To-Do’s
November
2016
Get Branded
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1 2 3 4 5
October 28th
Speakers decided
for each of 7
clusters
Create LinkedIn
guideline for
staff and helpers
(x20)
Decide on
LinkedIn
projection
material
Create LinkedIn
handout for
students (x100)
Finalize and
submit room
Invite 7 guest
speakers, send
expectations
Have contacted
tech dept. (IT)
for laptop rentals
(18)
Have projector
materials for
Interview and
Resume
Have handouts
for Interview and
Resume staff
created (x20
each)
Have student
handouts for
24. 24
layouts to Sara
Grady
Master list of
technology
created
Raffle tickets
assigned to
rooms, Heather
has blue
Have raffle
figured out
interview and
resume created
(x100)
Have Terri’s
schedule created
Contact student
photographers
Raffle tickets
here, assigned
colors to each
room
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Have all staff for
day of event
assigned
Have contacted
faculty, staff, and
other student
orgs for help
Headshots
handouts for
student attendees
created (x100)
Email Terri her
day of schedule
Have
photographers
check room,
confirm flow
Have
photographers
confirmed
Have guest
speaker bios
created, print
expectations
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Have speakers
confirmed, email
expectations
Have LinkedIn
tracker created
Have laptop
rentals
confirmed
Have student org
and faculty
member helpers
confirmed
Have raffle
buckets created
Follow up with
guest speakers
Have all
handouts printed
for students and
helpers
Send all staff
members their
finalized
schedule for day
of event
Have raffle
prizes confirmed
and bought
Have room signs
created
25. 25
Table for raffle
and refreshments
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 [Field] [Field] [Field]
Follow up with
guest speakers,
verify arrival
time
Have name tags
created for staff
members
Get Branded 10-
3
Raffle drawing at
3 pm
Contact winners
via text or phone
call
Get
photographers,
guest speakers
lunch
Refreshment
table drinks and
snacks
Set up 9-10
Clean up 3-4
Appendix D
SUPPLY LIST:
• Paper (Heather)
• Name tags, lanyards (Megan & Sam)
• Pens and pencils (Heather)
• Sharpies and highlighters (Heather)
• Laptops (Class) (IT)
• Laptop chargers (Class) (IT)
• Extensions cords (IT)
• Power strips (IT)
• Waters (Maggie
• Raffle tickets Heather and Maggie)
• Room signs (Courtney)
• Handouts for helpers (Sam, Amara, Emily)
• Handouts for students (Sam, Amara, Emily, Megan)
• Raffle buckets (Heather)
• Raffle prizes (Maggie)
• Raffle signs (Heather)
• Staplers (Heather)
• Snacks (Maggie)
• Drinks (Maggie)
• Snack Storage Baskets (Terri, Sam)
• Refreshments & Drinks Signs (Sam)
• Napkins (Heather, Maggie)
• Ice (Steve, Dan)
26. 26
• Ice bins (Megan, Sam and Terri)
• Tarp (Terri)
• Signs (Courtney)
• Trees (Terri's)
• Zip ties (Heather, Terri)
• Tree stands (Terri)
• Balloons (Terri)
• Music (All)
• Candy (Heather)
• Candy bowls (Heather)
• Sticky notes (Heather)
• Staffing sheets (Miranda, Merissa)
• Duct tape (Heather)
• Scotch tape (Heather)
• Scissors (Heather)
• Table cloths (Heather)
• Laptop passwords
• Thank you cards
• Cameras (Heather, Sam)
• Magazine bin for Headshots (Sam)
• Water Dispenser (Sam)
• Stool (Sam)
• Email signup sheet (Heather)
Supply List for Terri:
• Drill
• Black Fabric
• Trees
• Tree stands
• Ice bins
• Extensions cords
• Power strips
• Laptops
• Laptop chargers
• Passwords
• Raffle prizes
• Easels
• Tarps
November 23rd
at Terri's
27. 27
• Raffle signs
• Make lanyards
• Raffle bins
• Raffle table
• Get Branded sign
• Tree branches
• Drill holes
• Fabric for tree stands
• Music playlist
• Logo tracker, shadow box
• Outside of HUB signage
• Arrows
November 11th
at Terri's
• Raffle buckets created and labeled
• Raffle table design/layout
• LinkedIn logo tracker created
• Created individual room signs
Appendix E
Detailed To-Do
Pre-Event to Do List:
• Promotional Social Media posted
