Corporate Social Responsibility

International Dairy Queen, Inc. has been serving delicious food and treats since their founding in 1940 in Kankakee, Illinois. The Dairy Queen system is one of the largest fast food systems in the world with more than 5,900 restaurants in the United States, Canada and 20 foreign countries (dairyqueen.com).

The Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) creates real miracles by raising funds for local children’s hospitals. CMN hospitals represent the premier pediatric healthcare facilities in their respective communities, treating children of all afflictions, including cancer, birth defects, accidents and muscular and cardiovascular diseases. These hospitals treat more than 17 million children each year and are supported by their many sponsors, one major sponsor being Dairy Queen. The Dairy Queen system has been a proud national sponsor of Children’s Miracle Network since 1984 and has helped raise over $77 million dollars in 25 years. (chidrensmiraclenetwork.org)

Dairy Queen gives to CMN in many ways, a few being by hosting special events, collecting spare change and selling paper Miracle Balloons. Dairy Queen’s major annual CMN fundraiser is known as Miracle Treat Day and is held every year in August. On this day, portions of the proceeds from Blizzard sales benefit the children’s hospital in your local area. This year’s Miracle Treat Day will take place on Thursday, August 5^th and will once again prove “miracles do come true”! “Helping Kids One Blizzard at a Time”, is the motto Dairy Queen uses for Miracle Treat Day. For the last three years, Miracle Treat Day has encompassed both Canada and the United States. In 2009, the Dairy Queen System raised approximately $4.5 million just in Blizzard proceeds from this one-day event. A successful Miracle Treat Day combined with the sale of Miracle Balloons and canisters helped raise nearly $5.7 million for children in the United States and Canada. (miracletreatday.com)

Dairy Queen quickly learned the importance of social media when they increased their sales from Miracle Treat Day 2008 to 2009 by 50% from Facebook, Twitter, a DQ Corporate blog and a blog for the Blizzard Fan Club. www.miracletreatday.com allows visitors to log on and make a “promise” to eat a DQ Blizzard. Their name and pledge will be displayed on a floating Miracle Balloon on the home page. This website also allows visitors to make a direct donation to CMN and easily access their website as well as watch success stories for children helped by CMN.

The Miss America Organization is also partnered with CMN and often assist in the promotion of Miracle Treat Day by serving at a local franchise or participating in the media promotion such as TV and radio interviews. Miss America 2009, Katie Stam, served Blizzards in 2009 at the DQ in Orlando. “I am honored to be a spokesperson for Children's Miracle Network to promote Miracle Treat Day, as I know this event will do so much to help children in local hospitals throughout North America,” said Katie.

Dairy Queen also supports scholastic achievement for students of all ages. They offer opportunities for tours of the restaurant for students in grades 1-4 and teach the importance of cleanliness and hard work, along with making their own DQ cone. Dairy Queen also provides discount cards for students in high school or college. They often donate a frozen cake or other products for local school activities. Support Community is one of Dairy Queen’s values and it states, We believe in giving back to the communities in which we live, work, and do business.

To assist in the Haiti Relief, 45 DQ Employees volunteered at the Feed My Starving Children as a branch of DQ Cares at a site in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Feed My Starving Children is a non-profit Christian organization committed to feeding God’s starving children hungry in body and spirit. During two days, they packed a total of 78,336 meals for families affected. Dairy Queen also made a donation to Feed My Starving Children to help defray the cost of ingredients and packaging the food. (dairyqueen.com)

Dairy Queen loves to provide their customers with promotions and discounts. By joining their Blizzard Fan Club, you will be sent a coupon for a free Blizzard with the purchase of another and also receive coupons on your birthday. Today nearly 2.3 million members are apart of the Blizzard Fan Club and the numbers are still growing. Throughout the year in this club, members receive six free Blizzards. In honor of the Blizzard’s 25^th Birthday, Dairy Queen is hitting the road to distribute more than 75,000 free new Mini Blizzards, which will be available in stores in August. The Blizzard mobile will include activities, games, music and a chance to win prizes, all while raising awareness and funds for Children’s Miracle Network (businesswire.com). This event will be heavily promoted on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. As a continuation of this event, from April 19-25 Dairy Queen locations celebrated Customer Appreciation Week where customers could buy one Blizzard and get a second for only 25 cents.

