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Elevate Public Relations

Keep San Marcos Beautiful


The Campaign

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Executive Summary
Introduction
Situational Analysis
Problem Statement
Situational Analysis Overview
Internal Factors
External Factors
Relevant Publics and Stakeholders
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Current Situation
Development
Current Position
Direction
Obstacles
Research Report
Research Questions
Research Methodology
Qualitative Research
Quantitative Research
Limitations in Research
Analysis and Results
Campaign Plan
Targeted Publics
Campaign Goals
Objectives, Strategies and Tactics
Reference Material
Key Dates from Timeline
Conclusions and Recommendations
Major Evaluations
Sustainability Efforts

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Executive Summary
For the purpose of this research report, Elevate Public Relations has gathered data and
analyzed how and why smokers, ages 18 to 22, choose to either use or not use an ashtray for
their cigarette litter in San Marcos, Texas. Elevate PR conducted both quantitative and qualitative
research to understand the amount of overall awareness that survey respondents have about
where cigarette litter goes, how it affects the San Marcos environment, and why those who
smoke may not choose to use various disposals offered in the city of San Marcos.
Elevate PR used results gathered from the research and evaluations of the clients needs
to implement strategies to achieve our objectives. These strategies included public outreach,
development of new concepts and ideas and creation of tools that may be used in the future to
continue our clients ongoing success. By identifying our audience, objectives and desires of our
client, we were able to successfully execute our campaign.

Introduction
Elevate Public Relations spent the semester working with Keep San Marcos Beautiful, an
organization dedicated to reducing litter throughout the city of San Marcos, and to keeping the
citys river free from pollutants and other dangers. One of Keep San Marcos Beautifuls largest
goals is to reduce the amount of cigarette butt litter present in the city in order to protect the
citys river. To achieve that goal, Elevate PR focused on campus outreach and education on the
effects of cigarette butt litter on the river and its wildlife.

Situational Analysis
Problem Statement:
Texas State students who smoke are throwing their cigarette butts on the ground, and
those butts are affecting the ecosystem in the San Marcos River. Keep San Marcos Beautiful is
an initiative to combat this litter, but has low outreach to the citys publics.

Situation Analysis:
Situation analyses are a crucial aspect to executing a successful public relations
campaign. The analysis gives the agency an opportunity to assess the client and the problem at
hand by determining the type of problem, the clients target audience, the clients strengths and
weaknesses as well as any opportunities or threats they may be facing it is the driving force
behind the research that must be done in order to begin planning the campaign itself.
In this chapter, the Elevate team will be discussing our clients internal factors such as
their mission and history, a detailed SWOT analysis we have conducted, as well as our clients

situation regarding their current position and the direction in which they would like to go along
with any obstacles they may encounter along the way.

Internal Factors
The Keep San Marcos Beautiful (KSMB) mission is to educate and engage San Marcos
residents and visitors in taking responsibility of improving our community environment. KSMB
is an initiative that was established in 2009 that strives to keep a visually and physically
pristine environment. KSMB looks to use resources within the city departments, partnerships
with other organizations and volunteers to advocate for a cleaner city. The department works in
preservation and beautification through Adopt-a-Spot, as well as, cleanup and graffiti removal
efforts. They also work in Education and Prevention through environmental education, mural arts
and litter prevention.

Funding for Keep San Marcos Beautiful comes from the city. Amy Kirwin acts as the
Community Enhancement Initiatives Manager and has five interns working under her in her
efforts to reduce cigarette butt littering in the city.

External Factors
Some trends and issues we see emerging that may hinder our efforts would be the rapid
population growth of students attending Texas State University (enrollment as of 2016 has
surpassed 38,000 students), the growing nightlife of downtown San Marcos and even the lack of
concern and education on the issue from the public.

Though there are no specific competitors in the industry, there are other organizations
who do similar work and carry out similar projects as those of KSMB. The Municipal Separate
Storm Sewer System (MS4) works on storm water runoff and litter that flows into the river. The
Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) conducts clean ups and educational outreach alongside KSMB
as well as on their own. The Texas State University sector of Relay For Life also works in
collecting cigarette butt litter around the city.