• Viral video posted
• Craft Projects for Terri's house:
• Long sign for each room using printed lettering stencils
• Mini sign for each room including location of workshop or mini-event
• Decorate raffle bins with ribbon
• Raffle sign
• Wooden arrows
• Trees cut down
All of the above to be picked up on Monday (November 28th by Courtney and stored in her car until
event)
Day of to Do List:
• First class members arrive at 7am to unload supplies in Terri's truck (see Terri's supply list,
Appendix D)
• All rooms set up for the day (see specific room to-do's below)
28. 28
• All tree stands, trees, and room signs set up outside doors
• Outside display set up
• Arrows set up on stairwells
• Big Get Branded visual zip tied and secured to middle of staircase
• Digital visual in Grille
• Handing out flyers to students in Hub
• Social media posts
Hage Room: Guest Speakers, Raffle, Snacks & Refreshments
• Lay out table cloths on tables
• Retrieve ice from the Grille in two coolers
• Place snacks in corresponding baskets
• Place drinks in corresponding tubs with ice
• Set up tablecloth on raffle table and display sign
• Raffle bins on table as well as typed signs labeling each prize
• Prizes laid out next to bins
Room 123: Headshots
• Connect laptop to projector and set up presentation
• Connect audio to projector
• Place Dress for Success Materials on tables
• Set up cameras (2), monopod, SD cards on table
• Place mini mirrors, combs, hairsprays on table for freshen up station
• Place water and magazines on table near "waiting area" chairs
• Place markers, half sheets of papers and raffle tickets with pens on table
• Post examples of headshots to take on bulletin board for students to refer to
• Set up laptop near projector to send headshots out if there is a lull in the day
Room 109: Resume & Interview
• Set up PowerPoint Presentation
• Place materials on table
Room 119: LinkedIn
• Greet IT crew dropping off computers and supplies
• Hook up computer to projector and set up presentation
• Connect audio to projector and set up Pandora station- Staples Work Station
• Display 10 student handouts at each table and remaining amount on side table directly in front of
first entrance
29. 29
• Supply each table with pens and blank paper to take notes if desired
• Supply each table with bowl of candy
• Place staff handouts on side table (with extra student handouts)
• Display poster for students to add their name for LinkedIn connections
• Place raffle tickets on side table, to be picked up by scheduled staff
Clean Up to Do List:
• Wash off paintings on Lamson Library Window
• Remove all trees and signage from Hub
• Clean up all rooms
Post-Event to Do List:
• Bring extra snack and drinks to Pemi Youth Center
• Distribute prizes
• Write and send out thank you cards
• Organize and send out headshots within 3 days
Appendix F
Classroom Announcements
Appendix G
Comprehensive Contact List
• Sara Noyes -Room Reservations
• Karen Weldon - room layouts and room tours
• Gi (Jeanette) Indoccio
• Ginny Perkins- Coke Grant/Union Grille
• Erik Pavesic- Career Services
• Matt Wilhelm
• Gene Martin
30. 30
• Dana Strom & Steve Lanciani
• Harold Roy
• Chad Johansen
• Jillian Fifield
• Professor Bob Nadeau –LinkedIn training
• Professor Roy Stever
• Jess Morel
• Scott Coykendall
• Rodney Ekstrom
• Vivianne Schill (volunteer)
• Sara Ascanio (volunteer)
• Hailey Ingalls (volunteer)
• Fatima Brees (volunteer)
• Megan Lang (volunteer)
Appendix H
Coke Grant Application
Contact for Application: Edythe Levin elevin1@plymouth.edu
Contact for Obtaining Product: Ginny Perkins/Joran, grjordan@plymouth.edu
See below, Pages 1-4 of Handed in Application
35. 35
Appendix I
Individual Narratives
During Class on December 5th
, we quickly reflected Get Branded as a whole. However, for
future advice and individual reflection, Terri asked us each to provide a quick reflection. Please
see below for the previously discussed.
