​A PROFESSIONAL AWARENESS MESSAGE FROM AN IAU CHAMPION

Buğra Tugay Erdoğan, a student at Istanbul Aydin University who won a gold medal at the Turkish Open Kickboxing Championship, drew attention to the #BeAwareOfMyProfession campaign, which aims to raise awareness about the public relations profession, by wearing a specially designed t-shirt during the medal ceremony.

Buğra Tugay Erdoğan, a senior student in the Department of Public Relations and Publicity at Istanbul Aydin University (IAU) Faculty of Communication, highlighted the "#BeAwareOfMyProfession" campaign by wearing a campaign t-shirt at the medal ceremony of the Turkish Open Kickboxing Championship, where he won the gold medal. The campaign aims to raise awareness about the public relations profession.

"HEAVYWEIGHT" MESSAGE

The championship was held between January 8–14, 2018 at the WOW Kremlin Palace Hotel in Antalya. Competing in the heavyweight category, Erdoğan defeated his opponents one by one and achieved championship victory. By wearing a t-shirt reading "IAU PR Atölye – #BeAwareOfMyProfession" during the medal ceremony, Erdoğan supported the campaign launched by students of the Department of Public Relations and Publicity at IAU Faculty of Communication to raise awareness about the profession and correct public misperceptions.

"MY AIM WAS TO PROMOTE OUR CAMPAIGN"

Commenting on the initiative, Erdoğan stated: "Kickboxing has been a sport I have been interested in since childhood. Winning the Turkish championship as a result of years of hard work is of course a great happiness for me. In addition, as a public relations student, I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to reach wider audiences with our '#BeAwareOfMyProfession' campaign, which we developed within the IAU PR Atölye at our university. For this reason, I wore one of the campaign t-shirts during the medal ceremony. I believe this will attract great attention to our campaign."

TÜRKİYE'S FIRST STUDENT-LED PROFESSIONAL AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

Launched recently by IAU PR Atölye students, the "#BeAwareOfMyProfession" campaign is Türkiye's first professional awareness project initiated by a student community focusing on the perception problem of the public relations profession. The main issue addressed by the campaign is the lack of awareness among small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as the frequent confusion of public relations with other professions such as marketing, secretarial work, or information desk services. In the first phase of the campaign, students published an open letter addressed to the public relations sector and the public, calling for support. They also produced amateur sketches accompanied by scripts, videos, and visual materials to explain what public relations is not. By incorporating the opinions of academic staff and actively managing blogs and social media accounts, students continue to address the public using the slogan #BeAwareOfMyProfession. Aiming to create an agenda within the sector and raise public awareness, the students plan to share support messages from industry professionals in the second phase of the project in the coming days.

(News: Dinçer Bilgener)