Summary of Activities and Findings

by Campaigns Class Students
Fall, 2007; Professor: Frauke Hachtmann

As part of the academic tradition at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, students of one section of the Advertising Campaigns course took up Strategic Discussions for Nebraska as its client. The class divided into two teams, and both teams devoted the entire semester of coursework to developing a campaigns plan on how to promote SDN to opinion leaders in selected areas and to understand immigration in Nebraska in general.

They presented their findings on December 10, 2007 to an audience of students, CoJMC faculty and staff, as well as to Steve Hill from the University of Nebraska Foundation and to the UNL Logo and Design Compliance Specialist.

A brief summary of their work, including the various techniques and methods used, are presented below.

The Process
The two groups conducted preliminary research that enabled them to launch their campaigns plan. The techniques employed included:

1. Situation analysis- identifying other organizations working on the issue of immigration in Nebraska and analyzing their primary goals with SDN objectives
2. Documentary and online research
3. Interviews with key opinion leaders in the selected communities
4. Use of Survey Monkey (surveymonkey.com) to conduct a preliminary survey to a random sample of Nebraska residents on the issue of immigration
5. Presentation of their campaigns plan

Findings
There are a number of non-profit organizations with varied objectives that work on the issue of immigration and other public policy concerns. However, the groups have identified that the SDN is unique in its objective of promoting dialogue among Nebraskans to bring about wider public policy impact.

The groups also pointed out the limited number of documents and other research on the topic of immigration in Nebraska. Thus, it became necessary to conduct some interviews and administer a preliminary survey to get a general understanding of the issue.

Interviews conducted by the two groups with public officials, media professionals, religious, business and other opinion leaders.

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