UC wins marketing and communication CASE awards

The September 2019 edition was recognized as the top digital magazine of all entries submitted from universities and colleges spanning the United States as well as 27 other countries. The work recognized resulted from an endeavor to send a UC storytelling team from Marketing + Communications to Tanzania to join volunteers from the Village Life Outreach Project last June. The nonprofit has sent hundreds of volunteers from UC to three remote villages in East Africa since it started 15 years ago, an effort that has deeply impacted countless lives on both sides of the world.

"We were awed by the photography and stayed for the content,” stated the judges. “The images and the design were so sharp and engaging; they draw the viewer in. This is a great example of a magazine that truly takes advantage of the possibilities that the digital format allows.”

Others who contributed to the project included Jac Kern, now UC Magazine editor; Barbara Blum, contributing editor; Ben Henson, front end developer; as well as Andrew Higley, Ben Gardner and Paul Grundy for video production. The digital magazine design was based on work by print designers Michelle Ensch and Margaret Weiner.

Also awarded with a CASE gold medal this week was the UC Alumni Association for its “Boldly Bearcat” Homecoming celebration in the category of alumni relations marketing and promotion.

Judges for this entry shared the following:

“The methodologies and strategies deployed through this plan: university partnerships, strong visual identity, omnichannel marketing and smart segmentation were evident throughout the nomination package, which provided a thorough representation of the final product and overwhelmingly positive outcomes. This is what every alumni marketing strategy should look like, and it can serve as a scalable road map for other institutions.”

In the entry, UCAA credited their partnership with UC’s Marketing + Communications team and pointed to 30 Bicentennial Homecoming events that occurred during the week, including the culminating Bicentennial Bash, an event on campus for alumni, faculty, staff and students that happened exactly 200 years after the university’s first day of class. The effort, overseen by Kim Burdett, UCAA's director of integrated marketing and annual giving, included developing a multifaceted, multichannel campaign that aligned with the university’s overall Bicentennial marketing strategy. 

The UC Foundation's "Boldly Bearcat" campaign also won both a Bronze Award for "Special Events," as well as a Bronze Award for fundraising publications for "Next, Now: The Campaign for Cincinnati."

According to CASE, “the awards acknowledge superior accomplishments that have lasting impact, demonstrate the highest level of professionalism while delivering exceptional results in the fields of advancement services, alumni relations, communications, fundraising and marketing.”

Featured image at top: Kelly Schmitz, a Village Life Outreach Project volunteer and UC College of Nursing alumna, checks a patient's temperature as part of the June 2019 brigade to Tanzania. Photo/Lisa Ventre/UC Creative + Brand.