| Course | MT359 Integrated Marketing Communications |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 5 |
| Paper type | Publicity plan |
| Length | About 920 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT359 Unit 5
Eleven Volunteers Who Kept Spreading: An MT359 Unit 5 Publicity Plan for a San Antonio Tamale Maker
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT359: Integrated Marketing Communications
Unit 5 Publicity Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The tamale company, parish, spreaders and media list are composite; the news-values and measurement sources cited are real.
The Story
For more than fifty years, a composite West Side parish in San Antonio held a Christmas tamale sale, its volunteers spreading thousands of dozens in the parish hall each December. The sale closed in 2025 because too few younger volunteers joined to replace those who could no longer stand for twelve-hour days. Eleven of the volunteers, most in their seventies and one aged 81, now work part-time as spreaders at Nogalitos Tamale Co., a few blocks from the parish. They spread masa onto husks by hand on shorter shifts, seated, and teach new hires. The story is not that a company makes tamales. It is that a tradition a neighborhood thought it had lost found a second home on a factory floor.
Why an Editor Would Care This Week
Harcup and O'Neill (2017) found that news selection is shaped by values such as relevance, surprise, good news and the presence of people audiences can relate to. The plan tests the story against five commonly taught values and states where each is met.
Timeliness comes from the season: the pitch goes out the week of November 30, 2026, when San Antonio newsrooms fill with tamale-season features. Proximity comes from naming the parish, the neighborhood and the street. Human interest comes from the volunteers, especially the 81-year-old spreader who has made tamales every December since 1961. Novelty comes from a factory hiring retirees for a skill machines were meant to replace. Consequence is the weakest: no price, law or policy changes, and the plan says so rather than inventing stakes. It leans on the other four.
The story editors will print is not that a company makes tamales but that a neighborhood's tradition found a second home.
The Media List, Ranked by Fit
Outlets are ranked by how well their editors' beats fit the story, not by audience size.
Tier one holds the metro daily's food writer, who has covered tamale season for years, and two local television morning shows, one in English and one in Spanish, both of which run cooking and community segments in December.
Tier two holds the public radio station's weekly food program, three suburban weeklies, the archdiocesan newspaper and a Spanish-language morning radio program that takes listener calls. The archdiocesan paper ranks above a larger regional lifestyle magazine because its editors cover parish life, and this is a parish story.
Tier three holds four San Antonio food accounts on Instagram that cover local makers.
An Exclusive With a Clock
The metro food writer receives the story two days before anyone else, with access to the plant floor on a spreading morning and an interview with the 81-year-old spreader. The exclusive is offered because one strong feature in the paper of record tends to be picked up by the other outlets and lends the story credibility a press release cannot. The offer is made on November 30 and lapses at 5 p.m. on December 1. If the writer declines, the pitch goes to the two television morning shows that same evening.
Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned
Dietrich (2014) sorts communication into paid, earned, shared and owned media, the PESO model. The plan uses it to keep each activity in its place. Coverage is earned and is the goal. Shared media extends it: the parish, the spreaders' families and viewers repost the coverage, and the company shares it from its own accounts. Owned media gives the story a home: a page on the company's site profiles each spreader who agrees, with photographs and a sentence in her or his own words. Paid media comes last. A small boost of the best coverage on social media runs only after the coverage exists, and its results are reported separately so that earned results are never inflated by spending.
The Press Kit
The kit includes a one-page fact sheet, a short pitch email, twelve high-resolution photographs of spreaders at work, ninety seconds of b-roll filmed on the plant floor and two spokespeople: the 81-year-old spreader and the company's owner. Each spreader shown has signed a release, and any who prefers not to be named is not.
Measurement
Success is measured by placements and by message pull-through: the share of stories that use the phrase spread by hand or describe the hand-spreading process. A placement that mentions the company but not the hands counts as half a result. The plan sets a target of six placements, four of them carrying the phrase, by December 20. It also tracks visits to the spreaders page and the Unit 9 survey's measure of association between spread by hand and the brand.
The plan declines to report advertising value equivalency, the practice of pricing coverage at what the same space would have cost as advertising. The Barcelona Principles reject it, because it says nothing about whether audiences noticed, believed or acted on a story (International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication, 2020).
Risks
A story about older workers can read as a company exploiting them. The plan addresses this by letting the spreaders speak for themselves, stating their pay and shift lengths in the fact sheet and not staging any scene. If a reporter asks about wages, the owner answers directly.
