Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Bateman, Aging and Public Relations

For the last 23 years, the Bateman Case Study Competition has given members of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) the opportunity to demonstrate their public relations and problem-solving skills. In the coming months, students from around the country will research, develop, implement and evaluate a public relations campaign for the National Family Caregivers Association (NFCA) and the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC).

This year’s campaign, entitled “Family Caregiving…It’s not all up to you,” is a national public awareness campaign to promote family caregivers to acknowledge their role and seek available assistance. Family caregivers are failing to self-identify their roles, which could adversely affect their health. More than 50 million people fall under the "unpaid family caregiver" status, and as the baby boomer population ages, that number could skyrocket.

Family caregiving is just one of countless issues emerging in our aging society that may affect public relations and integrated marketing communications. Will generational marketing, aging and Baby Boomer specific campaigns become a dominant trend in the public relations world? Fleishman-Hillard must think so. It recently launched FH Boom, a marketing and public relations practice exclusively focused on the Boomer generation.