Caffeine bubble dreams

Humber PR is moving into the future!

A big thanks to Jenna and Zack for running Humber PR 2C's Future Camp. It really gave us a chance to strengthen our current connections with our peers and develop ways to keep them strong for the future.

Plus, it's another great excuse to hang out with the most awesome people ever!

The focus was on our future in PR. Where we want to work? What our passions are? We also created a digital time capsule (pink boas anyone) and added to the Google Doc shuffle where we could write why our colleagues were so awesome.


I hope we can stay connected over the years. And in the social media world it's easy to do so. We also vow to have bi-monthly activities for face-to-face time, in I'm going to say it HumberPR, I'm going to miss your face.

In November Roots Canada got involved in the Right to Play campaign, changing the lives of children in disadvantaged regions in the world through the power of sport and play. The official press release outlined this would be a partnership of Roots Canada, Mastercard and Right to Play.

Proceeds from the Canada Collection by Roots would go to Right to Play programs; donations were also accepted. This campaign was made most memorable by the television spots such as the following:

This commercial was very much overtaken by Mastercard, with its classic "priceless" format. Roots' involvement was briefly mentioned, although it has an entire collection dedicated to raise money for this cause. Since commercials did not scream Roots, I decided to look into other social media outlets to discover how Roots promoted its involvement in this campaign.

And then there was Twitter. Looking since Nov. 4, @RootsCanada has posted or retweeted 13 tweets mentioning the Right to Play campaign. That's 13 tweets in nearly five months. Amongst the 13 tweets, there were product suggestions, photos of favourite products, calls for donations, and photographs of Canadian collection-clad celebrities.

Roots Canada has a Facebook page with 12,912 fans; significantly more than the 2,499 followers it has on Twitter. The Facebook page is interactive with pictures, polls, and promotions. The Facebook fan page had 22 mentions by Roots Canada about the Right to Play campaign, and it was more than mentions. The posts included photos of the Canada Collection, celebrities wearing the clothing, links to the commercials, and most importantly information about the Right to Play foundation. Overall, I think Facebook was better utilized in this campaign than Twitter. Especially for the type of campaign it was, Facebook was better because it was visually dynamic. Viewers did not need to click elsewhere to be directed to videos and images.


Threat: Roots and the Right to Play campaign is in competition with every other company raising money for every other charity. It needs to step up communication on every platform to make sure people get the message. Roots is not alone in trying to make a difference in the world, and we need to know more about what makes this campaign special.

Weakness: This campaign is not cohesive over all platforms. The Roots website is the best source of information about Right to Play and the Canada Collection. Facebook is second, followed by Twitter, then by YouTube. In order to get a full picture of this campaign, you'd have to use all these channels equally to maximize viewership. The platforms are skewed in the sense, that one platform gives significantly more information than another.

Having said all this, I think Roots is a wonderful company involved in many positive initiatives including community involvement and environmental sustainability. I feel with the Right to Play campaign, Roots has been overshadowed by Mastercard, which seems to be a bigger sponsor of this campaign. But Roots is supplying the product that donates money to the foundation, therefore, I believe it should be more visible to the public.

For different takes on the Roots' Right to Play campaign, please see my colleagues Jenna's and Ali's blogs.

For Social Media class we were asked to search within ourselves, look at ourselves critically and develop an identity that we could put into words.

And so I did.

High energy meets high ambitions; a passionate young writer searching for her place in public relations.

Please view my SlideShare presentation of my brand. And remember, I always appreciate comments and suggestions.

In context: Using Deirdre Breakenridge's article PR 2.0: A Communicator's Manifesto, as well as social media experience in Social Media class, I have put together a (hopefully) comic take on the changing ways of public relations.

Find out how PR Guy saves the day for Businessman. Not once, but twice!

Can a blast from past, such as LiveJournal, still capture the interest of today's social media savvy partakers? More importantly, can LJ's free version fulfill the needs of a PR professional?


In a nutshell, LiveJournal is an online community that links people through their diaries. You can write a journal, add friends, search for other users’ journals, and join communities based on your interests.

First impression of LiveJournal? Cute. However, therein lies the problem. Blogging is a way to share our personal brand with the world; and we want to be taken seriously. Pink backgrounds and bouncy kitty emoticons will not do.


LiveJournal does connect to more popular social networking outlets, like Facebook, as well as utilizes your cell phone. This is pretty cool seems like a game of catch-up, for an online community that is already 10 years old.

I leave you with three LiveJournal fails:

• In exploring LJ for the purpose of this review, I landed here. Somehow, my journal account directs me to Russian LiveJournal on certain links. I don't know how to change this; I can't read it to find the English button. (LiveJournal is now owned by Russian company, SUP, run by LiveJournal Inc.)


• LJ allows you to create a ScrapBook to store online pictures. Why use ScrapBook? I’m still unsure. I investigated and clicked through journals at random, hoping to find the answer. None of them used ScrapBook; I’m sure no one uses it I didn’t use a good representative sample.


• Finally, the text everywhere on LJ tells me to upgrade to a paid account. Even while signing up I was informed that LiveJournal is better if you pay for it. It's frustrating not to be able to access certain features, like browsing communities by region.

Maybe that’s the main problem. LiveJournal becomes the community you want if you dish out the $19.95/year for a paid membership. So I will never know what treasures lie within.

I suspect with more customization options, LiveJournal can probably become more useful to a PR professional, perhaps for community-building purposes or networking. But generally, LJ is pretty dated; there's too many blogging options available now. LiveJournal started out as a source of entertainment, and I think entertainment it will stay.

I wish LiveJournal a happy 10th birthday and give it 2 out of 5 bouncy kitty heads.




Please see Aasana's blog on a different take of LiveJournal.