Jamberry College Campaign: The Ohio State University PRSSA Summary Report

Getting Started: Preliminary work Our team was comprised of four Ohio State PRSSA members: Janelle Aden, Jayci Steingass, Megan Ferguson, and Skylar Johnson. We were drawn to the Jamberry brand and its products, and excited to represent the collegiate line on our campus. Although our team was small, we are all passionate about public relations and marketing, and we shared a lot of enthusiasm over the opportunity to use our skills and creativity to promote a relatable product.

After determining our strengths in public relations, we assigned ourselves different areas of focus/responsibilities, but agreed not to strictly segregate our work. Janelle served as the primary contact and creative director for the group, Jayci attended to writing and planning, Megan controlled the social media accounts, and Skylar was the head of research.

We began with several brainstorming meetings in which we discussed the task at hand and different ways to approach it. We did some research on the Jamberry brand, making notes of the company's history, audience, and tone, as well as their existing publicity and advertising. We wanted our campaign to echo the existing style and values. Some of the topics included: Contacts and media coverage (Her Campus OSU, The Lantern, Uweekly, Jamberry, presidents and advisors for PRSSA and The PRactice PR firm, Homecoming court, President Drake, and OrderUp Columbus. Our logo was also an integral part of the campaign, as we created it with Photoshop featuring our very own team member, Megan Ferguson (the photo is in the center of the cover page of this summary).

We conducted research in order to get an idea of current perceptions of Jamberry nail wraps by OSU students. We made and distributed a survey, which focused on the tone of the company, perceptions of the Jamberry website, perceptions of current Jamberry advertising spreads, and what was the best method to reach college students.

Jamberry's emphasis on fashion, fun, and convenience were extremely easy to work with. We engaged in some casual monitoring, noting who does their nails, how often, and what types of designs and products are used. We paid particular attention to "game day" nails, and also noted "game day" activities and Jamberry competitors. From there we discussed audiences and established female Ohio State students and adult Ohio State fans as our targets.

We established goals for the campaign–most prominently raising awareness for Jamberry's Ohio State licensed nail wraps–and agreed on the necessary steps to achieve them. Timing was also a topic of conversation, as the campaign end date, our personal schedules, and the need to plan ahead to accomplish our planned tasks gave us a strict deadline to meet. We set a rough timeline and delegated the first steps.

First steps: design and coverage

We distinguished social media and online outlets as the most relevant sources of news for the target audience, and decided to focus our efforts there. Before we could take any large steps, we had to be connected with our local Jamberry representative to answer some questions regarding restrictions and to receive our sample nail wrap kits. After contacting our representative, Monica Miller, we were excited to set our plans into action.

With the necessity to gain coverage for the OSU nail wraps, press releases and a blog post were drafted to send out to selected contacts. We aimed for The Lantern and Uweekly as traditional media routes, and targeted the blogs of HerCampus OSU, PRSSA, the PRactice, Ohio State's student-run PR firm, and a local fashion blogger for College Fashionista named Leanne Robinette to post on the wraps.

Twitter and Instagram accounts were created with the name/handle JamberryOsu; we created a logo to serve as the profile picture and for use on flyers and advertising. We reached out on social media by following related accounts and favoriting and retweeting related posts.

The exciting part: event planning

The most challenging but enjoyable segment of our campaign was planning the event portion. We wanted our efforts to culminate into something that embodied both the Jamberry and Buckeye spirit in order to best reach our audience. We aimed for something fun and centered around the "game day" atmosphere. The central Oval is a large, popular area on the Ohio State campus that is a common route to the football stadium, so we chose it as our event location. We also decided on the OSU/Illinois game day (November 1) for the date. With time and place scheduled we set our sights on planning the details and spreading awareness.

To appeal to our audience we decided that the focus of our event would be a contest in which the prize would be a free set of nail wraps. Participants would be required to send a tweet about why their nails need Jamberry nail wraps and tag @JamberryOsu, and we would judge the most creative tweet. With that in mind we took measures to announce the event; we held a small pre-event on the oval two days prior to the main event. There we handed out flyers that simply publicized the event date and time to passersby. We also spread the word via our social media accounts.

The big event

Our shopping list for our main event included candy, cookies, mini water bottles, and balloons. We decorated our area with silver and red star balloons and a large poster. We also brought along sample nail wrap kits. People who stopped by to inquire about the product and contest were invited to take the refreshments and a flyer stating contest requirements. We were on the Oval from 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. and enjoyed promoting the collegiate nail wraps and modeling them on our own fingernails.

Final efforts

With our window of time drawing to a close we pushed the promotion of our campaign among PRSSA members. We took leftover refreshments to a meeting and summarized our efforts for the group. We encouraged them to take part in the contest as well.

We then booked a table at the Ohio Union for one last opportunity to connect with our audience. This took place on Friday, November 7 from 5 P.M. until 7 P.M. Students passing through the Union visited our table, which displayed our poster and sample nail wrap kits, and learned about the brand and Ohio State products.

Conclusion

The Jamberry Nails mini campaign was a wonderful opportunity for us to put our knowledge of public relations and campaign planning to use. We enjoyed demonstrating our skills and working through challenges. We reached a minimum of 1000 people through our campaign efforts (the event, fliers, media coverage, surveys, etc.) Although it was difficult to work with a small team of four, and we faced other obstacles such as class and work schedule conflicts, we feel that we did well at representing OSU's PRSSA chapter and reaching our goal of raising awareness for Jamberry’s Ohio State licensed nail wraps.