• Charles Sturt Public Relations students take first place at national industry student competition ‘Pitch This!’ on Friday 4 October
• The University’s team’s communication campaign won against finalists from Curtin University and University of Western Sydney
• This is the first year the competition has been open to all final-year public relations students from universities across Australia.

Three final-year Bachelor of Communication (Public Relations) students from Charles Sturt University (Charles Sturt) won first place at the first Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) national student public relations competition.

Team members Miss Georgia Toovey, Miss Hattie Ryan and Miss Chelsea O’Sullivan presented their campaign in the ‘Pitch This!’ competition, held at the University of Western Sydney’s Parramatta Campus on Friday 4 October.

Their brief was to build a communication campaign to improve employee safety for the leading Australian manufacturing company AMCOR, offering the chance to put their skills, knowledge and enthusiasm to the test against their peers from around Australia.

Working in teams to research and present an in-depth campaign report for the company, students pitched their campaigns to a judging panel of industry experts for 10 minutes.

The Charles Sturt trio impressed the judges with their communication campaign aimed at eliminating hand injuries from the AMCOR factory floor through a greater awareness of the impact of not wearing safety gloves.

“We were really thrilled to win this competition and it is great to have been recognised by the judges for our campaign,” Miss Toovey said.

“As this is the first year of the competition, we had no idea what to expect. It was really nerve-wracking presenting to the client and hoping we had something they were looking for, so it was great to hear our names announced as the winners.

“The knowledge we have picked up during our studies at Charles Sturt University translated seamlessly into the campaign, which is encouraging as we move towards graduation and entering the industry.”

‘Pitch This!’ is designed to develop public relations students into professional practitioners and recognises that Australia has a number of tertiary courses where students are developing the skills and knowledge of the profession.

The aim of the competition is to foster engagement between tertiary institutions, training the next generation of public relations professionals and organisations who will benefit from the valuable insights into professional communication for their organisations

Lecturer in the School of Communication and Creative Industries Ms Victoria Erskine, who mentored the Charles Sturt team, said the competition was a great opportunity for students to put their skills and knowledge into practice and gain valuable feedback from industry professionals and an external client.

“When they received the competition brief from AMCOR, it is fair to say these students knew very little about the challenges of communicating about safety for a manufacturing organisation,” she said.

“But in the last eight weeks they have done their research and drawn from the skills and knowledge gleaned from their time at Charles Sturt University to come up with an excellent campaign concept.

“This win is another strong example of how the University is educating highly skilled communications professionals.”

The Charles Sturt students have won an internship with esteemed public relations company Edelman Australia, and will have the chance to present their campaign at the PRIA National Conference in November.