References
Dietrich, G. (2014). Spin sucks: Communication and reputation management in the digital age. Que.
Harcup, T., & O'Neill, D. (2017). What is news? News values revisited (again). Journalism Studies, 18(12), 1470-1488. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1150193
International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication. (2020). Barcelona principles 3.0. https://amecorg.com/resources/barcelona-principles-3-0/
Reading the MT 359 Unit 5 instructions
Unit 5 asks students to plan publicity for the campaign's brand: the story, the outlets, the timing, the materials and the measures. Instructors expect the plan to argue news value before listing outlets, since an editor's first question is why anyone would care now. Outlets should be ranked and the ranking explained. Many sections ask students to sort activities with the PESO model, paid, earned, shared and owned. A press kit or pitch email may be requested for an appendix. Measurement should go beyond counting clips, and advertising value equivalency should be avoided. Students are encouraged to anticipate how the story could be read badly and plan for it.
How this MT359 Unit 5 example is built
The story section explains the parish sale, why it closed and why eleven volunteers now work at the plant. News values follow with Harcup and O'Neill, each value tied to a fact and consequence admitted as thin, under a highlighted line about a tradition finding a second home. The media list comes in three tiers, with the archdiocesan paper ranked above a larger magazine and the reason given. An exclusive for the food writer has a firm deadline and a fallback. PESO, from Dietrich, sorts every activity and keeps paid spending until after coverage. The press kit lists photographs, b-roll and two spokespeople. Measurement sets pull-through targets and declines AVE. A risks section closes it.
Where the points sit in the MT359 Unit 5 rubric
Publicity plans tend to earn marks for the strength of the news angle, the logic of outlet selection, the use of PESO or a similar model and the quality of measurement. A story tested against news values, with weak points conceded, scores higher than one asserted to be newsworthy. Ranking outlets by beat and fit shows media judgment. An exclusive with a stated reason and deadline shows practical knowledge of how editors work. Keeping paid amplification separate from earned results protects the measurement. Pull-through and placement targets outperform clip counts, and refusing AVE with a citation to the Barcelona Principles signals current practice. APA 7 citations and an appendix round out the plan.
Common MT359 Unit 5 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Publicity plans often pitch the product rather than a story, which gives editors nothing to print. Another weak pattern is a media list sorted by audience size, so the outlets most likely to run the story sit near the bottom. Some plans treat every outlet the same way, with no exclusive and no timing. PESO is frequently defined and then left unused. Measurement often stops at the number of articles, or converts coverage into an advertising dollar figure. Before you write, finish this sentence as an editor would: this matters to our readers this week because... If the answer is about the product, find the people behind it and start again.
Get an MT359 Unit 5 example written to your instructions
A publicity plan starts from the brand and whatever might count as news about it; even a hunch works. Pass along those, plus the Unit 5 prompt and rubric. Within 24-48h the free first custom plan tests the story against news values, ranks outlets by fit, and measures pull-through rather than advertising value. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT359 Unit 5 questions, answered
What is the PESO model?
A way of sorting communication by who controls and pays for it, associated with Gini Dietrich: paid media such as advertising and boosted posts, earned media such as press coverage, shared media such as social reposts, and owned media such as a brand's own site. In a publicity plan it helps show that earned coverage is the goal, with the other three supporting it.
Does the plan need an actual press release?
Check the prompt. Many sections want a pitch email or a release in an appendix, since editors now respond more often to short personal pitches than to formal releases. Either way, the plan itself should explain the story, the outlets and the timing. A release attached without a story behind it rarely earns the marks the plan does.
Why is advertising value equivalency discouraged?
It prices coverage at what the same space would have cost as an ad, which says nothing about whether the audience noticed, believed or acted on the story. Industry measurement standards, including the Barcelona Principles, reject it for that reason. Stronger measures include message pull-through, the share of coverage reaching the target audience and any change in awareness.
Where can I find a free MT359 Unit 5 sample paper?
This page holds the full MT359 Unit 5 publicity plan, pitching retired parish volunteers who now spread tamales at a San Antonio plant.
Why does the archdiocesan paper rank above a larger magazine in the MT359 Unit 5 sample?
Its editors cover parish life, and this is a parish story, so it fits their beat better than a bigger lifestyle title does.