Relevant Publics and Stakeholders


The key publics and stakeholders directly involved and affected are Texas State
University (students, staff and visitors), San Marcos residents and in general, the environmental
life in and around the city. It is known that students and staff smoke near the university on the
corner of North LBJ and Woods. With no existing ashtrays on this corner, used cigarettes make
their way onto the ground. Along with the popular nightlife in downtown San Marcos comes
smokers who litter their finished cigarette butts on the street. Though there are existing ashtrays
on the Square, it is assumed that individuals have no knowledge of them or believe them to be
inconveniently located, according to our client. This litter ultimately makes its way into the San
Marcos River, affecting all environmental life near it and causing extreme danger to our
ecosystems.

SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
Since 2009 Keep San Marcos Beautiful has been a city initiative dedicated to promoting
and enhancing the citys environmental appeal. Keep San Marcos Beautiful has a few current
strengths that have been the key to its lasting success for over five years. Key strengths include:
(1) support of the city of San Marcos, because it is operated by the city. The City of San Marcos
promotes Keep San Marcos Beautiful as their city initiative and with the City of San Marcos
Parks and Recreation Center as a backing, Keep San Marcos Beautiful has enough support to
stay strong in terms of
(2) funding and resources
(3) innovative ways of solving the environmental and unappealing visual aspects of the city.
Keeping San Marcos Beautiful has various city programs like adopt-a-spot, where groups can
adopt a certain area of San Marcos can clean it six times a year without any charge. Groups can
sign up by emailing the Keep San Marcos Beautiful Coordinator. Other great programs include
monthly river clean-ups, graffiti removal, and mural art creation.
(4) A strength that pertains specifically to the cigarette litter initiative that is helpful are the
purchase of the portable ashtrays. The portable ashtrays are a resource that people can use,
especially those who are constantly busy, to dispose of the cigarette butt on the go without
littering in the streets of San Marcos. Since ashtrays are not available at every corner in San
Marcos, this resource will encourage those who do smoke to responsibly dispose of their
cigarette butts.

Weaknesses:
Keep San Marcos Beautifuls major weaknesses include:
(1) poor outreach to businesses around the city as well as student organizations on the Texas
State University. Many students are likely to not know Keep San Marcos Beautifuls mission and
also dont know how they could get involved with helping with their initiative.
(2) no current promotional strategies and no social media presence.
(3) Keep San Marcos Beautifuls target audience is not aware of the initiative and also has a low
awareness of the issue that cigarette litter has on the San Marcos River.
(3) Keep San Marcos Beautiful set up multiple permanent ashtrays along the Square, but they are
not being serviced and often end up having actual trash in them. Those who choose to partake in
San Marcos nightlife do not purposefully go out of their way to find the ashtrays and would
rather litter in the streets.
Opportunities:
There are many opportunities for Keep San Marcos Beautiful that can increase awareness
of their cause. Their targeted audience is Texas State University college students who casually
smoke, and through effectively utilizing social media, can reach this audience. By using a
Facebook event planning feature, their Hot Spot river clean-up can attract many more people in
their targeted demographic. By effectively utilizing social media, we cover a wider range.
An opportunity that can be used to help Keep San Marcos Beautiful grow their audience
is Texas State University campus outreach. The outreach would include visiting campus
organizations to inform them of the various programs that Keep San Marcos Beautiful has to
offer. The campus outreach may also organically grow their social media presence in the college
community.