Sam Tracy
Event Experience
After being a part of planning and throwing our event, Get Branded, I can truly reflect on
the intense hard work and effort it required. My biggest advice for future students in this class,
no matter what event you throw, is to effectively communicate with the members of other groups
within your class. Communication is key; it creates a synced brand image among classmates and
ensures that everyone knows exactly what they are responsible for. Branching off this concept,
my second piece of advice would be to consistently document. From your day one brainstorm to
the day of the event, every step, plan and intention should be written down. Not only will this
help with the completion of the final plan, but it will again keep the brand image in sync and
responsibilities accounted for. Lastly, contact professors and other campus employees early on
and approach them with the idea of having class at the event, giving extra credit for students who
attend, or even making it a mandatory assignment. And seriously, have fun with it!
Margaret Pelletier
Project Manager
This was certainly one of the largest task I’ve ever taken on. Creating an event from
scratch takes extreme hard work and lots of persistence. My biggest advice for any future student
who decides to take Event Marketing is to have effective communication. With proper
communication, it leads to synchronization between classmates and teams. Making sure that
everyone is on the same page allows for complete organization, timeliness and reduces any
errors that could potentially happen. It’s because of proper communication within our team and
team collaboration that allowed our event to run seamlessly, Secondly, being creative really
needs to come into play. Between planning and marketing, having creativity is what will set you
apart from the multiple other events on campus. Find your niche, and run with it. If you don’t
find creative ways to hit your target market, it can affect the outcome of your event. You need to
have fun and have an open mind for what can occur. Don’t stress yourself out, dedicate a small
amount of time throughout the process for yourself. Lastly, when trying to partner with a
company, having an open mind on to if it'll pull through or not is important. Try and try again,
we were lucky to have Professor Nadeau's persistence and drive.
36. 36
Miranda Mountain
Logistics Team – room reservation/staffing
Future logistics teams it can get stressful when getting ready for a big event! Here are
some helpful tips to making a great event! Logistics should develop a file or binder with
potential room set ups making it easier for everyone to choose what setup they would like. If
this event or other events are in the Hartman Union Building (or any other location) get a preset
list of thing you can and cannot do would be helpful along with existing contracts with outside
vendors to make sure everything for the event is complying with the locations restrictions. For
future staffing sending out emails to organizations is good however potentially going to
organizations meetings (finding locations and times once the Check I Am Here website is
updated) to help get the word out there. Also maybe setting up a table in the hub to advertise not
only our event but to advertise that we are looking for volunteers might be helpful. Something to
consider would also doing an incentive for volunteers. Maybe a one on one meeting with a
LinkedIn Professional for an hour or one on one multi location head shots for the volunteers.
These are just a few things I would suggest for future logistics teams!
Kira Husemann
Financing
Once getting started planning an event you realize how many things need to be done. It is
really important to keep track of everything and create to-do lists writing down every single task
that needs to be done. This way you do not lose the overview. Therefore, the most important is
communication this way every team member knows what to do and is informed on tasks that are
already done! Even though attendance was not as high as expected we could help many students
to learn about LinkedIn or to improve their resume and interview skills. Many people remarked
that they were impressed how professional the rooms were decorated and how the event was
executed in general. I think it is important to do research on target audience and maybe focus on
a rather small group than on a very big one. This way you can meet the audience’s need better
and create an event completely tailored to those needs. Doing a raffle was a good incentive for
students to attend the event.
Sarah Royle
Promotions
The day of the event in my perspective was a big success for my event marketing class.
Although we did not see the numbers we had hoped for the event itself ran smoothly and was
very professional. Form our signage, decoration and the setup of different events I found people
really enjoying the brand and atmosphere we displayed on Wednesday. My biggest advice for
future students and teachers looking to run and event like this one is to market and promote to
one specific target audience. We had the day of the event run perfectly it was just we needed
37. 37
more students to attend. I think targeting maybe just the senior class would be a great idea. I am
really proud of how the promotions group worked together in marketing the event but I think if
we had stated a little earlier it would have helped. This class was an awesome learning
experience and I had a lot of fun!
