echo Written by Lavanya Balakrishnan
Edited by Ms. Amanda and Varshini Vijayakumar
Following many other successful campaigns hosted by the second year, Public Relations and Corporate Communications students of BA Hons Communication, the Department of Communication and Liberal Arts (DCLA), School of Arts proudly presented beYOUtiful Campaign this time around. The nature of the campaign takes the form of awareness to appreciate oneself better and to break barriers of low self esteem. The aim of beYOUtiful campaign is to create awareness and motivate students and staff of Sunway College and Sunway University to practice self love and acceptance.
The primary suggestion towards the audience throughout the campaign is to ‘be yourself’ and not to live fulfilling other people’s expectations. The duration of the entire campaign lasted for over a month and a half, from 12th April 2018 to 1st June 2018. The promotional activities planned was the flash mob which signaled the start of the campaign, shaking and hugging the stress away with a Noot Noot mascot and obtaining a free Nescafe bottled drink. Moreover, online contests were conducted throughout the campaign to promote the idea of self acceptance. There were four promotional online contests with different themes each week on promoting self esteem throughout the campaign duration. The first and third were Facebook contests which included: Sharing a picture of a physical feature that society deems improper and captioning the portrait by breaking that notion and writing a letter to your future self with words of encouragement. The second and fourth were Instagram contests with the aim of expressing your inner personality by uploading a picture of what inner beauty truly means to you and this contest was judged by Canon Malaysia. The contest was conducted to demonstrate the idea that self love is your first romance and participants upload a portrait of themselves with a relevant self describing caption to depict this idea. The main events were ‘It’s a beYOUtiful day!’,beYOUtiful Photo Exhibition, and the closing Ceremony. The events were powered by Canon, MM2, and Nescafe. The supervising lecturer was Mr.Suffian Hadi Ayub, Public Relations Campaign Management a lecturer from DCLA.
It’s a beYOUtiful day was held on Friday, 4 May 2018 from 10am to 4pm at Sunway College Boulevard. Are you wondering what this event is all about? It is about accepting yourself as you are and breaking insecurities. The event included a series of booths where people interacted with the campaign through informational and entertaining activities. An information booth was organised to allow the participants to further enquire about the campaign and buy sticker merchandises. In addition, there was a photo taking segment for the upcoming event, beYOUtiful Photo Exhibition. There was also the breaking barrier booth where participants were given the opportunity to write their insecurities on top of a thin wooden plank and then break it. The Just Dance booth was conducted in courtesy of the Game Fusion where the audience experienced the game for free. “Dancing away to my favourite song between classes has lightened my mood and I feel better now!”, was one of the comments by a Sunway University student after a session of Just Dance. A Mirrorless Day stunt was also conducted simultaneously. The washroom mirrors on certain floors were blocked out with the words ‘We stole your mirrors. Come find us at the Boulevard’ was written on the top. Filled with members from the audience unleashing their talents, the campaign event for the day managed to leverage self love and acceptance.
