Two Students, One Car, Five Days

When Allison Lavey (SED’08) and Jamie Williams (UNI’08) step into a Chevrolet Aveo parked near Warren Towers on Monday, October 30, they’ll begin a challenging five-day stay in the compact vehicle in the hope of winning three cars: one each for themselves and one for the University. Students in the public relations lab at the College of Communication, however, will be nearing the end of a challenging public relations campaign that’s tested their skills and possibly launched their careers.

“I worked at a magazine over the summer, and it was all writing press releases, sitting at a desk,” says Alex Cave (COM’07), one of the event’s PR coordinators.

“This is a lot more active,” adds Julie Staadecker (COM’07). “We’re making real decisions — they left everything up to us.”

Cave and Staadecker, along with Noelle Hooper (COM’07), Danielle Newman (CAS’07), and Jenna Walsh (COM’07), are all members of a team in COM’s public relations laboratory class taught by COM Associate Professor Stephen Quigley (SED’87). The five students were assigned to work with international PR firm Weber Shandwick at the start of the semester; in September, the firm announced that one of its clients, Chevrolet, was staging a competition at eight colleges around the country. Two students at each school would be required to live in a Chevy Aveo for five days, leaving only for class and scheduled bathroom breaks. Each team would chronicle the experience via blogs and webcams and ask supporters to vote for them online. The team with the most votes would win an Aveo each, with an additional car going to their university.

Quigley’s students were told in early September that they’d be responsible for staging the contest at BU. Since then, they’ve found a location for the car (in the former Burger King parking lot at 645 Commonwealth Ave.), held casting calls to choose the contestants, and scheduled events and entertainment to go on throughout the week, including an appearance by BU’s marching band and a dating competition to be held in the car. And they’ve become adept at responding to media inquiries about where and when Lavey and Williams will eat, sleep, go to class, and go to the bathroom (in the car, with food provided by friends; in the car; at scheduled times with escorts; at scheduled times in a portable toilet).

They’ve also faced some public relations challenges, notably from homeless-advocacy groups that say living in a car as a stunt is insensitive to the homeless community, many of whom live in cars for shelter. The coordinators say that community service and charity have been a part of their plans from the beginning and note that a canned-food drive will take place all week. “We think it’s good that these groups are making people aware of the situation,” says Cave.

The members of the PR team had done a variety of marketing internships before this one, working with organizations ranging from the Peace Corps to a sports entertainment firm. But nothing, they say, has compared to this experience, which has both given them a new level of responsibility and helped them build relationships with public relations professionals around the country.

“I feel like if any one of us was ever to plan an event again, we’d know everything,” says Newman. “We’d know all the challenges ahead of time.”