Courtney Farnham
Event Experience
For those in the future who host an event similar to “Get Branded”, it’s a lot of work and
energy! If you’re involved and committed to making your event great, then the payoff is
immediately worth all your work and energy. My first suggestion for students is to be involved,
it may seem easier to watch from the sidelines, but you won’t get the experience you want out of
such a unique opportunity. Take more notes than you think you need, communicate effectively
within individual groups as well as the whole group. Find a good way to communicate as a
whole and within groups that works for everyone. Everyone needs to stay connected at all times,
which is especially important as the event gets closer and closer. Also be creative and unique
with your plan; think outside the box of traditional ideas. Lastly, look closely at your target
market and who you want at your event, then decide how what kind of experience you’re going
to give them want to come.
Heather Fillion
Event Experience, Guest Speakers
My advice for future students, professors, and coordinators looking to host this kind of
event is to start early. You can save yourself so much time, energy, and frustration by getting a
jump on the planning process early in the semester. This makes the days or weeks leading up to
your event a breeze. Another piece of advice is to know and fully understand your target
audience. We could have done a better job understanding what motivates and stimulates
students. This would have resulted in higher attendance rates and more student engagement.
Lastly, it is imperative to document everything! Every discussion, idea, question, detail should
be written down. This makes it easy to refer to things when needed and also helps during the
planning, implementation, and reflecting processes. Lists need to be made for every step of the
way. Know who’s doing what, and when. We found that making lists were extremely helpful in
keeping us focused and making sure every detail was addressed. Collaboration leads to the most
comprehensive of lists. Most importantly, have fun and be proud of your accomplishment!
Morgan Scott
Promotions
Get Branded was a great growing and learning class experience. I’m proud to have taken
a part of setting up and developing a career-building event. Although hard at times, there’s no
tasks you can’t overcome without the help of your fellow classmates. The event on paper looked
38. 38
flawless, we had media coverage, signage & word of mouth promotion, and even a never before
seen painted window display on the library. However, communication among the event
marketing crew and our target audience fell short. My advice; talk out all possible angles of
marketing. Make sure everyone within the class understand your angle(s) of marketing and are
“on board” with the idea. Without communication and understanding groups will develop
tension and frustration among one another. Also within your own group assign set tasks. What is
their responsibility? How are they achieving the task? When will this job be done (date)? How
are they taking care of it after the event? These are a few questions that should be asked and
divided among your group members to ensure no one person is doing the majority of the work.
Make sure these duties are documented and get completed as said. There is nothing more
challenging than missing tasks and trying to make up for lost time. Stay focused, positive and
organized and you will understand how to throw a successful event.
Amara Decker
Event Experience
I remember talking about a lot of different things that never ended up happening. For
instance; We were planning on having greeters at the bottom of the stairs telling people to go
upstairs and coming to our event, but for the time that I was there nobody was at the bottom of
the stairs doing this job. I was also unaware that there was going to be more than two people
helping with interviews and resumes which of course is great and isn’t a problem at all, it was
just information that I didn’t know about. My group also put together slides to project on the
screen in the resume and interview room but it never was set up, which I’m pretty sure is because
we never assigned someone to do the actual setting up of the projections. But of course
everybody was very professional and very positive at this event which made me have a great
time. My advice would be to assign every little detail to each student no matter how small the
detail is.
Megan Moores
Event Experience
Being a part of this Event, Get Branded, was the most challenging task that I think I have
completed here at Plymouth State University. Planning and throwing an event takes hard work,
communication, and commitment. A major piece of our puzzle that was missing, was the fact
that we hadn’t really developed in depth details pertaining to our event. Every single person that
is part of your team must know exactly what's going on and how to take that information and
deliver upon it. I feel as if we had good communication at times when we felt as if we were
running out of time, however we lacked communication consistently throughout the semester.
There are definitely things that could have been done differently the day of our event, however
overall I believe that it was quite successful. I was the photographer taking the headshots the day
of the event and there was a huge turnout of students that came to get headshots done. If you
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happen to throw an event like Get Branded, I would definitely think about having a headshot
“mini” event. Lastly, some advice that I can give you future (students, coordinators, and
teachers) is to break away from the traditional approach and do something new and innovative
that aligns with the changing trends.
