STRATEGIC PR PLANNING

Strategic Public Relations Planning COMM2381 ===//=== Assignment 3:

Strategic PR

Plan Saigon Childrens Charity

Eliminating Poverty through Education

Lecturer:
S T R A T E GI C P R P L 2A N NI N G

Doan Mai Anh 2 Dam Le My Hanh s3183107

Group: Student: ID:

Due Date: January 13, 2011 Submit Date: January 13, 2011

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................................2 BACKGROUNDX.....................................................................3 SITUATION ANALYSIS.............................................................4 RESEARCH PROBLEM
FINDINGS.......................................................................4

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS..............................................................4

STATEMENT......................................................................5

TARGET PUBLICS...................................................................5 OBJECTIVES...........................................................................5 KEY MESSAGES......................................................................6 STRATEGY STATEMENT..........................................................6 TACTICS................................................................................6 FLYERS....................................................................................7 DIRECT MUSIC
MAILS.............................................................................7

WEBSITE...................................................................................7
CONCERN...........................................................................8

MEETINGS.................................................................................8 BUDGET................................................................................9

S T R A T E GI C P R P L 3A N NI N G

EVALUATION.........................................................................9 MEETING...................................................................................9 SURVEYS (DURING FOCUS

THE PROJECT)........................................................10 GROUPS..........................................................................10

APPENDIXES........................................................................11 APPENDIX 1:
SWOT ANALYSIS...........................................................11

REFERENCES.......................................................................13

References

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Thang Long School (TLS) was established in 1994 in district 4, Ho Chi Minh City, as a vocational school and has been supported in finance by Saigon Children Charity (SCC) a nongovernment organization. TLS provides free education for disadvantage children (12-19 years old) of poor families in district 4, 7 and 8. Annually, TLS has an enrolment day in August for the opening day in September but the school always gets difficulties in getting children come to the enrollment day. As a consequence, this communication plan aims to raise awareness and to change perception among the children about having a good and high education and change perception of local authorities toward helping in attracting more students for TLS. In addition, the communication campaign will attract the children come to TLS and get experience themselves by activities at the school in the enrollment day. During four months of the project, we will emphasize benefits during studying time at TLS such as free education, several courses with optional time slots and extra helps for their life. In addition, advantages after graduating will be highlighted such as S T R A T E GI C P R P L 4A N NI N G students will have a lot of job opportunities with a high and stable salary. As a result, after graduating from TLS, they will possible stay away from current situation and deserve a better life. There are several tactics will be used during the four month project to raise awareness about LTS and to change perception about going to school such as flyers, direct mails, meetings, music contest, and website. This project will call for students

help to limit the expenditure so the estimated cost for this project is 6,875,000 VND

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BACKGROUND
There is a high number of poor families in Vietnam in general and in Ho Chi Minh City in particular. The quick development of economy and society have created a distinct and significant gap among the rich and the poor. Thus, support from donors every year has been very important for the poor families get out of poverty. However, the most helpful and effective solution for poor families is providing a good and high education for their children. Thus, TLS exists to help poor children to have free education. Currently, the school has 300 students in all courses, which are English, IT, hairdressing, sewing, and photography (TLS 2010). In addition, it needs 120 new students in the 2011s recruitment to open all the courses in the coming year. Recently, however, TLS gets difficulties in attracting children come to school. There are some problems which lead to a low rate of enrolment. One of them can be the families and their children face with financial problems so the children have to help their parents and work at an early age so they do not have time to go to school. In addition, some children are unable to study due to their limited ability in studying and hard working. Thus, it is necessary to tell them benefits of studying at TLS such as free education and S T R A T E GI C P R P L 6A N NI N G activities, and after graduating such as well-paid salary and stable job, to reduce the similar difficulties will come to their next generation. As a result, a strategic PR plan aims to solve this problem with the 2011s recruitment. This is a communication project with various tactics which are used to raise awareness and change their perception among children and their parents about studying by emphasizing on advantages of having a high

education. Moreover, this plan aims to change perception of local authorities toward being active in spread out TLSs information.

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SITUATION ANALYSIS
RESEARCH

FINDINGS

TLS was established in 1994 so now it has a lot of experiences in managing the operation and teaching (TLS 2010). As a not-for-profit vocational school, TLS provides a good and high education for poor children who really want and need to have a better life without paying school fee.

In previous years, this was a lack of communicating between the school and the children and their family about the benefits of having a good education for their future so TLS did not get enough enrollments to run all courses in the last year. It was due to most of distributing information about TLS and courses was done by the local authorities so the effectiveness relied heavily on the reputation and activeness of this channel.

