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Odyssey 2013
Journalism students plot Grand plan
As part of a class project, two groups of journalism students at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh were given a real-life client — The Grand Opera House. Their task? Figure out how to attract college students to the restored Victorian theater, which has been an arts and entertainment hub in downtown Oshkosh since the late 19th century.
The first group, taught by Sara Steffes Hansen, took the Research and Strategic Communication class in fall 2009. In this class, they conducted research on who exactly is coming to The Grand. Through focus groups and online surveys, the students learned that The Grand’s primary audience skewed to a crowd either younger or older than the college-age group.
Students in the second group took Strategic Campaigns in Advertising, which was taught by journalism adjunct instructor Dana Baumgart in spring 2010. These students took the first group’s findings and used them to generate advertising and marketing methods that would draw an audience like themselves — college students.
