Passionate Student Seeks to Make a Difference

Taylor Crumpton is not your average joe college student. Taylor, a junior social work major at ACU, has been granted many opportunities and unique experiences during her time at school. She is a student with passion who pursues these passions to make a difference in the world and in her community.

Taylor is most passionate about the achievement of basic human rights and dignity for all people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic lines, or country of origin.

Making a Difference in the World

Taylor is currently a Young People for Under the People (YP4) for the American Way Foundation. She explains that YP4 educates and trains millennials to create sustainable social change in their communities. Within this fellowship, she is in the Votes and Courts Cohort. The Vote Cohort requires Taylor to complete a voting education or registration drive on her (ACU) campus. The Courts Cohort allowed Taylor the opportunity to submit an amicus brief for the Whole Women’s Case which was heard at the Supreme Court in March.

Through YP4, Taylor was granted a huge opportunity to make a difference for what she is passionate about. She explains that she was able to advocate on behalf of the 5.4 million women of reproductive age in Texas at the steps of the Supreme Court. Through her speech she was able to show that young people, including young people of color, have a voice in reproductive rights.

“I was honored to be able to share my personal experience as a young woman of color in Texas who witnessed the harmful effects of HB2 that shut down over half of our state’s abortion clinics, which negatively impacted low socioeconomic and immigrant communities,” Taylor said. “I’m thankful to my fellowship for helping my voice be heard. It was a life changing experience and I hope individuals and communities took notice of the power that young people have.”

Involvement on Campus

Aside from Taylor’s responsibilities and involvement with the American Way Foundation, she also remains extremely involved with on campus affairs and associations.

At ACU, Taylor is the Vice President of ACU College Democrats, the Justice Week Community Organizer, and the Student Leader for ACU Feminists. She also held the position of Service and Activism Representative for Student’s Association.

Through partnerships with faculty, Taylor was granted the unique opportunity of conducting research over the intersections of race and politics, presenting that research at a conference.

“Through my advocacy and activism on campus, I’ve been able to have conversations with faculty and staff about how our campus is going to adapt to these social issues currently in our society, like creating safe spaces for LGBT students,” Taylor said.

The role ACU plays

Taylor explains that ACU has encouraged her to speak for the voiceless and care for all of God’s children, just as Christ did. “My faith is the foundation for my advocacy efforts and I’m grateful to have the foundation to be enriched at ACU,” said Taylor.

Being apart of a Christ-filled environment is a blessing for Taylor because she knows everyone is going to treat her with love and respect.

“It’s something I’m going to miss when I graduate because there’s no greater sense of home and community than being surrounded by a Christian community,” she says.

Goals for the Future

After graduation, Taylor plans on obtaining a dual degree in Master’s of Social Work and Public Policy. After obtaining her degrees, she plans on working for a think tank in Washington, DC. Taylor then plans to go to law school, eventually working for congress.

Using Social Media as a Learning Tool

During Dr. Bacon’s PR writing class on Thursday, our class had the opportunity of Skyping with ACU alum, Nathan MacDonald, about his professional career. Nathan currently lives in Seattle, Washington where he is the Marketing manager and handles college relations at Edmonds Community College. Nathan explained to us what it is like to be the marketing and PR professional for the college he works at. Along with explaining his job to us, he discussed the importance of social media in both his career and personal life.

During graduate school, Nathan started a successful blog about his weight loss journey. Nathan has now lost over 100 pounds and continues to post to his blog. Along with keeping up with a successful blog, Nathan keeps up with all his personal social media accounts.

After our skype session with Nathan, Dr. Bacon encouraged our class to follow him on social media and friend him on Facebook. After friending him on Facebook, I discovered that most of Nathan’s posts to his personal account have to do with his career. From Tweeting about Delta Airline’s poor Twitter replies, to posting about MIT’s creative college admissions video, Nathan has a very strong social media presence.

I have learned a lot through Nathan and his social media/ blog accounts. I hope to continue following career related accounts and creative blogs in order to build a strong, professional social media presence.

Another Brand Launches Female-Empowerment Campaign

The trend in female-empowerment through advertising has become a recent sensation for many brands. Some examples of these brand campaigns include: Dove Evolution and Sketches campaign, Always Like a Girl campaign, and Verizon Inspire Her Mind campaign. Neutrogena is the next brand to hop on this bandwagon with its global campaign that promotes women to “see what’s possible.” The spokesperson and famous female actress, Kerry Washington, urges women to look in the mirror and believe that anything is possible from career related, creative, and physical success.

This is the first time that Neutrogena has launched a campaign, let alone a non-product promotion focused advertisement. This campaign, however, promotes both the brand products and the message of empowering women. It promotes the products by showing women the value of what they see in the mirror as a result of using Neutrogena products, while also showing women all the possibilities they are capable of in their life.

