More than 200 attend PRSSA’s 4th annual conference

On Saturday, February 27 Boston University’s PRSSA hosted its fourth annual regional conference, PR Advanced: Brand Yourself at the Photonics Center. More than 200 passionate students and professionals attended the conference to learn and interact experts on personal and corporate branding.

PRSSA Faculty Advisor Stephen Quigley said, "Because this is our fourth annual conference, I've come to expect the extraordinary from our student leaders. That said, even I was taken aback by the quality of this year's event. The students recruited a world class group of speakers, and the planning and execution were impeccable."

Kicking off the conference, Penelope Trunk, founder of Brazen Careerist urged students to spend "at least 15 minutes a day" building their personal brand and to "stick with it." Representatives from some of the country's most successfully branded companies like Whole Foods, Dunkin' Donuts and the Boston Red Sox lead breakout sessions. Heather Huhman, founder of Come Recommended, and Jacob Cass, junior creative at Carrot Creative provided insights on personal branding. Keynote speaker, Fiona Morrisson, director of brand and advertising for JetBlue, inspired students with the story of JetBlue's "Happy Jetting" marketing campaign.

During the human resources panel, employees from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Marina Maher Communications, Burson-Marsteller and Fleishman-Hillard alternated answering questions from the audience and taking questions from TweetDeck using the hashtag #PRAdvanced. The conference concluded with a career fair featuring more than a dozen communications agencies from Boston and New York.