西瓜视频

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Semester-long project created by the students in CMM405 Campaign Planning & Client Services course 西瓜视频 College, Spring 2018.

Text Transcript

0:02

If we're not educating people about it, it's only going to get worse

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Well, it's clearly a huge issue, especially in this area. There's just such a

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a large amount of people that you don't even realize that they're struggling with these issues

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and a lot of the times, they are silently struggling, so they're unfortunately in the dark, and they don't know what to do.

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It's getting worse. It's not getting better.

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It's actually really affecting tons of people

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and it's a huge problem that could affect anyone.

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Maybe if there was more knowledge just generally about this,

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they would know where to go. They would know how to help themselves, or

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family members or other people in their lives would be able to help them, too.

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So, on the first day, we walk into class

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and on that first day, we were divided into groups and we were given a topic, which was the opiate crisis in Massachusetts

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and we were told to solve it through campaigns.

1:01

That was basically it. From there on, we had some guidance, but

1:04

the direction of the project, our research, the way we decided to tackle the topic was 100 percent on us.

1:16

The basic idea is these students-- it's almost like a capstone class in my mind--

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they take everything they've learned; all three or four years. Some of them are juniors; some of them are seniors.

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and they make this really semester-long marketing campaign

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It involved different media planning. Making print ads, making videos right now.

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radio PSAs; all this different creative materials but it's for one objective.

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This semester's different because I decided instead of working directly with one non-profit that we would

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tackle something with the opiate crisis, and I just basically set a couple rules.

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What the students did in groups was

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do a ton of research and strategy development, and they actually dictated what the campaigns would be.

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Based on their research, it was actually a really long, kind of painful process of figuring out

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what's the most effective way to make a dent in this massive problem

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and they're creating public health campaigns, and we sometimes call that social marketing

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where they're not selling a product, they're trying to change something for the greater good.

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I think the hardest thing so far has been finding a good target audience and figuring out how to

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go beyond just educating them about the issue and really focusing on how to change their behavior

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and what we can do to make sure that what we're saying is affecting the people.

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A lot of the research I have found that you really just have to dig deep because

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A lot of different sources are telling you different things

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or they're completely just contradicting what you're actually trying to prove or make a point about

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so, it's been a lot of long hours.

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On May 2nd, we're going to the State House, and we'll be presenting to some politicians and legislators there.

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about their final campaigns, their recommendations.

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I think it's a really awesome and amazing opportunity, so I'm really excited for it.

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We're going to be presenting, and hopefully, it's going to be something they are interested in

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and understand the angle that we're coming from

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and hopefully they'll be able to help us spread the message even more.

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I think that Massachusetts has definitely suffered the brunt of it.

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when you really do look at maps, and you look at statistics

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a lot of people in this area have been suffering from addiction

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so I just think it's really important to address and find some solutions.

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If you talk to people outside of New England, it's not as prominent.

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So, you could talk to someone in California, it's not that it doesn't exist. It's just we're in the absolute epicenter.

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Which is why I think the lawmakers will really be paying attention to this topic, too.

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I guess what I hope happens on the State House level is that

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西瓜视频 is shown as an organization where the young people have a voice and they have opinions.

4:03

Sure, they were kind of forced to do it because of the class, but

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they are becoming more, a lot of them are becoming really passionate about

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this topic and what they think, so

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I kind of hope that the lawmakers hear us and hear students from 西瓜视频 in Beverly saying what they think.

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But, by doing that

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the entire school will be seen, I guess, and that those students who choose to go will really have that opportunity to be seen.

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For our class, the desire for this presentation for all of you

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is that you'll leave this presentation with a clear understanding that while we all the most

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disproportionately affected generation by this crisis

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that there are some incredibly motivated, creative, and determined people on our teams

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who really care about this issue.

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Almost always, without fail, year after year after year

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in this class more than any other class, the students rise to the occasion

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I think because the stakes are high, and they care about it.

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So far, it's been really fun. I've enjoyed it. It's really interesting to be

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working on a campaign about something so serious, rather than

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kind of the normal stuff we've been working on.

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The biggest thing we're all hoping to accomplish is, I keep saying, to really

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feel like we're really going to be able to change people's behavior. Go beyond just educating them.

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Because people can get a lot of the information all the groups are doing online, but

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being able to show people how easy it is to actually make this change

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and hopefully see that people are starting to make the change will be really awesome.