Country Profile and Media Channels

After significant research into where the largest population of Inuits actually reside, we found that Greenland, the largest island in the world just off the coast of Canada (governed by Denmark until 2009) was the country to focus on.

The island has arctic and sub arctic climates where the temperature never exceeds 10°C even in the warmest months. This is great for our moisturiser product, as cold weather all year round ensures that there will always be a need for a heavy duty, all natural moisturiser to protect the Inuit family's skin from harsh conditions.

The languages spoken in the country are mainly Greenlandic (a form of the Inuit language, Inuktitut) and Danish. Greenlandic is the most commonly spoken language and is taught in schools.

Th island has a population of approximately 56,700, of which Inuits account for 88% and the other 12% is made up of Danish and other nationalities. 60% of the population live in West Greenland's six largest towns, the other percentage live in either one of the over 120 settlements, trading posts or sheep stations.

Media


Despite the huge distances and extreme, vast landscape of the island, communications are well developed in Greenland.

98% of households own a radio, 97% own a television and there are 11,700 internet connections.

The internet service provider is the same as the sole telephone service, and it's owned by Tele Greenland.

Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa (KNR) Greenland Broadcasting has responsibility for both television and radio channels in the country. It boasts a respectable number of television programmes as well as five AM and 12 FM radio stations. Cabling undersea also connects Greenland to foreign TV programmes.

Internet


Similar to other Inuit communities across Canada, Russia and the USA, Inuits in Greenland have become reliant on the internet as a form of communication between communities. Due to them often living in very remote locations where mobile signals often fail due to the high altitudes and TV is unobtainable, the internet is the most reliable technology available.

Services such as email and Skype are becoming more and more essential to everyday living, while young Inuits are wising up on pop culture and celebrity news. The internet has become essential to them for entertainment purposes as well. However, studies have shown that recently elders in the Inuits communities are using the internet to bridge gaps between the loss of old traditions and the younger members of the community. Through the internet the elders are teaching the youth about the "old ways" and by doing so are keeping their way of life alive and reigniting the youths passions for their people.

Young Inuits, who learn to use computers and the internet at school or college are teaching their elders how to use the technology and connect to the internet. Some older members of the community are too frail, old or immobile to leave home, so the internet serves not only as communication but as a form of entertainment for them also.

The majority of the Greenlandic Inuits are internet literate, so this would be a great platform through which to launch our product's campaign. The internet is a cheap way to create a campaign, though as we intend to create our own website for the campaign, this will obviously cost to design and set up. The website will be really important as it will form the basis from which we will create a brand identity and a place where customers can experience the brand beyond the product.

Since broadcasting is another popular media channel in Greenland, we propose to use radio advertisement as a secondary channel for our campaign, but this will run alongside the website campaign. This is explained in more detail on Hannah's blog.

Obviously, when creating the website and the sound bites for radio we will use a Greenlandic interpreter and translator to help communicate our messages in the local language.

The main area we are hoping to target initially is an area called Qaanaaq, which is in the north west of the island and is home to the greatest number of remote Inuit settlements. This would be the best area to conduct our campaign from for the trial period. Also, being very close knit communities, the Inuits like to discuss things and relay information to one another. Word of mouth is something we need to having working in our favour, Therefore, the more Inuit settlements that we can target in one go initially the better the chances are of our campaign being a success.

More specific with media channels

After doing further research into some of the areas the Inuits or, Native Americans, reside I found that they are most densely populated in three locations, all to the north and north west coasts of Alaska.

In the North West Arctic Borough, approximately 85% of the population are Native American.
In the North Slope Borough, approximately 70% of the population are Native American.
The town of Nome, located along the Bering Strait (a stretch of sea that connects Russia, the eastern most point of Asia and Alaska) has a Native American population of approximately 50%.

(Consensus taken in 2000)


From looking at my previous post and table of media channel already in operation in Alaska I will see which may be possible platforms to help support our campaign. This is what I have already found"

Nome
- The Nome Nugget "Alaska's oldest newspaper", they do have advertising and detail prices on the website, it might be worth asking them for circulation figures, particularly amongst Native Americans.

Media channels in Alaska

PR Campaign for Eskimo Moisturiser

Objective: To provide a public relations campaign and marketing strategy suitable for selling moisturiser to the Inuit Eskimo communities of Canada and the United States.

The basic background research relevant to this outline revolves around population, amenities, locations, language and currency, also the availability of media access and communications channels in the relevant areas.

Where we will show background research? Ideas?

 We will be presenting an insight into Eskimo culture, the means in which we aim to market the moisturiser and the channels we will use. We will also outline potential difficulties with an insight into how they will be overcome and example of what we believe to be a suitable campaign targeted at the Eskimo communities. We will also present a country profile considering political, social and economical structures, the influence of environmental factors and how PR is practiced within the Eskimo culture particularly focusing on the communities of Alaska.