The International Dairy Queen Company is a very generous one and loves to give to their customers, community and Children's Miracle Network.

Promoted Tweets

Twitter announced on April 13 that they will now be launching promoted tweets on Twitter.com. Sponsored advertisements will now be allowed to be displayed on the top of the search result pages. This means that Twitter will now be able to deliver contextually relevant ads to users. Some are skeptical about this because they are afraid Twitter is shying away from their original feel but others see this as an opportunity for advertisers to send a message to a broader more targeted audience. Just as Facebook's side ads appear, you will be able to "X" out ads that you do not like or do not appeal to you. Twitter says the same rule of 140 characters will apply to their advertisers because this is an important part of their site. This will cause those advertising to be very specific and to the point.

I see no harm in adding advertisements. Almost every website now has advertisements on the side and most people do not find them distracting. I have found numerous ads on the side of Facebook that have appealed to me because they take context clues out of your profile to target you. I believe it will be more difficult for Twitter to do this because you do not actually have an information section, just a short about me. This will give advertising one more inside perspective to social media. I think sponsored tweets will eventually become very popular and beneficial to everyone interested in advertising.

"Why Not!?"

In my Advertising Copywriting class we had a potential new public relations professor come speak about "Why people do not do what we want them to do", when you are calling them to action in a form of public relations.

The first reason is because "They Cant". They either do not have the financial resources or the time to do what you are asking them to do. You need to make it simple so many people can react to what you are asking of them, whether that be making it a necessity rather than a want so they can afford it or making it worth their time so they will set aside time to get it done. It is important for people to put what you are asking of them on a high priority and make it necessary for them.

Second, "They Don't Want to". What you are asking of them seems uninteresting and not worth their time or efforts so they will not do it. As I said before, you must make it a priority to them so they will actually want to go out and act on the call to action. You do not want someone to look at your product or event and be uninterested by it. You want your target audience to feel like they MUST act and act now.

Third, "Nobody asked them". Make your call to action fitting for your target audience. Make them feel as it they are wanted and needed. If you appeal to a tiny market, not as many people will feel targeted and not very many will act. You need to make it as broad as possible while still reaching the same target.

I really enjoyed this presentation because usually you only think of how to get people there but you do not really stop and think why they are not actually doing it. These three categories are great things to think about before you plan event or try and sell a product because if you avoid these three, you will most likely have the perfect outcome!

Summer Internship

Well I finally nailed one! After many sent emails and two interviews, I have taken a Summer internship with Ogeechee Technical College in Statesboro, GA. I am really excited about this opportunity because I will be allowed to get my feet wet in many different aspects of public relations and advertising. I am not exactly sure what my specific jobs will be but I do know that I will be writing press releases, photographing events, finding ad placements and working various events. A good thing about this internship is that we do not work on Fridays so I will be working 27 hour weeks which will equal 7 hour days, not bad! One event I am extremely excited about working is the Farmer's Market in Statesboro. It happens every Saturday in the Spring and Summer and is a great time for locals to come shop around and mingle outside. I love this part of Statesboro and it will be great that I get to work it. My boss seems very helpful and will be a great mentor so I am looking forward to working under him. Ogeechee Tech is a great school and I am excited to represent them this summer. I already have purchased some cute internship outfits so now I am really excited! For more information on Ogeechee Technical College click here!

Chick-Fil-A Spirit Day!