Threats:
The threats that present themselves to Keep San Marcos Beautiful are not impossible
obstacles, but must be noted. The main threat to Keep San Marcos Beautiful is the apathetic
attitudes and unawareness many young adults have regarding cigarette litter and its correlation
with the environment. Many college age adults are likely to not fully acknowledge an issue
unless it pertains to them immediately. Many people do not know of cigarette litter and the
drastic effects that it has on the San Marcos environment. Also many Texas State University
students are not originally from San Marcos, Texas. This may hinder their understanding of how
cigarette butts can affect the river.
Another threat to Keep San Marcos Beautiful is the growing population of San Marcos and the
expanding downtown area. While this is excellent economical growth for new local businesses to
move into downtown San Marcos, it is difficult to handle the environmental aspect of the city
when there is construction and other pollutants present. Downtown San Marcos draws in both
local and tourist crowds that are both looking to enjoy the San Marcos nightlife, and with certain
bars starting to sell cigarettes behind the counter or in vending machines, it is difficult for the
city to ensure ashtrays close enough to each bar.
Current Situation
Development:
Currently, students and faculty of Texas State regularly smoke on LBJ Dr. near the
churches, and when they do so, they litter cigarette butts. The people who smoke there, as of
now, have no place to properly dispose of their cigarette butts. However, Keep San Marcos
Beautiful has created several hundred pocket ashtrays to distribute. As of yet, no efforts have

been made to distribute the ashtrays. Also, Keep San Marcos Beautiful has installed ashtrays in
the square, another problem area.
Current Position:
Keep San Marcos Beautiful has good intentions with both the pocket ashtrays and the
permanent ones installed on the square, however, there has been little to no execution of any
ideas. The pocket ashtrays have yet to be given out, and square-goers either dont know where
those ashtrays are, or they dont care to go to them if they are out of the way. Also, those ashtrays
arent serviced often and are regularly used as normal trash cans, which is not their purpose.

Direction:
Our client would like to reduce the amount of cigarette butt litter in San Marcos around
campus and on the square. To address this issue, we can utilize email marketing, the pocket
ashtrays, and a possible Relay for Life team-up and/or a river clean-up.
Obstacles:
One of the main obstacles facing our campaign is awareness. There are simply not
enough people in the city of San Marcos who truly care about the issue of cigarette butt littering
or the effects it has on our rivers. This also ties into another obstacle the low implementation of
awareness. Before beginning the campaign, none of our agency members had heard of the Keep
San Marcos Beautiful (KSMB) program, which lead us to assume there were a multitude of
students who had been unaware as well. Another obstacle we face is that of KSMB emails being
delivered into recipients spam folders where they are often not seen.
Resources:
Our client and her team have multiple resources that we will be able to use to execute this
campaign. They were able to show us a map of where ashtrays have been previously placed
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around the square and at our main problem area the corner of Woods Street and LBJ Drive.
This will be helpful when deciding where new ashtrays should be placed without having to
canvas the city searching for existing ones. The KSMB team also has 1,000 portable ashtrays that
we will be able to distribute to San Marcos residents during our campaign events as well as an
activity guide where they do the majority of their advertising.
Research report
Research Questions:
The main issues the client desires to focus on is the overall awareness of effects of
cigarette litter as well as why people in San Marcos, ages 18-22, choose to use or not use
ashtrays when smoking.
The proposed research questions are:
RQ1: What type of situations are smokers age 18-22 in when they chose to smoke?
RQ2: How do smokers in San Marcos choose to dispose of their cigarette butts?
RQ3: How often do smokers in San Marcos use ashtrays, and what deters them from
using it?
RQ4: If the City of San Marcos provided more ashtrays on the Square, how likely would
smokers use them?
RQ5: Are San Marcos residents aware of the effects that cigarette litter has on the
environment and aquatic life around them?
These questions will provide critical information for the study and for the research
process. As the study progresses over time, more elements on the topic of these questions will
emerge that will influence the findings.
Research Methodology:

