Riverfront PR, the student-operated public relations agency at Southeast Missouri State University, landed its highest-profile client since the organization started up again almost three years ago. The city of Sikeston hired Riverfront PR to rebrand the entire city with a budget of up to $20,000.

Riverfront PR went into the initial meeting with Sikeston a few months ago with the intention of having a light discussion about what Sikeston officials were looking for but ended up unexpectedly presenting its pitch on the spot.

"So we go down and, instead of a light conversation, we find people in a big meeting room and they're like, 'OK, you're up first. You have 30 minutes and the other two firms are right behind you and we're like 'What?,'" Riverfront PR adviser and public relations instructor Michael Simmons said. "So we weren't as well prepared for that exact situation, but life goes like that a lot."

Sikeston gave Riverfront PR a call about two weeks after the pitch to inform the firm that it had chosen been to rebrand the city.

"They had chosen us over two other professionals," Riverfront PR firm director Andrea Gils said. "They liked us because we weren't afraid to try new things."

A local firm and a firm from Memphis competed against Riverfront PR to get Sikeston as a client.

Gils said that because the firm has young members, Sikeston was drawn to it since 55 percent of the city's population is 39 years old or younger.

Once the firm found out it got the job, Sikeston gave it six weeks to come up with a marketing plan. This plan includes ideas for events, website, logo and other various promotional materials. Riverfront PR is now preparing to present its marketing plan and show Sikeston how it will implement its ideas, Gils said.

"We're taking three different ideas -- one conservative, one modern and another one," Gils said in regards to their logo designs.

This is just the beginning of a long rebranding process for Sikeston.

"They want to change the perspectives of people that are living there," Gils said. "The second step is to attract more people. There are a lot of commuters that work there. It's rebranding from the inside to the outside."

The process could take a couple years but will be carried on each year until the job is done.

Simmons said he believes this project will prove to have several challenges.

"Well, this project is extra challenging because the fact that we don't have one client," Simmons said. "We have many, many clients -- many different stakeholders all with different interests, whether it's industrial development or real estate development or education or business or quality of life. There are all these invested interests in here and this job comes to us in a very large committee of about 20 to 25 people. That means we have to sell 25 people, not just sell one person."

An exact budget amount has not been determined, but in the initial meeting with Riverfront PR, Gils said Sikeston would not blink at spending $10,000 to $20,000 on rebranding.

The $10,000 to $20,000 the firm will receive will go toward covering expenses for rebranding and any profit will be used for funding Riverfront PR events, fees for members to attend conferences and travel expenses. The members will not actually get paid for their hours of work in rebranding Sikeston.

"It takes a huge commitment for all the members of the firm to say 'I'm going to meet this deadline even if I don't get to sleep at night,'" Gils said.

Not only will this deal help Sikeston convey a new image, it will benefit the Riverfront PR members.

"I was really excited for the students because it, again, is a very high-profile job," Simmons said. "It looks great on their resume. It looks great in their portfolio. It's starting from the ground up. It's challenging because you have to try to take all of this information about the city and what it means to the people and what they want it to represent. It's a very complex, creative project."

Simmons said this year's Riverfront PR members excel in several areas: graphic design, conceptualizing vague suggestions of the client and strategically thinking.

"I think that the most important thing is that students got this client over two professional businesses," Gils said. "Eighteen- or 19-year-old students got this client that a 40 year old couldn't, and that shows that we have a lot of talent in the firm."