{"id":8500,"date":"2017-12-06T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T13:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/?p=8500"},"modified":"2018-08-08T12:24:46","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T16:24:46","slug":"prsa-general-session-national-conference-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/2017\/12\/06\/prsa-general-session-national-conference-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"PRSA General Session [National Conference Recap]"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Courtesy of Shannon Jack, Ohio Northern University<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Session<\/strong>: PRSA General Session<\/p>\n

Presenter<\/strong>: Morgan Spurlock,<\/p>\n

Recap<\/strong>: To be a good storyteller, \u201cYou have to be ready and willing to take criticism,\u201d Spurlock said as he showed photos of him as a 10-year-old ballet dancer, growing up in West Virginia. The second thing you need to be a good storyteller according to Spurlock is a good support system, whether it be family, friends or professional colleagues. He also continued to emphasize being a little different, trying new things and mentioned the criticism he received when he had the idea to create Supersize Me.<\/p>\n

The story behind his award-winning documentary was that he had just eaten a bunch of McDonalds was sitting on the couch when a news story came on that two girls were suing McDonalds for making them obese. That\u2019s when the lightbulb went off and he turned to his vegan girlfriend and said that he was going to eat McDonalds for 30 days straight and see if these girls had a claim. He thought of this documentary as, \u201cA way to talk about a serious topic in a funny way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spurlock said that he never could have imagined the impact that Supersize Me had on the country and world. \u201cYou can plan for impact and how you hope to affect change,\u201d he emphasized. The movie started generating buzz, getting people interested and sparking conversation. \u201cHow can we create change out of the impact we made?\u201d is a question he posed to the audience. His answer to this? He decided to create an inexpensive education DVD and lesson plans for teachers to help put this in the minds of young students \u2014 the future of America\u2019s health.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to do things that other people think are crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next movie Spurlock created, \u201cThe Greatest Movie Ever Made\u201d, was all about advertising, product placement and promotions and was all funded with money from advertising, product placement and promotions. It took him nine months to get his first sponsor, Ban Deodorant. After Ban hopped on other brands began becoming interested, which proved the point that he made that no one wants to be the first but once other people hop on, others want to as well. Twenty-two brands came on board as sponsors and there were over 3,000 product placements which broke records. \u201cA lot of this was storytelling and a lot of this was marketing and that is the same thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday there are more homes for digital content than ever before,\u201d Spurlock said. And he has used this to his advantage by creating more videos and giving the content away to help reach the largest number of viewers possible, as well as catering to new audiences, including millennial females.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more risks you take, the less risky things do inherently become,\u201d which was another big theme of the session.<\/p>\n

Three main takeaways from Spurlock\u2019s session:<\/p>\n