For this assignment, students were tasked to create an original news release about a partnership between Trader Joe’s Grocery Stores and the Emergency Family Assistance Association. Each student was to devise a way to connect the two organizations and reach out to a reporter to promote this story.

Based on the organizations’ individual goals and messages, I decided to set the release date for this event in conjunction with Thanksgiving given the stress of the holiday season and the financial burden it can have on families. This will hopefully help generate attention for both of these organizations with these two programs.

I chose Amber Carlson for this piece because of her past work and the way she writes empathetically about impoverished communities in and around Boulder. Amber Carlson is a native Coloradan who has spent the majority of the past year at the Boulder Daily Camera covering pressing issues for Boulder residents.  She primarily covers the City Council and its members, but she covers them in a way that explores their effect on the community.  Aside from her reporting on local politics, Carlson does a variety of work with community projects like walks for Alzheimer's awareness and addressing homelessness in Boulder.  In the article linked below, she discusses various social programs that the City Council manages.  Based on this article and others like it, her readers would be interested in this partnership as they will likely be familiar with other government-funded social programs that are the subject of her reporting. 

 Boulder City Council discusses homelessness services, day services center delay.

For this assignment, students were tasked with creating social media posts for a particular brand. Given my experience with the brand for the previous assignment, I chose Trader Joe’s for this project.

Trader Joe’s is an amazing grocery store for single people because it provides healthy portioned meals, which is a financially conscious way for single people to cook with healthy meals.

For my campaign, I decided to focus on Friendsgiving, which is a special occasion where friends come together to share a meal either on or near Thanksgiving. This event is particularly important because it gives recognition and appreciation to those individuals who may not have the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with their families.

I chose several food influencers who are either single or without children to prepare one dish and host a virtual #Friendsgiving, so they would hopefully see themselves in these influencers.

The ad focuses on affordable luxury, targeting the 18 to 34-year-old female market, because in the past four years, there has been a new commitment to the availability of self-care-related bathroom and beauty products. The main goal of this ad is to create a new audience for Barbasol as they mostly have male customers. Women within this specific age group have a myriad of products offered to them daily. From at-home waxing kits to self-tanning products, women are encouraged to take the spa experience to the comfort of their own homes. This is the ideal age group of women to encourage to try more beauty products particularly, particularly if they are reliable brands. They have some available income for indulging personal needs but remain conservative in spending. The rebranding of Barbosol as a product for women to have that affordable luxury at home would help sell it to this demographic.

For this assignment, students were asked to create a business analysis for leadership for the 2024 year about how to communicate with Gen Z. I decided to research how Gen Z is overstimulated with constant ads how they crave authentic communication from people they follow, and how that could translate for a brand. I chose Levi’s because of their return to this rugged authentic style that is essential to their brand voice. Levi’s have lasted over 150 years and a return to this authentic style will help keep their success for years to come.