It is difficult in changing perception of students about going to school. A reason can be because they are busy with earning money to support for their life and family so they do not have time to go to school, they drop from schools for a long time so they are shamed with going to school again or they are lack of passion in studying because of limitation in studyings ability. (See Appendix 1 for detailed information)

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CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

In order to increase the awareness and change perception among disadvantage children and their family about TLS, we must communicate directly, actively and more with them about benefits of studying at TLS. That is TLS has a

high and good education with suitable courses in flexible time slots without paying any fee. In order to raise the passion in studying of the children, we need to emphasize activities at TLS every year to gain their interests in going to school. In order to change perception of local authorities, we must communicate with them advantages of having high number of educated people in their areas.

PROBLEM

STATEMENT

Lack of appropriate communication between TLS and students and their families leads to the low awareness of the school and courses.

TARGET PUBLICS
Primary target audience: TLS provides a free education to children in poor families in 41 wards in district 4, 7, and 8 who are going to or not going to mainstream schools. However, they do not aware, not care much or not take it seriously about benefits of having a good education so the enrolment of previous years were insufficient to open all courses. Thus, communicating directly with children, who will potentially receive the education, is every essential to get them to school. This project aims to children are from 12 to 19 years old in poor families living in district 4, 7 and 8. Children can be new or old students who S T R A T E GI C P R P L 9A N NI N G dropped out of TLS previously. Most of the children are underage (12-19 years old) so they are living in a same house with their family which can be parents or relatives. Thus, communicating with childrens family is very necessary because they will affect positively to children in studying at TLS.

Secondary target audience: Most of communication with students and their family is done by the local government from the ward level in targeted districts so the exchanging information from the school to this group is very important to the success of this project. Thus, the local government is set as secondary target audience, which needs to communicate well and effectively.

OBJECTIVES
This project is in an on-going communication program between TLS and children in poor families and their parents in targeted areas (mentioned above). In addition, the project will be run in four months from April 1 to 31 July 2011 with the main purposes are to raise awareness and to change attitude among the target audiences. To reach 60% awareness among the target audiences (primary and secondary) about the benefits of having a good and high education by the end of July 2011. To change 35% attitude of the primary target audience toward going to school rather than working at the early ages. To change 50% perception of the secondary target audience about to be active communicators for the project.

KEY MESSAGES
S T R A T E GI C P R P L 1A 0N NI N G For primary target audience: You the one can turn your life to be better and brighter by having a good and high education at TLS. For secondary target audience: Giving your hand to help disadvantage children to have a better life is one way you show your responsibility to contribute on the Vietnams development.

STRATEGY STATEMENT
To enhance an effective communication with the primary and secondary audience by controlled tactics including meetings, letters, flyers and website and uncontrolled tactics such as word of mouth that are regularly dispersed in during four months to highlight benefits of having a good and high education at TLS.

TACTICS
This campaign keeps using tactics which was done in previous campaign because they all have advantages in raising the awareness about TLS and getting students come to the school. This project will call for volunteers from internal human resource which are current students, staff and teachers. Students who are volunteers will get certification for contributions for this project.

FLYERS
Flyers will be distributed in targeted areas by currents students, teachers, and staff of TLS, who work for free, during the campaign to the primary and secondary target audiences. Volunteers will give flyers to the primary public which can be their friends and neighbors or random poor families. In addition, flyers will be attached on direct mails to local government Furthermore, information of the children or families receive flyers will be recorded to for S T R A T E GI C P R P L 1A 1N NI N G evaluation stage. Information includes in flyers will be courses information, estimated schedule, jobs description and opportunities, previous year activities, stories of successful students, link of the schools main website and the music concern at the enrollment day. This tactic targets on all target audiences in order to provide specific information about TLS.

DIRECT

MAILS

Direct mails will be sent to the local authorities such as leaders about of wards and of districts, leaders courses, of womens of association and leaders of youths association. Information conditions application, benefits studying at TLS, the enrollment day and activities during that day will be included in mails. Similarly to what the local authorities have done, this time the leaders of targeted areas will come to poor families whose have children in 12 19 years old and talk about the enrollment day and benefits of studying at TLS and persuade them to go to school.

WEBSITE
Full information about the courses, classes and requirement for being accepted will be up dated on the main website in both Vietnamese and English version http://thanglongcharityschool.org/. It is convenient for the target audiences if they want to have specific information relating TLS and courses. Website will be updated by IT students and English students at TLS.