Daniel DeLuca
Event Experience
Being a part of the “Get Branded” event was the first time I have done anything along the
lines of creating and hosting an event. As being a part of event experience, we created the
experience for the student, faculty, and visitors. My advice for future students doing what we did
is that after you have come up with a plan and are ready to execute, push to get commitment
from guest speakers, volunteers, and anyone outside of the class you wish to participate in the
event as soon as possible. I say this because when we had less than a week away from the event,
we had not heard back or had commitments from some of the people that we were trying to
participate in the Get branded event. My second thought of advice is that think of the event as a
whole and not just from your group's perspective. I felt sometime that I had forgotten that we had
other groups with different tasks. A points when we were discussing something or trying to plan,
we realized that we should probably let promotions or finance know so they don't waste their
time doing something we already did.
Stephen McCluskey
Finance
For this project I worked with Kira and Andrew in the finance group. Our main
responsibilities were to manage the finances that were required to host our event. Our biggest
contribution was running the bake sale towards the beginning of the semester. Kira and I
scheduled times for each student in the class to roam the campus selling baked goods to students
and faculty. I think the bake sale ran very smoothly and was a success. After the bake sale, we
were responsible for making sure each group was using our budget properly. As for the overall
event, I think it was successful. The event itself ran smoothly and there were little to no problems
along the way. However, we did not reach our target for the number of people coming to the
event. If I were to do this again I would urge the team to focus more on reaching out to students
of many different majors. Since most people in our class are business majors, the word didn’t
spread through the disciplines as we had wished. Overall we hosted a good event even though we
didn’t hit our target number of participants.
Emily Crawford
Event Experience
“Get Branded” was one of the first big events that I participated in putting on. I honestly
didn’t think it was going to be this much work at first and I realized that I had to be involved all
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the time. Communication is a major factor in doing events like this and you need to make sure
that you are always on the same page with your classmates/team. It’s also a good idea to really
get to know your classmates and feel comfortable working with them because planning this event
required a lot of meet up time and communication through emails/texts. I think a big reason that
“Get Branded” ran smoothly was because by the day of the event, we all had gotten to know
each other already and worked great with each other, which also made it fun for us. A big piece
of advice I would give to future students in Event Marketing is to make sure you’re involved;
don’t be shy and make sure you speak up because every input and opinion matters when
planning these events.
Samantha Paquin
Promotions
Getting our plan together for promotion was a challenge, at first. With the event so far
away and no clear picture of what was happening at the event, we struggled with motivating and
understanding what needed to be done. In Hindsight, we should have used this time to figure out
who our target audience would be, how we would reach this audience, and how we can stand out
and be innovative with our marketing techniques.
Once our plan was together, marketing came easy. I think our social media campaigns
went very well and were creative, and on brand. Looking back, we should have used opinion
leaders more on social media. Social networks were our number one form of marketing and the
most effective, I believe. Our posts received a lot of views, but not a lot of engagement. Using
opinion leaders would have made these posts more effective. Another area we could have
improved is our organization plan. The Promotions team needed to have a more detailed task list;
one that included who was in charge of what and when. For example, we painted windows to
advertise our event, but we failed to designate someone to clean the windows after the event,
resulting in our team scrambling to clean them in the days following. Looking back, the
promotions team was creative, on brand, active, and innovative; but we lacked organization and
solid direction.
Harrison Shaw
Promotions
This fall’s Event Marketing class was a unique experience that was unlike anything I had
expected. Creating our event “Get Branded” was a fun learning experience for a few reasons.
First of all, it was the first course I’ve been a part of where the classroom had almost complete
freedom to do our work. It gave our class as a whole the opportunity to get to know each other
better, and it made communication a lot easier. Going more specifically into promotions, where
we went wrong was trying to be an event that did all things for all people. We should have
focused on a smaller target market, for example the senior class, and heavily promoted to that
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group. During the event I worked the raffle the whole time, but since we didn’t have a lot of
attendance for some of our guest speakers I sat in on a lot of them. For future students I would
recommend getting fewer guest speakers and hyper focusing one major guest speaker, to ensure
there is better attendance. While we didn’t meet our attendance goal, I believe we put on a
successful event. It was a really fun experience and I’m sure the next section of students will
have a great time with it too.
