Advertising and public relations student Paige Brophy wears a lot of different hats for Buoy.
In addition to working with the team of 30+ students that make up Buoy, Brophy organizes, communicates and collaborates with a roster of nonprofit clients that utilize Buoy’s marketing services.
“Student leads work up, down and across within Buoy,” says the junior from Lincoln. “I’m the main point of contact for Buoy’s clients, but I also work with my peers to help keep us on track to complete deliverables for clients.”
Buoy is one of the six programs within the College of Journalism and Mass Communication’s (CoJMC) Experience Lab, whose new facility has a variety of different workspaces modeled after the offices of the lab’s industry partners. Buoy focuses on providing marketing and advertising work for local non-profits and community partners, a specialty that resonates with Paige.
“My first semester of Buoy, I worked with the Boys and Girls Club of Lincoln in partnership with Jacht on social media for their organization,” explains Brophy. “Working with them I realized how big of an impact our work can have on the community, and it really drove my interest in nonprofit work.”
All Experience Lab programs, which include Jacht (a full-service ad agency), Nebraska Nightly, KRNU, Nebraska News Service, Heartland Webzine and Unlimited Sports, are managed by students under the mentorship of professional faculty.
“Our faculty are amazing — we work with them to make sure that students are having a good experience and, since Buoy is a newer program, find new ways to make it better. Plus, we’re given tons of networking and professional development opportunities through their connections,” said Brophy.
This is all real-world advertising, journalism and agency work.
Currently, Brophy is helping coordinate Buoy’s work for Nebraska National Forest focusing on tourism in Nebraska. Other impactful clients have included MilkWorks, a nonprofit providing breastfeeding resources across the state.
“Learning about the different communities in Nebraska has been really great – I love working with so many different people,” said Brophy.