Neutrogena is known for being one of the best selling skincare brands in the U.S. along with bestselling lotion and sun-care products in other countries. Neutrogena launched this campaign partly in attempts to unify their brand and products from country to country.

Apart from this commercial, the campaign will feature different famous women sharing their stories through online videos that will be posted to social media and Neutrogena’s website. The campaign will also feature beauty vlolggers sharing inspiration advice through YouTube.

As we enter the age of feminism, I believe this campaign will be very successful for Neutrogena.

Chevrolet Takes Advantage of Facebook’s New Reaction Buttons

Facebook’s new reaction buttons have everyone talking lately. If you haven’t heard about Facebook’s new update that allows users to choose an emoji besides the “thumbs up” like button to express their feelings toward a post, then you must live under a rock. The new reaction buttons include emojis to represent “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad” and “angry.”

Chevrolet decided to take advantage of this new update by incorporating Facebook’s new reaction buttons into their online commercial for the all-new 2016 Malibu. The beginning of the commercial shows a computer screen typing out, “It’s time to Love.” The commercial shows segments of viral, emotional, funny and sentimental Facebook posts as users go through and like the posts. The narrator explains how we have become a nation of “likers” and that we “like” even though we wish we could do more. The narrator then proceeds to say, “Chevrolet looked out into a sea of likes and thought the time was right to love.” The commercial introduces the new Malibu and explains that it is time to start loving by using the new “love” reaction button on Facebook.

I think Chevrolet did a great job of using this opportunity to create an online commercial that will get people talking. Chevrolet posted the commercial to Facebook and received a large amount of engagement from users by getting more than just “likes.” By using this timely and significant social media update to promote their product through a commercial posted to Facebook, Chevy successfully increased engagement and created awareness.

Chipotle Uses Social Media Agency

As many know, Chipotle experienced an E. Coli outbreak linked to several of their restaurants in 2015. This was shocking news considering the healthy image the brand has worked so hard to uphold. The few commercials that Chipotle produced in the past have all been focused on freshness and non-processed foods. Chipotle promotes the slogan “food with integrity” throughout all restaurants and social media. The company’s communication strategy about the issue at hand was very slow at first. Their website and social media accounts did not address the issue until much later than they should have. Keeping quiet about this serious issue harmed Chipotle’s sales. Chipotle is a prime example for bad crisis management.

However, the company has recently hired Carrot Creative as their first social media agency. Hiring a social agency is a smart move for Chipotle at this time as they try to move past their food safety scares, which have dropped sales and business for the company. Since hiring Carrot Creative, Chipotle has released a long apology letter in many newspapers as well as posting a link of the letter to Twitter. Carrot announced, however, that they will “not be reactive” to their duties of doing work around the recent E. coli outbreak.

Chipotle’s main reason for wanting to hire a social agency is to support their “lean internal team” as well as helping the brand accomplish new and improved plans they have for the upcoming year. Though Chipotle has been focused on promoting themselves through and in their restaurants in the past, they hope to keep up and be relevant with their audience by becoming more social media oriented.

Super Bowl Ads Spark Conversation

In the wake of the super bowl, the topic of conversation remains on the super bowl commercials. USA Today’s Ad Meter rated Hyundai as number one for the best Super Bowl ad of 2016. This is the first time in decades that an automaker has taken the lead over major companies such as the beer and food industry.

In this humorous commercial, comedian Kevin Heart plays the role of an overprotective father of a teenage daughter. His daughter is picked up at the door for a date and Heart throws his car keys to the boy graciously offering for him drive his new car on the date. The Hyundai Genesis luxury car comes equipped with a tracking device so Heart can keep tabs on them. He shows up throughout the night, making himself known to the boy, unbeknownst to his daughter. The boy eventually gives up on the date and takes the girl home while Heart feels accomplished with himself, greeting the couple at the door.

I think this commercial came in at number one because of the humorous aspect of it along with the story line. Unlike the majority of last year’s Super Bowl ads, which were more of a somber and emotional tone, I think Super Bowl watchers this year were relieved to see more humorous ads.

A Super Bowl ad that did not rank so well on the Ad Meter, however, was Mountain Dew’s Puppymonkeybaby commercial. This commercial showed a creature that had human baby legs, a monkey body, and a puppy head chanting, “puppymonkeybaby” while dancing around with the new can of Mountain Dew. The new Mountain Dew that was being advertised in this commercial is dew, juice, and caffeine combined. At the end of this ad, the commercial quoted, “three awesome things combined,” which explains the puppymonkeybaby creature.

Most viewers found this ad to be creepy and weird, which is why it ranked so low on the Ad Meter. However, this commercial got people talking, which accomplished Mountain Dew’s goal of brand recognition.