The Office of Marketing and Communications (OMC) has received seven awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) for Elizabethtown College.
CASE is an annual competition that gives private and public universities a chance to express marketing and communications initiatives. OMC won three gold, two silver, one bronze and one honorable mention for seven out of the ten programs and projects they submitted. The College’s gold awards will be entered into the national CASE Circle of Excellence Awards for further judging.
Elizabeth Braungard, the executive director of Marketing and Communications, stated, “One of the things that I think is so exciting about the CASE competition is that you are judged by your peers. Other marketing and communications people in the field of higher education will look at your entry, look at your material … and they decide how your entry ranks.”
To be eligible for competition, projects had to be created between July 2011 and July 2012. The winners were announced in December 2012.They competed against many other universities in other states and districts such as New Jersey, Delaware, New York, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., along with places outside of the United States, like Ontario, Canada, US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
The bronze award was given to the College under the category of Special Events for “The Presidential Inauguration of Carl J. Strikwerda” because of its elegant package and consistency of design. One of the gold awards was given for Student Recruitment for “Redefine Yourself: The View Book.” Another gold award received was for Individual Special Public Relations Projects for “The Bird Feeder: Food Truck,” which judges said is a very creative way to incorporate a food truck into college life to create student jobs, a safe dining option and a moving promotion.
One of the silver awards is for Best Practices in Communications and was awarded to “Moment of Truth Acceptance Package,” which manages to creatively bridge the past and present in the formality of a college acceptance letter. The other silver that was awarded to the College was for Video Features for “Elizabethtown College Branding Video” for overall strong production. And lastly, the honorable mention received was for the Student Recruitment Package, “Elizabethtown College Redefined.”
Braungard said, “In the past two years, we have completely [revamped] all of our recruitment materials for the College. We have just developed a new view book. We have revamped our acceptance package. Now our students received a moment of truth package with a congratulations, an acceptance letter, a little more information about what they need to do and how they can connect with the College and then a declaration card for intent. It encourages students to take a photo of their acceptance letter and post it on Twitter.”
Social networking is the way many people choose to inform others about their lives and their accomplishments. With Etown redesigning how they appear to present-day college applicants, they have proven that they are willing to go the extra distance to make the higher education levels for their students a better place to learn. These awards show how much the College is willing to change in order to prepare their students for the technologically advanced world.
Going along with these ideas, Braungard said, “I think it reflects really well on the College because we are beginning to elevate the quality of our programs, the quality of our students and faculty. We are telling stories in a new and engaging way. I think that in this day of age, when you are looking to recruit students to college, you have to be able to differentiate yourself. We are doing a better job at differentiating the Etown experience over an experience of any of our peer institutions. It is our commitment to service-based learning, our focus with the strategic plan on real-world learning and giving students the chance to do internships and research with faculty. It is those things that begin to set us apart.”
OMC worked an entire year to create the new acceptance package, the Viewbook. They did not start this with the idea that they wanted to win an award, but rather the idea that they wanted Etown to be set apart from other colleges.
As the OMC continues its work to remodel the College’s publications, plans to submit specific pieces to additional competitions are already underway. Braungard concluded by expressing the possibility of submitting the OMC’s publications that earned gold to the Circle of Excellence, CASE’s international premier awards program.