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Elevate PR conducted two methods of research, both qualitative and quantitative. Using
the descriptive method of research allowed the researchers to get data without manipulating
variables or changing the environment. The researchers collected data about San Marcos, Texas
cigarette litter awareness by survey as well as conducting observations to find out how
participants react while smoking on the Square in San Marcos.
Qualitative Research Method- Observational Analysis:
Elevate PR spent time on the Square in San Marcos observing people smoking. During
this time, we noticed smokers dropping their cigarette butts as soon as they finished smoking,
even if they were within walking distance of the ashtrays (which are located in front of Barfish,
in front of the dance studio and bike shop, and on street corners). Elevate PR also noted that
many of the ashtrays were filled with trash, and that they looked as though they hadnt been
serviced or cleaned out in several days at least. Also, most of the bars dont have ashtrays right in
front of them, but that is predominantly where people smoked.
When Elevate PR asked people on the square what they thought of the cigarette litter in
San Marcos, the most common answer was that they thought it was disgusting but there are not
enough ashtrays around the downtown areas so people just put out their cigarettes wherever they
feel like it.
Quantitative Research Method- Survey:
The survey conducted consisted of six qualifying questions and splits into survey sections
for both smokers and non-smokers. Non-smoking respondents are then asked a series of five
questions while smokers are asked a series of ten questions. The survey utilizes likert scales
questions and multiple choice questions that together collect useful data in characterizing the

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population and their knowledge on the effect of cigarette butt littering on the environment. The
survey was created using Google Forms.
Limitations of the Research:
A large limitation on our qualitative research method was the skew of respondents
gender. We had a total of 70 responses and of these responses, 59 (84.3 %) were female and 11
(15.7%) were male. Although our overall goal is to research the knowledge of cigarette butt litter
effects on the environment for all people, it would have been more inclusive if the responses
were more balanced gender-wise.
Analysis and Results:
In our observations on the Square, we noted that while most of the ashtrays were within
walking distance from bars, they werent located in places where people typically smoked. Also,
many of the ashtrays were filled with garbage and thus hard to distinguish from the actual
garbage cans they are situated on top of.
As mentioned previously, n=70 responses. Our results illustrate that our largest audience
were between the ages of 18-21 years, making up 71.4% of our total responses. Our largest
race/ethnicity was White, making up 74.3% of our total responses. Most of the people surveyed
currently live in San Marcos, making this audience 91.4% of the total responses. Current Texas
State University students made up 94% of the responses. Of the 70 respondents, only 12
currently smoke while 58 do not currently smoke. Further research shows that of the 58 who do
not currently smoke, 12 respondents have smoked in the past and 46 respondents have friends or
family members who currently smoke. Overall, the audience surveyed are somewhat-to-very
aware of the effects that smoking and cigarette litter has on the environment but are somewhat-

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to-very unaware of the effects that litter has on aquatic life specifically. Attached are the results
of our survey.
Campaign plan
After discussing the main areas of concern and researching various publics in the San
Marcos area, we decided to create a campaign plan that would coordinate with our key messages.
The overall goals of the campaign were to increase the awareness of the environmental impacts
that cigarette litter has on the San Marcos River and Decrease litter in the downtown San Marcos
area by half by August 2017. The goals of the campaign were created and became the center of
the entire implemented campaign. Every objective, strategy, and tactic was created with the two
overarching goals in mind.
The campaign was comprised of key dates that created a timeline for the campaign that
would build a foundation for the campaign for the rest of the year and for the continuation of the
new year. The campaign plan is built on community outreach, social media implementation, and
internal marketing tools.
Targeted public
After the completion of research done in September, there were multiple targeted publics
that could benefit from the campaign. After careful consideration and deliberation, the targeted
public that was chosen to emphasize on was the students and faculty associated with Texas State
University. Many students at Texas State University enjoy the nightlife in the downtown area and
some of the most littered streets in San Marcos are near the Texas State University campus and
being used by students. We narrowed the public to those who are frequent smokers and those are
social smokers, so we could target those who may be at the heart of the issue. We reached out to

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them on several occasions by visiting local cigarette smoking hangouts as well as on the Texas
State University Quad.

Campaign goals
The goals of our campaign were to begin an outreach initiative with Texas State students
and faculty via quad days, increase awareness of the environmental impact of cigarette butt litter,
increase awareness of existing ashtrays on the Square, increase awareness of existing city/river
clean-up initiatives and to distribute portable ashtrays to students and faculty in known smoking
areas.

