Loyola’s Bateman Team has every right to brag after two consecutive first-place wins, but they found there is a greater reward.

“It wasn’t so much that we won twice in a row, it was about reaching the audience,” said participant, Ashley Sutton, A’09. “It was about giving an education.”

The team, which consisted of Sutton and fellow public relations students Janine Sheedy, A’09, Heather Miranne, mass communication junior, Sarah Mackota A’09 and Vicki Voelker, A’09, competed against 76 other universities around the country in the Public Relations Student Society of America’s annual Bateman Case Study Competition.

On May 15, the team was awarded first place in the competition.

For the competition, the team had to create a public relations campaign for a non-profit organization.

This year, they worked with the Consumer Bankers Association to encourage college awareness for public high school students.

The students created the campaign “The Bling Starts Here,” which emphasized the link between attending college and maximizing earning potential.

They held workshops at Warren Easton High School, Cohen High School and St. Bernard Middle School to communicate their message.

“They worked really hard to figure out how to communicate with a very difficult audience,” said Cathy Rogers, public relations professor and adviser for the Bateman team.

“They took some real risks that they felt confident would help them reach their audience,” Rogers said.

The campaign included college funding information sessions for parents and a mentoring day for select high school students. The team was also able to get coverage on several, local TV stations.

In May, the Loyola team was chosen along with teams from University of Maryland and Michigan State University from 77 entries to present their campaign in Washington, D.C.

There, they were given 30 minutes to address a panel of judges consisting of PRSSA and Consumer Bankers Association members.

It was a challenge, Sutton noted, to discuss the entire campaign in that time, especially with a title like “The Bling Starts Here.”

“It kind of has a negative connotation, but we wanted to stress that’s how we got (the students’) attention,” Sutton said.

Sutton recalled the words of a judge from the Consumer Bankers Association to the team after they were chosen as the first-place winners on May 15.

“She told us, ‘You guys really showed us what is going on the streets, because we’re bankers and we don’t always know,'” she said.

For Rogers, the award is a great accomplishment for the team, but she also recognized that more help needs to be given to the students.

“It’s just so hard to watch the inequality,” she said. “It is overwhelming to think about how to serve these kids’ needs.”

Masako Hirsch can be reached at [email protected]