Overview

[IMPORTANT NOTICE]
The Public Relations Campaigns course will close for new learner enrollment on Monday, September 3, 2018. Students who have already enrolled will continue to see the course on their Coursera Dashboard as long as they remain enrolled in the course.

For students who are interested in earning a Course Certificate for this course, please upgrade or apply for Financial Aid by Sunday, September 2, 2018, if you have not already done so. In order to earn a Course Certificate, students will need to complete all graded assignments, including peer reviews by March 2, 2019. After that point, no new assignment submissions will be accepted for Certificate credit.

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One of the most widely implemented and exciting areas of Public Relations is Public Relations Campaigns. What are PR campaigns and what are the best practices for putting together campaigns? What does the campaign process look like? How to go about putting together a campaign and evaluating it? Drawing from my experiences in researching, carrying out, and teaching campaigns, I will give you an overview of the campaign process.

In this course, you will learn the structure of a PR campaign and the steps involved in putting it together. You will learn about the nuts and bolts of setting up objectives, developing strategy and creating tactics. In doing so, the course will take you through a brief tour of various campaign theories. You will also learn about the key lessons that have been derived from critical analyses and synthesis of the research on campaigns. Finally, you will pick up the key elements of campaign evaluation.

I am looking forward to enjoying this journey with you in learning about PR campaigns.

Syllabus

Introduction to Campaigns
Welcome! In this section, I will be introducing you to Public Relations Campaigns. We will learn what Public Relations campaigns are, what a PR campaign looks like. Taking a historical stock-taking of campaigns, we will go on to grasp a flavor of campaigns from around the world. We will then discuss various categories of PR campaigns, and the features of these campaigns. Finally, we will also learn about the process of developing Public Relations Campaigns.

Theories of Campaigns
Now that we have had an overview of PR campaigns, let's explore some of the main theories of PR campaigns. We will learn about the role of theory as a conceptual map in guiding the development of campaigns. You will see how practical many of these theories are and the ways in which theories shape the selection of messages, source characteristics, appeals, and channels! In this section, I encourage you to keep thinking about the practical relevance of the theories you are picking up and the ways in which you might incorporate these theories when you start putting together campaigns.

Campaign Design, Research, and Implementation
A strong Public Relations Campaign is based on the systematic development of objectives, strategies, and tactics. In this section, we will learn about the key elements of PR Campaign strategy and the role of research in guiding effective strategy. We will study the steps of PR planning and how to create a PR plan based on theoretically informed strategies and tactics. This is the fun part of the campaign process, and it is also the most challenging part as you have to make strategic decisions that are guided by research and are at the same time creative.

Evaluation and Digital and Cultural Trends
Every campaign must have a clear evaluation plan that tells the team and the management whether the campaign worked or not. In this section, we will learn about the various types of evaluation, and the ways in which we might put together these evaluation frameworks. Once we have discussed the evaluation framework, we will shift our attention to the digital and cultural trends in the campaign communication landscape.