MUSIC

CONCERN

There will be a music concern at TLS on the enrollment day. There will be self-performances of current students S T R A T E GI C P R P L 1A 2N NI N G and their friends who are potential TLS students. Current students will actively find friends to be a group with them so it is a chance for potential students have to play with current students and they will have time to talk more about the study environment at TLS and study experiences. This tactic will raise awareness of the children and increase passion of children in going to school. Price is two million

for the first winner, one million for the second and five hundred thousand for the third.

MEETINGS
Meeting with local authorities in district 4, 7 and 8 Staff or teachers of TLS will meet with local authorities. Purposes are to let the group clear about their benefit, which is the more educated lead to the decrease of poverty. During the meeting, benefits for children who study at TLS will be informed so they will be able to deliver the information for children and their family clearly and correctly. Meeting with citizens at monthly ward meetings to inform the school and its courses as well as benefits of studying at TLS. This tactic will help to raise awareness and importance of the project because TLS can work with the local government which is the most power and dependable organization.

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S T R A T E GI C P R P L 1A 4N NI N G

BUDGET
This is an estimated budget for this four-month campaign.

EVALUATION
This is an on-going process which will be done during the project to find effectiveness and ineffectiveness tactics in order to have an immediately action. Timeline of evaluating is on the path plan.

MEETING
Quick and random meetings with poor families in targeted areas to ask whether they get flyers about information of TLS and volunteers of the project meeting with them or not and what their perception about studying at TLS. This tool will evaluate the number of distributed flyers as well as the outcomes of the project

STRATEGIC PR PLANNING

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SURVEYS (DURING

THE PROJECT)

During the campaign, surveys will be send out during the project to see which one is the most effective and suitable to each target audience to have immediately improvement. On the enrollment day, surveys will be used with purpose is to record visitors response about the effectiveness of the PR campaign (Harrision 2008). Specific questions relating to how they get information about the enrollment day as well as about the courses and scholarship at TLS. By the survey, TLS can see what this communication project do well in term of getting attention and persuading disadvantage students and their parents in D4, 7 and 8 about having a high education to have a better life. In addition, the result of survey can use to improve future campaigns in term of delivering information. Surveys help to manage the output of each tactics by the number of people getting information from and outcomes of the project. In addition, this tool can lead to find the number of participants for the focus groups interview at the end of the project.

FOCUS

GROUPS

This tool will help organizers get closer with target audiences (Harrision 2008) to find what they think about the project and ask what the most effective way to communicate with them in similar projects in the future. S T R A T E GI C P R P L 1A 6N NI N G

APPENDIXES
APPENDIX 1:
Strengths Free education for disadvantage children is strength of TLS comparing with other costly training or vocational school in TLSs targeted areas. TLS provides three time slots per day so students can choose the most suitable courses and groups. Both SCC and TLS have many experiences in the field. Weaknesses Because of the limited facilities and classrooms, it is not so attractive for students and their parents to study at TLS. It has been lack of communicating with the target audience about the benefits of having a good education. Communicating with students depends heavily on local authorities. Limited budget for this campaign leads to less tactics to communicate with the target audiences. Opportunities Parents have been becoming more aware of benefits if their children S T R A T E GI C P R P L 1A 7N NI N G have a good education so they are a good supporter. Support from the local authorities in communicating with poor families in their areas. Current students enjoy studying at TLS so they will possibly be communicators of this campaign. Threats
SWOT ANALYSIS

It is difficult in changing perception of students about going to school because they are lack of passion in studying. Poor families are living across several districts so it is hard to collect students to the enrollment day. Only one ward responded well in spreading out information in the last year. Poor families only see the short-term benefits by forcing their children to work. High rate of inflation in the last three years leads to price of necessary goods has increased sharply (Euromonitor 2010). Hence, poor families are hard to support for their children for everyday needs so the children have to earn money by themselves.

S T R A T E GI C P R P L 1A 8N NI N G

REFERENCES
Thang Long Charity School 2010, Classes, Thang Long Charity School, viewed January 9, 2011, <http://thanglongcharityschool.org/jobs.php>. Saigon Children Charity 2010, homepage, viewed January 7, 2011, <http://www.saigonchildren.com/Home>. Harrision, K 2008, Strategic Public Relations, a practical guide to success, 5th edn., Century consulting group, Aus. Euromonitor 2010, Customer life style in Vietnam: Income, Euromonitor International, viewed 1 January 2011, <http://www.portal.euromonitor.com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/Portal/M agazines/GeographiesHeavy.aspx>

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