"Darfur" Campaign a Success

Let’s look back a few months ago to January 29, 2008. This was our first meeting with The Rebecca Davis Dance Company. On February 19, 2008 PRowl Public Relations presented their plan to make the “Darfur” performance a “must-see” on Temple’s campus. Our goals were to influence our audiences to purchase tickets and attend the production; sell out the theatre on both nights; raise money for Global Grassroots, a nonprofit organization aiding the relief in Darfur, Sudan; and create a greater awareness of the genocide in Darfur. Our primary audiences were Temple students and faculty.

Three months later, PRowl Public Relations and The Rebecca Davis Dance Company can label “Darfur” a success. It took months of dedication and hard work from the RDDC account though.

We started by administering surveys in Temple’s dining halls. From these surveys we learned which audiences we needed to primarily target, which bands we should feature on promotional materials and the price of the discount tickets we would later offer. Throughout the campaign we continuously contacted student organizations, dance and theatre professors. We also sent an Eblast to schools and colleges within Temple University, spoke to classes and stuffed mailboxes with flyers.

We held a First Friday discount ticket promotion on April 4 in Old City, Philadelphia. Based on the analysis of our surveys, it was important for us to make students aware of this event. Thanks to our graphic designer, flyers were sent all around campus promoting the event. We sold 58 tickets on this night.

We created Facebook and Myspace events, spoke to dance classes, used virtual event postings and much more. We also used pitch letters and press releases to spark interest in the media. On the week of the performance, PRowl Public Relations was responsible for a feature in Temple News and a write-up in Philadelphia Weekly. We also had a successful post-performance party with the dancers and attendees of “Darfur” at Triumph Brewing Company.

Our first major campaign for a client achieved many of our set objectives. We raised hundreds of dollars for Global Grassroots, and came 3 tickets short of selling out the Wednesday night performance. For months we spread the word about this one-of-a-kind production throughout Temple’s campus, and at the performances we saw our hard work paying off - a greater number of young people at a Rebecca Davis Dance Company performance than ever before. All of the previous are important, but the most important measure of success we got was the client’s enthusiastic approval.

Congratulations PRowl PR on a job well done!