BYU's student public relations agency, Bradley Public Relations, won $1,500 after receiving top honors in a competition among other college agencies.

Bradley competed with four other colleges to come up with the best public relations plan for Netbank, an online banking service.

Netbank wanted to attract more student customers so they chose several of the top public relations chapters across the country and asked them to develop and implement their own Netbank public relations campaign, said Mark Fehlberg, a public relations representative for Netbank.

In two weeks, a Bradley team put together a proposal for a six-week public relations campaign. Netbank approved the plan and then students began implementing their ideas.

Account executive for the project and a junior from Castlerock, Colorado, Jillian Williams, said BYU was given less notice about the competition than the other schools.

We only knew for two weeks before it was due," she said. "Some of the schools knew about it since last May. But it worked out."

She learned much about how to manage people and work with clients.

"It was a lot of hard work - eight weeks of just really hard work," Williams said.

Williams said the most successful campaign idea the team implemented was putting on a tailgate party before the Homecoming game where they gave out free food and information about Netbank.

About 700 people came to the party, she said.

During the Public Relations Student Society of America conference in Salt Lake City, the team presented their verbal and written presentation to Netbank. Each group had an hour to make their presentation.

Bradley Public Relations advisor, Linda Walton, said it was the ideas the group had already implemented that won over the judges.

"They had results from it already where people had actually opened accounts," Walton said. "I think that made a big difference to them."

Mark Newman, a Netbank public relations representative who helped judge the competition, said Bradley members' creativity and professional presentation set them apart from other schools.

"They presented as well as people that have been in the business for two or three years," he said.

Syracuse, The University of Georgia, The University of Florida and Ohio State also participated in the competition.

Copyright Brigham Young University 28 Nov 2006