The Gamma Sigma Chapter of Phi Mu Fraternity hosted a Chick-Fil-A Spirit Day in Milledgeville, GA to raise money for the Children's Miracle Network. It was a WONDERFUL success bringing in over $700 for CMN! We got to keep 10% of all receipts collected at Chick-Fil-A that day. Our girls worked shifts from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and collected receipts, bussed tables, refilled drinks, opened doors and danced by the road to generate traffic. We had a table in the corner of the restaurant where people could drop their receipts or give a donation, we also had glass jars at the registers, and we also had girls by the drive-thru window grabbing receipts from those people. We had so many generous people visit our table and we also collected donations. To promote this event we made a Facebook group and I designed this lovely picture shown as the promotion picture. We all changed our default pictures to this picture on Monday. We made flyers and 1/4 sheets to pass out at a table by the A & S Fountain on Monday. We also stuck flyers on cars (not a good idea GCSU was not happy). We personally invited each member of Panhellenic to come as a Greek Sisterhood Night between 6:30 and 8:30. We had many girls from other sororities come and support us and we are so thankful for that! The Marketing Director of Chick-Fil-A was very proud of us and wants us to do another Spirit Day in the future. CMN is such a wonderful organization so it was easy to get people excited about giving to it. Thank you to everyone who came out and supported Phi Mu and the

Children's Miracle Network!

ShopLocalMilledgeville.com

On Saturday, March 13th my public relations group consisting of me, Courtney and Cara, set up a booth in the Milledgeville Mall to promote Digital Bridges' new venture, www.shoplocalmilledgeville.com. We arrived at 9 a.m. and set up a very professional looking table that enticed others to come and see what was going on. The event ended around 5 p.m.. We made promotional material to distribute such as flyers and posters and also had an interactive game for people to play. We filled a glass jar with pennies that represented the number of local businesses in Milledgeville and had people guess how many local businesses they thought were in Milledgeville. We had a little over 20 people play the game and in return they received a Chick-fil-a coupon. We also had the people fill out a survey of what they did and did not like about shopping in Milledgeville. Of course we had candy on our table which helped entice people in and keep them there. Over all I believe it was a very successful event. We talked to many people and really promoted the new website. Everyone seemed interested and I think that once the website gets up and going it will be very beneficial to everyone in the Milledgeville-Baldwin County area. Digital Bridges has a lot to work with from our group and will be able to keep this project successful. Our group did an awesome job and achieved our goal.

Phi Mu Fraternity Celebrates 158 years of sisterhood

The ladies of Phi Mu Fraternity at Georgia College and State University celebrated their National Founders Day on March 4, 2010.

The Gamma Sigma Chapter of Phi Mu began the celebration by supporting National Badge Day on Monday and wearing pink to campus followed by a Founders Day Ceremony, "Pink & Pearls", with the local Milledgeville Alumnae Chapter. With old stories and dessert, these women were able to bond over many generations of sisterhood. Phi Mu is the oldest sorority at GCSU and has been on campus for 36 years.

"It was really interesting to hear what Phi Mu at GCSU was like in the past and it makes me excited for so many more memories we will get to share together," said Brenda Bryant, an active member in Phi Mu Fraternity.

On Thursday, March 4, Phi Mu hosted a Rock-A-Thon on the GCSU campus and collected spare change for their national philanthropy, The Children's Miracle Network.

Gamma Sigma President, Brooke Brookins said, "Rock-A-Thon is a creative way to benefit CMN and get the students at GCSU involved. This is our second year hosting a Rock-A-Thon and all the Phi Mu's love participating."

Phi Mu Fraternity is the second oldest secret society for women, and was founded at Wesleyan College in Macon, Ga by Mary Dupont Lines, Mary Myrick Daniel and Martha Hardaway Redding in 1852. Phi Mu has chapters across the United States and nearly 150,000 collegiate and alumnae members. Phi Mu provides personal academic development, service to others, commitment to excellence and lifelong friendships through a shared tradition. Phi Mu encourages our members to imagine, believe and achieve their aspirations.