This report outlines the methodology and findings used to create the book Selling Disbelief: A 20 Step Guide to Grow and Promote Atheist and Secular Groups (Appendix A). The book Selling Disbelief outlines a six-month marketing plan and best practices for groups that are part of the growing Secular Movement. This project is the first systematic academic study of marketing methods in regards to promoting Secular movements. A need for this research has been identified due to a lack of research in this particular field and the continued marginalization facing the non-religious. The objectives of this project were twofold: The first objective was to identify the themes and methods that are most effective in promoting Secular groups and organizations to the general public and to Atheist, Agnostic, and Secular individuals, and to identify those areas where knowledge or methods were lacking or ineffective. The second objective was to conduct an extensive literature review of existing marketing best practices, and using the information from objective one as a guide, to adapt existing marketing information for use by Secular groups. For objective one, the project used ten in-depth interviews with experts in the marketing and organizing of Secular groups. These experts were selected based on years of experience, visibility, and availability. The data was analyzed through Thematic Analysis to find themes on methods, messages, and tactics that have lead to successful marketing and promotion. For objective two, this project used a review of existing marketing and promotion literature of best practices for community groups of a similar nature to Secular groups. By triangulating the existing marketing literature with themes from the interviews, best practices pertinent to Secular groups were identified. The interview and research findings of this project were compiled into a handbook titled “Selling Disbelief: A Guide to Organizing and Promoting Secular Organizations” with recommendations and best practices for Secular and Atheist groups to market and promote their organizations.

This study utilizes William Benoit’s Image Repair Theory to frame the dominant crisis communication strategies that fast food chain Chick-fil-A (CFA) employed before, during and after their CEO mixed his personal opinion on social issues with corporate policy in June 2012. The thematic analysis draws from three distinct data sets that include 3,900 Facebook comments posted by the general public on CFA’s social media page, 32 individual Atlanta Journal-Constitution news articles that address the debate and CFA’s public response to the crisis titled “Who We Are.” This thesis aims to identify both the dominant themes in Facebook posts and the news articles, as well as how these themes are situated within Benoit’s Image Repair Theory. Research shows that CFA representatives utilized eight of Benoit’s 14 strategies to address their CEO’s comments on gay marriage in an attempt to salvage their reputation. The transcendence strategy was used more than any other throughout the crisis. The thematic analysis of Facebook comments showed that religion and loyalty were the most addressed theme within social media users’ posts on the company’s page. Research also shows that a national boycott initiated against CFA by the LGBTQ community did not hurt the company, but may have helped to spur brand recognition and overall sales. Another pertinent question arose during this research; did company representatives purposely forgo sharing their 2011 and 2012 tax documents that prove they had already stopped contributing to supposed anti-gay organizations more than a year before the controversy arose? Was CFA benefiting from the crisis to such an extent that they strategically remained silent and allowed the misconception to take place when they could have ended the crisis and shown proof?

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The purpose of this study is to analyze the contents of various web sites to determine whether they implement value-based advertising strategies relative to the level of buyer involvement.

Whereas prior research on artificial intelligence has dealt with automation in fields like medicine, engineering, and computer science, this research study seeks to answer the question, “To what extent can AI be creative in the context of content strategy?” To answer this, this study employs content analysis using 16 online news and blog articles from primarily marketing organizations to identify and explain key variables surrounding the relationship between the computer and the creative professional. This study has found that the core belief that AI will play the future role of creative assistant in the context of content strategy is shared among many online marketing publications. As AI becomes increasingly capable of taking on lower level creative tasks such as content organization, ideation, basic copywriting, and photo editing, many believe this will open up more time for content strategy professionals to accomplish more creatively demanding, big picture tasks.

Analyzing 549 advertisements in Chinese and U.S. women's fashion magazines, this research studies the role of western culture in reshaping Chinese cultural values in terms of modernity, tradition, individualism, and collectivism as well as in the use of western fashion models and language. Results indicate that there is no statistical difference in individualistic and modernity values between U.S. and Chinese print ads in women's fashion magazines. In 1 of the product characteristics, shared products, collectivism values in Chinese ads are not found more than those in U.S. ads as it is assumed. In addition, almost half of the Chinese ads employ western models and only 2 out of 226 Chinese ads are applying merely Chinese language to name the brand. The implications for future research and limitation of this study are discussed.

President Gordon B. Hinckley, the fifteenth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, excited the membership of the Church by increasing the number of temples available to members. He announced that the Church would construct smaller buildings – as compared with existing temples at the time – thereby allowing for greater numbers of temples to be built. He set a goal to build 50 temples in a two and half-year period: double the number the Church had ever attempted to build in any decade. Thirty-four of these temples were built in the United States, and newspapers – both local and national – covered the construction of these temples with over 330 articles. This thesis analyzes the newspaper coverage of temples built within the United States from October 1997 through December 2004, and draws important conclusions from this data regarding the nation's perception of the Latter-day Saint temples.Each of the 330 articles was scored according to specific criteria, and grouped by region (as defined by the Church's official web-site). Then, after individual and regional scoring, overall newspaper exposure for the Church's small temple building was scored for the United States as a whole. As each temple's unique story unfolded in the newspapers, the general public's view of the Church's small temple construction became clear. Although quite a few of the proposed temples experienced opposition with regard to building specifics and anti-Latter-day Saint efforts, Church departments and members negotiated, compromised, and softened the impact of this opposition, and many people welcomed the temples into their communities.In addition to gaining a sense for the public's viewpoint, some global observations emerged from this study, revealing the importance of professionalism within Church departments and programs when working with the media and public. A few observations also revealed three lessons to be remembered in future temple building relations. But most importantly this study shows that not only did the Lord's revelation through a prophet open the way for the Church to build more temples, but as a by product of this revelation, the smaller temple concept helped to lessen the controversial and negative articles that the larger temples tended to generate.

Literature was reviewed to determine the importance of a public relations program in the public school system. Information was retrieved from various published sources, including materials from the National School Public Relations Association, professional journals, books relating to public relations and a variety of other educational reports. An analysis of the literature reveals the following components of a successful public relations program: A plan of action benefits the public relations program. Staff participants benefit the public relations program. Parent involvement is an important aspect of the public relations program. Community involvement is essential to a successful public relations program

A 3 (crisis response strategy) x 3 (medium) factorial design experiment was conducted to determine if information graphics conveyed through online news sources may be more beneficial for organizational reputations during some crisis situations than the use of news videos and text-based news stories. Variables examined include cognitive and affective appraisal, third-person effect, behavioral response and crisis response strategy. Recent research in organizational crisis communications has pointed to the fact that more information is needed regarding how individuals react cognitively and affectively to crisis communications. Current crisis communications literature is also sparse concerning the behavioral aspects of crisis message reception and social media usage. This study addressed these concerns and built on the established framework of Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT).

Past research has shown that dialogic communication has essential characteristics that foster two-way communication between organizations and their stakeholders. This study investigates how public relations firms incorporate the principles of dialogic communication on their websites. The top and bottom 50 websites from the Holmes report on Top 250 Global PR agency rankings were content analyzed. Kent and Taylor’s (1998, 2003) five principles of dialogic communication were applied to find out if public relations firms incorporate the principle of dialogic communication effectively on their websites, provide relevant information for stakeholders and prospective clients, and if there are differences between PR rankings in terms of website usability and the dialogic loop. Findings reveal that bottom 50 PR websites are not as dialogic as the top 50 PR websites. In addition, the study revealed that both top and bottom to a considerable extent incorporated the principles of dialogic communication.