By Briagenn Adams
The 2014 Scripps PRSSA Bateman team has been hard at work during the month of February, actively implementing its “yOUr Payment Solution” spring break campaign to promote this year’s client, Popmoney.
The Bateman Case Study Competition is PRSSA’s premier national case study competition for public relations students that gives participants the opportunity to apply classroom education and internship experience to create and implement a full public relations campaign. This year, PRSSA partnered with Fiserv, Inc., a global provider of financial services technology services, and asked Bateman participants to promote Fiserv’s person-to-person mobile money transfer application, Popmoney.
This was Scripps PRSSA’s second experience with the Bateman Competition, and the official 2014 Bateman team was announced in late fall of 2013: Cidnye Weimer became the Campaign Director, Allison Evans the Creative Director, Briagenn Adams became the Director of Communications, Ali Cupelli the Director of Social Media and Sarah Rachul became the Director of Operations and Special Events. Immediately, the planning process began. 
Because Ohio University’s spring break falls the first week in March, the Bateman team decided to focus its entire campaign around the popular college vacation. Spring break is a time when the majority of college students venture south for a week, splitting gas money and paying hotel deposits. Because it has the potential to cause a financial burden, Popmoney became the perfect payment solution to ease spring break planning.
Unlike Scripps PRSSA’s previous client for the “Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Youth Bullying” Bateman Competition in 2013, Popmoney is an existing enterprise with corporate responsibilities. As such, the Scripps PRSSA Bateman team had to treat the company as a real-life client, and had to seek approval for all aspects of the campaign prior to implementation. Although frustrating at times, that additional challenge gave the Bateman team a chance to experience the authenticity of client communications and agency life.
In 28 days, the 2014 Scripps PRSSA Bateman team was able to pull off an exceptional “yOUr Payment Solution” campaign. After copious amounts of primary and secondary research, the Scripps PRSSA Bateman team planned and executed two major events, one innovative social media promotion and a strategically traditional media placement. The “yOUr Payment Solution” campaign generated over 200,000 impressions and resulted in approximately 180 downloads of the application, Popmoney.