Summary of Objectives/Major Strategies & Tactics


Our key objectives for this campaign were to increase the recognition of available
ashtrays to smokers within the downtown San Marcos Area, to increase overall awareness of the
environmental impacts that cigarette litter has on the San Marcos river, and to decrease litter in
downtown San Marcos by 50%. We were able to use multiple strategies which included
discovering the reason behind why a smoker, ages 18 to 22, chose to either use or not use
ashtrays for their cigarette litter and where the most litter accumulated as well as determining the
amount of overall awareness that citizens had about where cigarette litter goes and how it effects
the San Marcos rivers. Our team spent time canvassing the downtown square to observe where
the most cigarette butt litter collected and where ashtrays had previously been placed/whether or
not they were being used. We also conducted an online survey to gain insight into the reason
behind the ashtray neglect as well as the respondents awareness of the environmental impact the

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butts have on San Marcos rivers aquatic life. In order to spread awareness on the Texas State
campus, we set up a booth in the quad where Elevate PR distributed KSMBs portable ashtrays,
held a river clean up sign-up sheet, and informed students of the harmful effects of cigarette litter
in rivers by displaying visuals. We were also able to create digital content to leave with the
KSMB to use in the future in order to continue to spread awareness.

Reference Material
Keep San Marcos Beautiful. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2016, from http://www.ci.sanmarcos.tx.us/index.aspx?page=924
Key dates from timeline

November 16 Canvassed the square x2

November 18 Canvassed Woods & LBJ x2

November 21 Offered portable ashtrays at church on Woods & LBJ

November 23 Talk to local businesses about being potential sponsors

December 5 & 7 Quad days with email sign up

December 8 Gather results of campaign

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Conclusion and recommendations


In conclusion, through successful implementing over the campaign, we were able to
reach out to the students of Texas State University to raise awareness of cigarette butt litter
around town. The students showed great interest in becoming more proactive in making a
difference with signing up for river cleanups and addressing any concerns and questions they had
during our Quad Day.
Some recommendations we would suggest for KSMB would be to reach out to the city to
figure out a way to acquire more ashtrays around downtown. For smokers on campus who decide
to smoke near the church, it is important to understand why there is frequent removal of ashtrays
near this site and if there is a way to have one permanently placed without any issue. The
students of San Marcos love their river and campus and seemed willing to help anyway possible,
so social outreach is very important in improving the numbers for successful river clean up
turnout.

Major Evaluations
Our key objectives for this campaign were to increase the recognition of available
ashtrays to smokers within the downtown San Marcos Area, to increase overall awareness of the
environmental impacts that cigarette litter has on the San Marcos River, and to decrease litter in
downtown San Marcos by 50%. The objectives were completed by helping KSMB with the
concept of implementing light-up ashtrays, holding a quad day on campus to inform students and
staff of the environmental effects the litter has on the San Marcos River, creating a potential
email list of volunteers and passing out portable ashtrays in order to decrease the amount of
cigarette butt litter in the area. These objectives will be evaluated by continuous monitoring and

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clean-ups in the downtown area and river. By continuing these clean-ups and monitoring the
amount of litter being picked up, KSMB will be further able to determine whether the newly
implemented volunteer email list, Texas State University quad day and portable ashtrays have
helped decreased the amount of cigarette butt litter in the problem areas of the city. Our
objectives will be achieved through continuous outreach.
Sustainability Efforts
In order for our client to have success beyond our campaign, we have created some tools
that may be used in later events and situations. These tools may be implemented to maintain
relationships with interested volunteers and potential sponsors. The tools provided include the
email list of interested volunteers collected during our campus quad day, a list of potential
sponsors that may be reached for donations to give away in litter clean-up competitions, a draft
of a sponsor donation letter that may be passed out to potential sponsors and two drafts of social
media posts to promote a litter clean-up event. All creative tools can be found in the appendix.

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