Most, if not all, graduating seniors at the University of Mississippi complete a capstone course for degree completion.  But few get to have as practical a hands-on experience as Professor Scott Fiene’s IMC 455 class.

Known as the “Campaigns Class,” it allows the professor to partner with a business, organization or nonprofit for which the students spend the semester catering an advertising campaign to help improve the entity.

“It’s a lot of real-world stuff,” Fiene said.  “It’s not only the idea of putting together the campaign and using all the skills learned in the IMC program to roll it into the campaign, but there are also things you learn about working with real clients and client management.”

This semester, the campaigns classes have partnered with Three Rivers Planning & Development, a Pontotoc-based nonprofit focusing on economic development in the local community.

The partnership has allowed students to work closely on three projects in which Three Rivers is currently involved: economic development with businesses in Pontotoc, a planned museum in Ecru and the promotion of the Tanglefoot Trail, which is a 43-mile rails-to-trail bike path that runs from New Albany to Houston.  The last of those three is the one that Professor Fiene, who is also an assistant dean for the School of Journalism and New Media, has overseen this semester.

Professor Scott Fiene discusses his experience this semester working with the IMC 455 “Campaigns Class” on a campaign for the local Tanglefoot Trail.

The IMC program landed on the project with the help of M Partner, a community partnership program chartered in 2018 by then-Chancellor Vitter, as well as the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement.  The McLean Institute is a university entity that works to “support and increase community engagement throughout the state and with local communities.”

“The McLean Institute has a relationship with Three Rivers Planning & Development, and in conversations with them, I realized that one of the things they wanted help with was promoting the Tanglefoot Trail.  So, I talked with the folks at Three Rivers, and that’s how we got (the partnership),” Fiene said.  “It’s kind of cool to be able to work with an entity that has a bigger relationship with the university.”

Fiene split his class of 10 students up into two teams of five.  He said he has found five to be the “magic number” when it comes to students effectively working together on the campaign.

One of the teams, which calls itself Kudzu Interactive, assembled a 27-page Campaign Booklet outlining campaign objectives, analyses and research, culminating with the “the big idea” – establishing a brand on the idea of “Seven Towns. One Home.”  This is a reference to the seven communities located along the trail (New Albany, Ingomar, Ecru, Pontotoc, Algoma, New Houlka and Houston).  

In addition to the extensive booklet, the team also developed a brochure mockup for the trail, featuring mile data and a map, as well as a template for each town to highlight itself on its own page.  The idea was to create a more uniform identity for the towns connected by the trail.

On April 27, the class will present its campaigns to Three Rivers and GM&O Rails-to-Trails, which is the governing body of the Tanglefoot.

“We have to make sure we make a good brand impression with Three Rivers.”  Fiene said.  “This is not just ‘what’s in your campaign,’ but it’s the ability to get up in front of the client and really sell your campaign and your ideas.”

From the two teams, Three Rivers and GM&O will get two distinct presentations from the students, and it is then up to them to decide how best to implement the students’ ideas.  Fiene said that while students are not usually part of the follow-up execution of ideas, partners in the past have hired students as interns to help make the class’s ideas a reality.

Working with the local trail has been rewarding for the students to be able to visit the trail and see how its ideas can have an impact on the communities along it.  Fiene visits the Tanglefoot multiple times a week and has taken his students to it on weekends, talking to local business owners and some residents that live nearby.

The official trail map marks the 43-mile trail that runs from Houston to New Albany.

“It’s just a lot of fun.  It’s a great recreational trail, and the students that have been able to be there and see it have really realized the impact this can have on the communities that (the trail runs through).  It feels good to work on a project that you know is going to have some good on the community,” Fiene said.

While the campaigns class has partnered with national and even international corporations in the past, Fiene compared this project to one from several years ago, when his students worked with the Water Valley Main Street Association to promote economic development in that town.  

Two previous classes worked with HottyToddy.com, an online media outlet housed in the School of Journalism, to grow readership and expand advertising revenues, respectively.  Some of the larger clients have been Ethiopian Airlines, an international airline that had an existing relationship with the university and was looking to expand beyond its five “hub” cities that it flew in and out of in the U.S., and a retirement community in Oklahoma.

Fiene’s Spring 2019 Campaigns Class worked with Ethiopian Airlines and was able to travel to Africa as a result. The campaign focused on helping the airline appeal to U.S. passengers.

Fiene, who teaches IMC 104, which is usually the first class an IMC major takes, and the campaigns class, usually the last, said one of the most rewarding things about being a professor is seeing that transformation from the beginning to the end of the IMC program.

“It’s easy to see (their maturation),” Fiene said.  “It is very rewarding and a lot of fun to see the students grow and progress like that.”