On Thursday, a team of Fox Sports South representatives returned to North Carolina for the final presentations of a public relations campaigns class taught by Professor Livis Freeman.
Freeman’s students in MEJO 634 collaborated with Fox Sports South this semester as part of the Fox Sports University program. The students were tasked with creating a campaign to help bring further engagement to the company’s Instagram platform as a way to better connect with different audiences. Five different groups presented, with each group getting six to eight minutes for the visual presentation.
The students presented to a team that included Jeff Genthner, the general manager of Fox Sports South, Rolanda Gaines, the head of marketing and communications, Cory McCartney, the digital content manager, Caroline Youngs, the digital sales planner and Cati Hance, the associate manager of strategic partnerships. Hance was appreciative of the work done by UNC students this semester while working with Fox Sports South and noted it was one of her favorite partnerships so far this year.
“They were very engaged, asked lots of questions during the semester,” Hance said. “And then Liv, the professor, was very engaged, very responsive, very communicative, as well as passionate. You can tell that from his interactions with students and with us.”
Some of the questions hoped to be answered by the projects included the feasibility of the campaign and whether or not the strategic approach worked. One thing that stood out to Youngs was the ability of the students to think outside the box with their campaigns.
“I love that they included e-sports, they included a female focus, I think those types of, I guess strategies, are not something we always think of in sports,” Youngs said. “So it’s really nice to see a different perspective.”
The group that had a strong focus in e-sports was ‘Beyond PR,' and its presentation focused on the integration of video gaming content into Fox Sports South. Specifically, the group members focused on Fortnite and NBA 2K, two popular video games that have high engagement with professional athletes and other celebrities.
Other groups focused on attacking weaknesses of Fox Sports South’s Instagram page, or finding strategies that appealed more to Generation Z and millennials. McCartney noted the importance of the company getting a different viewpoint from the younger audience.
“I think for us, it gives us a fresh perspective and allows us to take the things that we’ve done for so long and see it through somebody else’s eyes and sometimes that gives you the ability to approach things differently than you would have or had for years.” McCartney said.
