Kristin Moffitt

PESO Messaging Assignment

NBCUniversal will enact a community-based initiative, “Writing Together,” to bring film and TV

writing workshops to high school students in underprivileged areas. For many students in these

communities, their schools do not offer extensive arts programs such as TV and film production. Our

workshops will help them to explore the entertainment field and teach them writing skills that will spark

interest in future writing careers. This initiative will require the collaboration of several NBCUniversal

owned studios, including DreamWorks, NBC News, NBC Sports and Universal Television. Through this

effort, workshops with different sessions for film, news, sports and TV writing will be developed.

Students will attend each session, allowing them to gain writing skills that can be applied to each sector. It

is crucial that NBCUniversal reaches its target audiences of school administrators, parents and

prospective student attendees. This can be done with the PESO model.

There are several different kinds of media used by our target audiences that will be useful in

sharing information with them. Both of NBCUniversal’s target audiences utilize online and print news

outlets, social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and television as their main media sources. We

must effectively reach these audiences through these forms of media. Our language for each audience will

be slightly different in some areas. For administrators, the language used will lean towards a formal tone,

as we are requesting for them to open the doors of their institution for our workshops. In contrast, we will

reach parents and prospective student attendees in participating school districts with more casual and

informational language. This easily digestible presentation will help to spread the word about the

programs and increase interest. For both audiences, the central message for our initiative is allowing

students to “engage in and explore” writing for entertainment. In addition, we will incorporate images that

show real people engaged in the work we are doing. We will show the faces of our representatives

running our programs while they are working with students in a practice-workshop setting. This will be an

accurate representation of what the workshops are like in real communities. These messages will look

slightly different across the different PESO media channels we plan to use.
 Paid media will allow us to reach our target audiences through channels we do not own. To reach

school administrators through paid media channels, we will allot for paid internet advertisements in our

budget. These may be targeted for users of online educational outlets and journals. Advertisements will

include the title of our program and phrases such as “allow your students to engage in and explore writing

for the entertainment industry” and “learn more about our free workshops.” They will also include a link

to an informational area on our website for administrators to learn more. Here, they can sign up to be

contacted about setting up a workshop in their district. Once they contact us, we will be able to filter

through the districts and find out where in the nation arts and writing programs are lacking. This brief yet

intriguing language will engage administrators and implore them to participate. For our target audience

of parents and students, NBCUniversal plans to utilize paid social media advertising. This can be targeted

for groups of certain ages and demographics (adults with children and students ages 14 to 18) and

advertised on film and television-themed social media pages. These advertisements will use language

such as “explore the writing field as a student” and “learn more about our programs.” They will also

include links to an informational area on our website curated for parents and students to learn more about

the workshops and to see if their high school is participating. These messages are appropriate for paid

media channels because they engage the viewer and encourage them to interact with the advertisement.

The next step in engaging our audiences through the PESO model is utilizing earned media.

NBCUniversal plans to do this through news releases that online and print media publications can report

on. These releases will be shared with both scholastic journals and national and local news outlets in order

to reach school administrators, parents and students. Our first round of news releases will be targeted

towards school administrators, incorporating information about the writing workshops and how to bring

them to schools. This round will be more formal and issued to national news organizations to gain broad

coverage. These news releases will contain basic information about the workshops, using language such

as “writing workshops to engage underprivileged students” and “film, new, sports and TV writing

exploration opportunities” will allow us to present our initiative in a clear and consistent manner. We want

these releases to prompt administrators to contact NBCUniversal, so they must also contain clear

information on how to get in touch with us. Phrases such as “find information on how to bring workshops
to your school at www.NBCUniversal.com/writingworkshops” will show administrators the first action

they must take. Such direct messages are appealing to this audience. NBCUniversal’s next round of news

releases will come when schools around the country are scheduled to have workshops in their districts.

Here, NBCUniversal’s target audience becomes parents and students. Our news releases will be issued to

local news outlets and provide information on participating schools. Phrases such as “Orangetown High

School to host entertainment writing workshops for high school students” will make the location and

availability of the programs clear. In addition, language that encourages viewers to visit the tab on our

website will allow students and parents to learn more and sign up. These messages are fitting for the

“earned” media channel because they provide journalists with basic information about the workshops that

can be shared with the public in online, print and televised news media.

The next sector of the PESO model is shared media. NBCUniversal will utilize this channel

through its social media accounts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Graphics, images and comments

will be curated to appeal to different audiences. For example, consistently-themed posts will be shared on

each platform. The appearance of these graphics will have purple and white lettering (the official colors of

NBCUniversal) and feature a logo for the Writing Together initiative. This will make the posts

recognizable across the platforms and provide for a consistent campaign. For posts targeted towards

school administrators, more formal language will be utilized. The content of these posts will be similar to

those of our paid social media advertisements. The only difference is that our company-specific accounts

will be posting these. The same is true for posts targeted towards parents and students – they will be

informational and invite students to visit NBCUniversal’s website to sign up for workshops in their area.

The majority of these posts will also feature accompanying images, such as those mentioned before. We

will showcase our company writers and representatives who will be running the workshops engaging with

real students. This will provide the audience with a true look into what the program will be like.

NBCUniversal’s social media accounts are main channels for shared media. They will be effective in

bringing in participants because viewers will have already expressed interest in NBCUniversal and the

work that we do.

 Lastly, NBCUniversal will utilize owned media to reach its audiences. In addition to the efforts

for our owned social media pages, we will utilize our website and newsletter as a “free” method of

spreading the word about our writing workshops. Our website, which viewers of advertisements will be

directed to, will feature a tab with information about Writing Together. There will be a section for school

administrators and a section for parents and students who are interested in the program. Additionally,

NBCUniversal’s weekly newsletter will have informational sections about the workshops. For the early

stages of our initiative, these will be targeted to administrators who can bring in the workshops. For the

later stages, they will share information about sign ups and workshop locations. This will be effective

because those viewing this content will have likely already expressed interest in the workshops or

NBCUniversal as a whole.

The messages expressed here through the four sectors of the PESO model will work together to

help NBCUniversal achieve its goal of bringing writing workshops to students in underprivileged

communities. Paid, earned and shared media efforts will display valuable information about our

workshops, and more importantly direct viewers to our owned outlets. Once on our website, interested

members of our target audience will be presented with the content they need to participate in our

initiative. This broad to centralized approach will ensure that NBCUniversal reaches viewers on different

platforms while eventually bringing them together for a streamlined presentation of information on our

website.

NBCUniversal believes that its messaging will be successful because we are utilizing a targeted

approach to reach our appropriate audiences. We will have our information shared on a variety of

platforms – print and online news outlets, television reports, social media and our own website. Through

all of these methods, our curated content will reach school administrators and parents and prospective

student attendees. Because of the PESO model tactics, NBCUniversal’s Writing Together

community-based initiative will be able to give underprivileged students the chance to explore the

entertainment writing field.