A Dickens of a Job : OCC Students Get to Do British PR Campaign

The class is unusual.

And so is the way it all started, recalled Don Jacobs, a journalism and public relations teacher at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

“I was in Paris this summer for a school there,” he said. “One afternoon I was standing in a bar at my hotel, and this short guy next to me asked me what kind of work I do. I told him I teach public relations. ‘Oh,’ said the man, ‘then maybe you can get your class to do some promotional planning for my building. I’ve tried others, but they come up with the same old ideas.’ ”

The man who struck up the conversation with Jacobs was Samuel Morris, a wealthy Englishman whose company bought the historic, but derelict, Royal Agricultural Hall in London. Built in 1861 during Queen Victoria’s heyday, the huge (200,000-square-foot) building was once used for agricultural shows and sporting events. Over the years, it fell into disrepair, but Morris is spending about $15 million to renovate it and convert it into a vast commercial exhibition hall to be called the “Business Design Centre.”

“I wasn’t sure he was for real until Sam (Morris) sent me a videotape of the project,” said Jacobs. “It’s an interesting thing, and so I got some of my best students from the three public relations classes I teach, and we’ve been meeting once a week to work on this promotion plan.”

The students and professor don’t get paid for their work. “But I’m asking Sam to give them certificates, or something like that, so the students can put them in their public relations portfolios,” said Jacobs.

On Tuesday, Jacobs huddled with some of the public relations students as they discussed work they had already sent Morris in London and work still in progress. The work already completed is a preliminary promotion plan for the overall project. “He really liked it,” said Jacobs.

The work in progress involves brainstorming about how the design center can best use a one-acre plot, which is now barren ground, in front of the renovated exhibition hall.

Jacobs sat in a semicircle with his students, encouraging suggestions.

“I think we should have a yearlong calendar of events they (the design center’s management) could choose from,” said Beverly Bennett, a student from Costa Mesa.

“Maybe we could use some (figures of) little elves in a garden, such as they have in a place in Vancouver I saw,” suggested Chihiro Aber, a student from Anaheim.

“In the winter the place could be used by strolling groups, such as carolers and characters from Dickens’ stories,” said Susan Aarchambeau, a student from Costa Mesa.

Jacobs noted that Charles Dickens figures in promotion plans for the exhibition hall and its forecourt “because we found out that the place is just about where Dickens was born.”

In pursuit of the Dickens theme, Bennett told the class that she had recently called the British Consulate in Los Angeles. Consular officials had steered her to Dickens groups in Massachusetts, and they in turn gave her information about counterpart groups in California, she said.

“I think a Dickens festival in the forecourt is a possibility,” responded Jacobs. “If we worked it correctly, we could get American participation involved.”

Jacobs said the students must design outdoor promotions “because the owner wants people to come to the building but not go inside--the inside is for the use of the business shows.”

After more discussion by various class members, a consensus was reached that they needed some advice from an architect. “I’ll invite Art Martinez to come meet with us,” said Jacobs, referring to the former OCC acting president who’s also a professor of architecture.

Hope to Visit London

“This will be our last class for this semester,” Jacobs added. “But we’ll resume next semester.”

The students said they hope someday to visit London and see the famous building they’re now involved with.

“This is a challenge,” said Bennett, of the unusual class. “I’ve never done anything like this in my life.”

Said Aber: “I think it’s kind of exciting. It’s not every day that students in college get to do something like this.”

The students noted that one of their ideas has already been adopted. The old Royal Agricultural Hall, they had written Morris, has long been popularly known as “The Aggie” to everyday Londoners. So why not keep that popular name, in addition to the more formal “Business Design Center.”

Morris agreed, Jacobs said, adding that Morris also liked the class’s suggestion that “Aggie” be personified in a promotional campaign.

In their initial report, the class wrote the London owners this bit of advice:

“Consider ‘Aggie.’ She has a very identifiable personality. She is regal and was once one of the most fashionable and sought-after ladies in the city. . . . Now Aggie is making a comeback. . . . We see Aggie quite clearly as stately in bearing, dignified, with a reserve that appears slightly controlled, as though she is keeping in rein a sense of humor. She would always be dressed to the utmost.”

Jacobs said the special group of students is putting to practical use all the public relations skills they learn in more formal classes.

“This is good experience for them,” he said. “I’m hoping some companies here (in Orange County) will ask us to do the same kind of promotional planning for them.”

Added Bennett, with a grin: “Our price is right.”