Date of Defense

4-19-2017

Date of Graduation

4-2017

Department

Management

First Advisor

Anna Popkova

Second Advisor

Ashley Rach

Abstract

This public relations campaign is to increase participation of Western Michigan University students at Kalamazoo Wings hockey games. The *millennial audience represents 25-30% of many professional sports teams’ overall revenue base (Fisher 2015). Western Michigan University students have low participation at Kalamazoo Wings hockey games since they do not even make up 1% of the fans that attend Kalamazoo Wings games. The campaign goal is to increase participation of Western Michigan University students at Kalamazoo Wings hockey games by 25% by May 2018. *Millennial: A person reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century.

My research has indicated that the focus of the campaign would be to increase participation among Western Michigan University students due to the fact that 92% of students have attended 0-5 Kalamazoo Wings games. After establishing a clear direction for the campaign, I crafted objectives for each target public based on the research findings.

My target public (Western Michigan University students) is divided into two groups being lower-level students and upper-level students. The three objectives are:

  1. A. By May 2018, increase the participation of Western Michigan University lower-level students at Kalamazoo Wings hockey games by 25%.
  2. B. By May 2018, increase the participation of Western Michigan University upper-level students at Kalamazoo Wings hockey games by 25%.
  3. C. By May 2018, increase the Kalamazoo Wings social media engagement with Western Michigan University students by 10% .

The campaign uses innovative marketing strategies to increase participation at Kalamazoo Wings hockey games among Western Michigan University students. A budget plan was not calculated for this campaign due to the fact that the marketing budget for the 2017-2018 season is unknown at this time. The price of the strategies could vary tremendously based on the execution of the Kalamazoo Wings Front Office.

It is recommended that an evaluation plan is developed to evaluate the overall goal of the campaign, as well as other methods to evaluate each individual strategy. The Kalamazoo Wings Front Office will then have the ability to examine whether the goal was achieved and which strategies contributed the most to this goal.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access

Download

Share

COinS