The Qatar 2022 Women's Soccer Challenge

One thing I love about the PR program at Northern is the opportunity we have to gain real-world PR experience through our student-run PR firm, True North PR. Each semester our firm takes on multiple clients, projects and competitions and students are able to research, plan and implement PR campaigns on a variety of topics. This semester, I've been working on a project called the Qatar 2022 Women's Soccer Challenge. This project has been interesting but also pretty challenging so far, because I am not very familiar with the sport of soccer or Qatari culture.

In 2022, Qatar will become the first country in the Middle East to host the FIFA World Cup. The Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee hopes to use the tournament as a catalyst to accomplish other national goals, such as developing businesses, promoting Qatar for global investment and improving international perceptions of the small Middle East nation. A large-scale event like the World Cup can create drastic changes for host nations in terms of economics and culture and the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee intends to take full advantage of this opportunity for change.

True North PR is participating in a case study challenge that will help the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee accomplish their goal of increasing the global success the Qatar women's national team. Our team is creating an integrated marketing communications (IMC) plan that will inform and influence Qatari girls ages six to 17 and increase their interest in playing soccer. So far, our team has focused heavily on researching the success of American soccer teams and programs and brainstorming ways to apply these successful practices to Qatar.

Through our team's research, I've learned a lot about Qatari culture and the sport of soccer - two things I knew very little about prior to this project. Although we've faced some challenges in researching and creating our plan, I am confident our team will put together quality work, because in Northern's PR department we have the brain-power, resources and faculty to help us do so. Being involved in such a hands-on PR department has been really beneficial for me. True North PR firm projects have given me the opportunity to dive right in and gain real-world PR experience.