Pepperdine Public Relations Students Support Fire-Affected Businesses Through Partnership with PaliBu Chamber of Commerce
In the wake of the Palisades Fire that devastated thousands of structures and shuttered dozens of local businesses, Pepperdine University’s Seaver College public relations students partnered with the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce (PaliBu) to support recovery efforts and provide strategic communication tools to help the community rebuild.
Seaver College PR students with members of the PaliBu board
“We took a leap of faith and decided to partner with PaliBu because, more than ever, they needed help,” says Klive Oh, an associate professor of public relations at Seaver College. “This is the very community where our undergraduates spent three-and-a-half to four years. We were determined to make a difference.”
Given this desire to serve, Oh’s PR capstone students collaborated with staff from the PaliBu Chamber of Commerce, who advocate on behalf of the 1,407 local businesses which were operating in the area affected by the Palisades Fire.
As PR consultants for the chamber, students developed and refined three major public-facing strategies: social media content, community outreach events, and disaster-relief preparedness.
The undergraduates began by developing a social media style guide, which they used to revamp PaliBu’s LinkedIn profile, establish the chamber’s presence on TikTok, and create content for Instagram. Students went about designing social media promotions for each respective platform by visiting the local companies, interviewing their proprietors, and editing footage into short clips to share online.
By immersing themselves in the local business community, students gained firsthand insight into the needs of the retailers, whose sales came to a standstill due to the fire and its dramatic effects on the local infrastructure. In response, the students began advertising alternate routes to the businesses and organized and hosted a legal workshop to educate store owners on how to manage the complex recovery and relief process. Additionally, they looked ahead and planned two galas for the Chamber to host in the coming years.
Students also prepared a comprehensive media kit including key messaging, bios, fact sheet, and feature stories to be used for media outreach. In addition, they prepared emergency communications materials with templates and step-by-step instructions for the Chamber to use throughout the remainder of the recovery process and in future crises.
Oh supervised the students throughout the design process of these key deliverables, but the ideation, creation, and implementation of these assets were entirely student-led. By placing his class at the center of one of Los Angeles' largest disasters, he sought to provide them with crucial PR experience while also equipping them with a newfound skill.
“The number one thing I hope students take from this experience is resilience,” he says. “At the personal level, our students were as devastated by the fires as the rest of the community, and they were helping a client whose members were struggling tremendously. At every weekly meeting, I saw them continue to move forward and tromp on through the work. Leaning into their resilience was key.”
The Malibu coast
At the conclusion of the semester, the students presented their work to the PaliBu CEO and board members, which gave the soon-to-be professionals a platform to showcase their semester-long efforts and hear firsthand how their PR support made a meaningful impact.
“[Pepperdine’s PR] students were some of the brightest and most professional people I have had the opportunity to work with,” says Barbara Bruderlin, CEO of the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce. “[Their work] has truly been a blessing for the chamber. It has been greatly valuable in terms of our ability to quickly and professionally reach members of the community and support our local businesses.”
This is the latest in a long series of successful community partnerships Oh has cultivated throughout his years teaching the PR Capstone course at Seaver College. Prior to finishing their education, he creates an experiential learning opportunity for outgoing undergraduates, where they work directly with a local nonprofit.
Oh runs this final course as if it were a PR consulting firm and he were the company's CEO. Students are required to work in groups to meet the needs of their client and satisfy the standards of their employer. By giving them this sample of the professional world, Oh hopes to demonstrate to students the powerful effects of their chosen vocation.
“I want the students to see the value behind their work,” he says. “Sometimes, in the PR world, you get too caught up in the numbers or performance or industry competition . . . I want my students to remember that you can use your profession to help people in need.”