By Chelsea Stern, Talia Simmons and Kat Quinn
Working with Public Relations professionals as a part of Newhouse’s partnership with Real Chemistry through the W2O Center for Social Commerce has been a formative opportunity to not only gain experience with client-facing roles but also receive advice from experts in healthcare PR. We’ve had the chance to work specifically with Syracuse alumni who have since taken on more responsibility and heavier roles at Real Chemistry. Obviously, the Newhouse mafia ties make the collaboration all the more enjoyable. With all the glory of working on such a rewarding account comes a steep learning curve about the science behind the vaccine and the best practices for healthcare-related messaging. Having Real Chemistry on our team to guide us through has made this entire campaign—from comprehensive research to social media strategy—made this semester in Hill Communications even more valuable. Especially during a historically difficult time for just about everyone, observing how the healthcare sector has been taking on both the challenges and breakthroughs throughout the pandemic has been insightful.
In addition to working alongside industry professionals, the opportunity to develop our campaign as a joint effort with TNH has given us unique insights into what it will be like in our future careers doing client work alongside other firms that may function differently while still ensuring our work shows seamless integration. TNH organizes itself deviantly from Hill Communications, designating students into teams such as strategy, and creative instead of the hierarchical account supervisor, account executive and account associate format we’re used to. This structural variation has only helped to ensure we’re looking at our campaign from all angles, utilizing the distinct perspectives we each bring to optimize every aspect of #GetShotDone. Additionally, collaborating with students who are primarily advertising majors has pushed us to break boundaries by combining all we have learned in our PR and strategy courses with all they have learned in their advertising and graphic design courses—something never before done within the Newhouse student firm communities.
This campaign isn’t just important because of the partnerships it has formed, but primarily because of the cause we are supporting; it is critical that the sentiment within the Syracuse population surrounding vaccine confidence is positive as vaccinating Syracuse University students is the only way we can help life return to normal. Striving to achieve herd immunity as a nation is a daunting task in and of itself. However, if we as students can make strides in boosting vaccine confidence on our own campuses, a piece of the job, though small, is done. As cliche as it sounds, we need to adopt an “all in this together” mentality in order for COVID-19 to be left in the past. Our campaign is all about that: being the students to reach other students and show them why vaccinations are so essential. Be the change you want to see. Of course, we all want to protect our communities, revive small businesses, respect first responders, and hug our grandparents again. Those are priorities. However, it’s important to remember that desiring a normal college life and to experience Syracuse the way it’s meant to be experienced is not selfish, it’s not impossible, and it is valid. The fact of the matter is we all want to tailgate at Castle Court, shake a professor’s hand, hug a friend you haven’t seen in a while, sit in a cafe, or even get up for a tired walk to those eight a.m. classes.