The Basics

Last Thursday I sat in on a class taught by Mike Dickerson at George Mason University. Along with a few other working professionals, I was a guest judge for his students’ advertising campaign presentations. Over the course of the semester, his students came up with a product and a campaign that they then pitched to their classmates and us. It was great to see the amount of thought the students put into the details of each campaign, and it also reminded me that sometimes we need to get back to the basics.

Even though advertising and PR are different, there is one thing that is key in both sectors – target market. Who are you trying to reach? What effect do you hope to have? How exactly are you getting your message out there? Answering these three questions with background knowledge and creativity will most certainly point any campaign in the right direction.

- Ali Smith