Advertising and Public Relations students have a new home with the opening of the Morris & Mitchell ACU Student-Run Ad/PR Agency.
The new agency, located on the first floor of the Don H. Morris Center, will officially open its doors with a ribbon cutting Oct. 12. The new location features an office with three desks and an adjacent conference room.
“It gives us room to breathe and a place for clients to come,” said Joyce Haley, instructor of journalism and mass communication and faculty advisor to the agency. “We picked the first floor of the building for the new location so we could be more visible and accessible.”
The ACU Ad/PR agency was founded in the fall of 2009, and plans to construct a permanent location for the agency were finalized last spring. The agency’s first location was a small room Haley said was not much larger than a closet.
“We started really small with hardly any space and hardly any students,” Haley said. “There are many ways Ad/PR agencies are done across the country. We learned there is no one right way.”
The agency’s first project was a makeover for Christian Village of Abilene, a senior citizen housing complex near campus. Haley said the new location will allow the agency to grow. She said she had received 10 inquiries within the past week about the agency’s availability for projects.
Elizabeth Coffee, senior advertising and public relations major from San Antonio and the agency’s group account director, said the new space will allow students to work together and brainstorm more effectively.
“It not only gives us more space, but it is a lot more conducive to functioning as a team,” Coffee said. “In our old space it was difficult to work together; it was messy.”
Coffee said the new location also gives the agency a boost in legitimacy.
“It adds credibility to our name and is much more professional,” Coffee said. “People can now identify us, it really brands us.”
Will Moore, senior integrated marketing and communication major from Arlington, said the new agency also allows more students to get involved. Â Ad/PR students are now required to work in the agency as well.
“It allows us to have more people to get involved and creates more opportunities to think collectively,” Moore said.
