MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee State University’s School of Journalism and Strategic Media has launched a student-powered communications agency, Ever Blue Branding, intended to boost area businesses while providing students with job-ready experiences in a fully functioning agency.

Ever Blue Branding started earlier this year and helps clients with a wide range of communication materials and services ranging from strategic planning, brand building and integrated campaigns to trend reports, market research, consumer studies, SEO and communication audits.

Associate journalism professor Tricia M. Farwell, who specializes in public relations and advertising, said the student-run agency has been years in the making.

“The students did everything from deciding the agency’s name to deciding the logo, deciding the structure, and talking about what font would be used as the agency font, said Farwell, who has taught at MTSU for 16 years and serves as the agency’s faculty executive. “They really got in the weeds of setting up the agency’s structure.”

Farwell and the student executive board are the client’s initial point of contact and reviews all the work done by students. “The agency is student-driven and is open to all students who have an interest,” Farwell said. “I’m in the backseat of the car, just making sure we stay on the road.”

To be involved with Ever Blue Branding, students must be enrolled in one of the three classes — Ever Blue Branding I, Ever Blue Branding II or Ever Blue Branding III. Students do not have to have a major in the College of Media and Entertainment to be involved.

“Right now, it is a class with a structured meeting time and a structured grade that goes along with it so that students can apply the credit toward their degree. Eventually, we plan to expand the agency to be more of a full-day, paid experience for students,” explained Farwell.

Jackson Willis, a senior majoring in advertising with minors in mass communications and video and film production, was one of about 18 students who founded the agency.

“Since we created Ever Blue Branding from scratch, we didn’t have many defined roles of who did what,” Willis explained. “I was able to help out in many different ways while we were building ourselves up. … With helping to create Ever Blue Branding, I was able to see into almost every aspect that comes together to keep an agency running.”

Willis said the experience with Ever Blue Branding is like no other and will help him in the future when he launches his career.

“Part of our mission statement is … providing a creative and effective space for our clients and team while cultivating the next generation of leaders,” Willis said. “I believe the people I have worked with here at Ever Blue Branding have what it takes to be the next generation of leaders.”

Ever Blue Branding serves the MTSU community and clients in Murfreesboro and surrounding areas. The university’s Marketing and Communications Division was its first official client last semester.

“We did some work for them (MTSU’s Marketing and Communications Division) on why people chose (to attend) MTSU. Hopefully, we will continue to work with them next semester,” Farwell said.

The agency is also in the process of building its professional advisory board, which includes inaugural member and MTSU alumnus Brooks Christol of the advertising agency Barker & Christol in Murfreesboro.

“When I was a student, I actually started, along with a few other people, a student-run PR firm called Edgeway Communications,” said Christol, who graduated in 2001 with a degree in journalism with an emphasis in public relations. “I think that’s where my entrepreneurial spirit really started.”

Christol said when he found out about Ever Blue Branding, he knew he wanted to be involved in some way and that the opportunities for students would be unmatched.

“It is real-world experience with real-world successes and consequences. This particular venture, as Ever Blue Branding goes and gets clients, isn’t a class project, and if you don’t get a good grade, that’s the only negative that will come of it,” he said. “This is real-world, and if you don’t do a good job for the clients, one, you as a business will lose the client, and two, the client will lose an opportunity for revenue or growth — so there are real-world impacts to their work.”

Ever Blue Branding is accepting new clients. For more information, email everbluebranding@mtsu.edu.

— DeAnn Hays (deann.hays@mtsu.edu)