Chapter 16: Advertising, Public Relations, and Sales Promotion
30
challenging and motivating for the students . . . and a lot of work.
America West Airlines, a Phoenix-based regional air carrier, agreed to sponsor the first
campaign and back the winner with a media and production budget of $5,000. For perspective,
this translates to a national rate of $2,000,000. The campaign’s objective was to improve load
factors for inbound and outbound flights servicing Ragstaff. In order to coincide with peak
traveling months, the campaign was scheduled to run during the spring of 1989.
A total of 30 seniors enrolled in the class, which was split into five competing agency teams.
Teams were required to meet with the instructor once per week to review a status report and then
could meet independently at their own discretion.
Early in the semester, America West management conducted a client meeting at the university
and provided detailed marketing, advertising, and competitive information. America West
carefully postured themselves as a demanding client who would not accept below-standard work
from anyone, including students. Student teams were expected to conduct their own research,
develop a creative strategy, formulate media plans, and ultimately recommend creative
executions.
America West pledged to back the campaign with a $5,000 budget if they believed the winning
campaign to be executable and well conceived. Presentations to the client were scheduled in
December 1988 prior to the semester break.
The semester was divided into a series of building block assignments, each designed to move the
student teams through the campaign development process and to culminate with the client
presentations.
The role of the instructor became that of a facilitator and consultant. At regular intervals, team
leaders and the instructor met to discuss progress and issues relating to the campaign.
Presentation rehearsals were scheduled approximately 10 days prior to the client meeting, with
overheads, creative board mockups, and other presentation materials required. Each team was
videotaped, and the videos were viewed later for critique purposes. The client had expected the
student teams to be strongest in creative and weakest in the situation analysis section.
Interestingly, the opposite was true in that students did an excellent job in understanding the
complexities of the market and in defining positioning alternatives for America West. They
developed rather ordinary creative executions.
The winning campaign was chosen largely on the strength of the marketing analysis and overall
thoroughness of the project. The goal of communicating that “California is Closer than Ever”