Merissa Milano
Logistics
My responsibilities for this semester was reserving the rooms for our event, and creating
a staffing sheet. Everything went as planned, with the exception of a few minute cancellations
and staffing changes. For the future, I feel as though the logistics team should get a jump start on
these two things a little sooner than we did, so that when these situations come up with room
reservations and staffing falling through we have enough time to save ourselves before we fall. I
feel like we did a great job saving ourselves in the end! Something we could have done and
future students can learn from, is getting a detailed schedule of everyone’s classes at the
beginning of the semester so that we can figure out how many volunteers we need to contact.
Whether that be other students, coaches, athletes, or professors, it would have been beneficial for
us to get on this a little sooner in the semester. Overall, I feel as though we accomplished
everything we were looking to do!
Brittany Rivard
I believe our event, Get Branded, had a successful outcome. Throughout the semester
there were many challenging times for all of the groups. However, all the hard work we put into
this event was clear the day of the event. While we could have had more people attend, we still
had a great turn out. The rooms were always staffed throughout the day and everyone was
constantly checking in with the rest of our “Get Branded” team to make sure things were running
smoothly. The biggest change to our day of event schedule was the Alumni Guest Speakers
room. We had to have our staff fill in for some of the speaker presentations. For future reference,
I would recommend either a shorter list or change the promotion approach of the guest speakers
to mainly professors; such as encouraging them to bring their entire class to the speakers. Overall
I think our entire class produced an event we should all be proud of. There were no big issues
that occurred the day, all of our staff was professional and everyone that came to our event seem
comfortable and willing to participate in all of our workshops.
Andrew Boule
Promotions
This event was much more challenging than I had expected. However, I thought the
promotions group along with everyone else did a great job throughout the entire semester. In
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promotion there are several task that myself along with other took a part in. Some of these task
including started and posting on several social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, and
snapchat. Other promotional task was, productively using that free advertising that was available
on campus. Renting the pemi suit was something that we did several times and it worked many
productive ways for us. One was to create a viral video, and the other was during that day of the
event we had him at the event drawing in potential attendees. On place where i believe that we
could have improved is just the little thing got forgotten along the way. We did not always pay
attention to clos details, an example being not being prepared for the cleanup of the painting
advertisement that was located on the library. Another thing that I thought could have been
promoted better was the guest speakers. A suggestion for the future would be to talk to professor
and see if they will incorporate it into their class as a mandatory event and or extra credit for the
class.
Danielle Moustafa
Logistics
Preparing for an event took a lot more work than anticipated. Our event, Get Branded,
was successful due to all the hardworking, determined, and skillful individuals who worked
diligently to make this event happen. It was often difficult for us to effectively communicate with
one another and my advice to others is to keep on top of it; check emails more than once a day,
and really use your words wisely to communicate in a professional manner. It is advised to keep
yourself organized (planner, separate notebooks, cell phone reminders, etc.), make sure you
know what your task is, and stay on topic!! This was a fun process and it took a lot of effort
across the board to make Get Branded as successful as it was. My duties pertaining to logistics
was to make sure the rooms were reserved, professors were contacted/ informed of the event,
briefly assisting Event Experience help find a Criminal Justice guest speaker and set up for the
event itself.
Jenny Peet
Promotions Group
Responsible for: logo design, library window set up, video filming & editing, word of mouth
promoting
My advice for future students running another “Get Branded” event would be to meet
with your individual groups at least once a week outside of class. This will help to create a more
fluent chain of communication outside of just sending emails. Having face to face meetings
midweek will help to keep responsibilities for the event and overall planning current and at the
front of the mind. My advice to coordinators would be to meet up at least once a month with the
individual groups at their weekly meetings. This will help overall communication as a larger
event team outside of email. These monthly meetings can be an important check in as well
because the coordinators will get a better understanding of where each group is in overall
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planning and execution. My advice for teachers would be to really encourage these outside
meetings and other means of communication outside of email. It might be beneficial as well to
have a more directive teaching right at the beginning to guide the first group communications in
class and then leave it up to the groups after the first couple of weeks once they figure out who
they really need to talk to and when.