We will look into agenda setting both considering media and political agendas and how that may affect our campaigns. Importantly we will explore the religious values practiced by the Inuit Eskimos in particular the influence Animism has today on their culture. However, Eskimos largely practice Christian values instilled by missionaries through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is a consensus between our group that the Inuit Eskimos fall into a low context category with the majority of the population situated in Canada. Our emphasis will be on unambiguous communications and having a shorter product description.

Eskimos have recently become accustomed to using the internet meaning the use of social networking and internet based campaigns may be appropriate. The majority of Inuit children attend school suggesting most have a good standard of literacy. All Eskimos speak different dialects, either one of two languages, Inupik and Yupik.

We will conclude with an appropriate complete marketing campaign to which we believe will be successful in selling moisturiser to Inuit Eskimos. Taking into full consideration the factors that will affect the campaign and the way in which it will come across in their community.

Becky Ricks: www.rebeccaricks.faljournalism.com Becky will be doing the profile of the target demographic, researching everything from the Eskimo’s locations, religions, language, lifestyle, education, living conditions and hobbies. This acts as the building block for the rest of the research. The more we know about the target demographic the better we can aim the product toward them. Knowing how many Eskimos speak their dialect as their first language is important for the campaign because playing on the people’s language and values will be our unique selling point.

Fiona Davies: www.eskimomoisturiser.blogspot.com Fiona will be researching the media channels available in the areas the Eskimos live. Mostly researching media and advertising in Alaska. She will also be looking into current and past campaigns aimed at the Inuit community in Alaska promoting the same ethical values as our all-natural moisturiser. This will include looking into radio stations, tv and newspapers and researching which are the most popular, as well as other forms of advertising popular in the country and state. Fiona will look into the way advertising and promotion is dealt with in terms of language changes too.

Hannah Kirby: www.hannahkirby.faljournalism.com Hannah will also be researching the media channels available in the areas the Eskimos live, but mostly researching media and advertising in Greenland. Carrying out identical areas of research to what Fiona is looking at with Alaska, the idea is to build up a correlation of media channels and trends between the two regions. This is so the advertising for the product doesn’t need to be adapted to the individual locations too much. Obviously there may be difficulties with trying to open the campaign to two separate countries.

Sarah Kenny: www.theskyaboveusshootstokill.tumblr.com Sarah will be looking at branding for the product. This will entail researching other similar products with similar values and campaigns using this as a guideline for our own moisturiser. She’ll also look at ingredients, packaging, brand values.

Millie Delacoe: www.prandinterculturalcoms.blogspot.com Millie will be researching campaign costs, budgeting and finance. Her aim is to find similar campaigns and weigh up the costs for our own. She will researching funding sources, such as promotions through other areas of sale and work out a budget for the whole campaign, based on the cost of media in the selected countries. She will also work out the price of the product itself based on the knowledge of Eskimo incomes and expenditures.

Group Organisation: What are we going to promote?

On Friday 25th February the group met up in the library to discuss what our PR campaign would be promoting. It took us a while to decide because I think we may have been over thinking the task and we were trying to come up with something realistic and clever.

At first we had the idea of trying to promote mother and baby packs to fit inside already available disaster packs. We came up with this idea after discussing events that were happening in the news, we considered the earthquake in New Zealand, the forest fires and floods in Australia and America and also the war devastation in the Middle East at the moment. We did initial research into what sort of survival packs were already available from charities such as Shelter Box and The Red Cross. Most of these boxes seemed to pack the most essential items necessary for survival: tents, sleeping bags, blankets, torches, water sachets and cooking equipment. But there were very few pieces that were especially for babies or for women. We wanted to include nappies, feeding bottles, baby wipes, a cuddly toy, tampons, spare pants etc. We thought if we promoted these packs to Westernised countries they might be better received as some third world countries may not be used to some of the items anyway, so providing them might not be worth the expenditure. Also, Shelter Box explained how they don't always provide box receivers with all the items as some countries a likely to have access to them and can provide them to those in need.

After more thought we decided to go with something totally different. We chose a very remote people, Eskimos. They live in continents all over the world and they are people content with the way they live and who don't like to integrate with modern society, preferring to keep their culture and traditions alive. These are the perfect target demographic as they are relatively unknown compared to other cultures and this would present us with a challenge in terms of research and promotion. We considered what we already knew about Eskimos and conducted some initial research into them on the internet as a group. In the end we decided that pitching a fairly basic but essential Western product to them would be the best thing to do. As they aren't keen on modern ways of living we thought technology would be too difficult, but considering the conditions they live in, being cold and bad for their skin, we thought moisturiser would be ideal. It's a product nearly everyone uses or has used at some point in Western culture and it's a product we think could improve Eskimo's appearances and ways of living. The point of a PR campaign is to promote an idea or product to people who may not have even considered it before, either because they are unaware it exists or because they have survived without it before.

Our mission is to come up with a campaign to promote and sell moisturiser to Eskimos.

This is how we have broken down the research:

Target demographic research: Becky Ricks

Media Research, including advertising and marketing: Fiona Davies & Hannah Kirby

Branding (the product itself and brand/ company statement) : Sarah Kenny

Budgeting & Finance: Millie Delacoe