West Virginia University’s University Relations team was recently honored in an international competition for its “Everyday” marketing campaign, featured most prominently during the men’s and women’s basketball Big East and NCAA tournament play last spring.

The Association of Marketing & Communication Professionals awarded the UR team a gold in the MarCom Awards, an award received by just 18 percent of entrants. The award recognizes projects that “exceed the high standards of the industry norm.”

As part of the campaign, staff created video messaging, web promotion, digital advertising and interactive technologies that promoted WVU’s research, academic and student-life successes by driving audiences to the University’s online news vehicle, WVUToday.

The video aired on the CBS Spectacular digital billboard in New York’s Times Square; Macy’s vision screen, across from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station; on the scoreboard inside Madison Square Garden and as a TV commercial during broadcasts of men’s and women’s tournament games.

The “Everyday” campaign also featured a mobile tracking device, or QR-code, that connected smart-phone users with the WVUToday home page for exclusive, immediate WVU news.

The campaign contributed to significantly increased WVUToday web traffic, which resulted in a 25 percent April-May page-view increase for the university’s news and information offerings.

While the campaign premiered at the Big East Tournament, the video messaging is continually updated with new versions, and is currently featured on wvu.edu, YouTube, and at all major WVU athletic events.

“The aim of ‘Everyday’ is to invest our students, faculty, staff, alumni, fans, friends and potential friends in our story—in the story of WVU,” said Chris Martin, vice president for university relations.

“We want the story of WVU to top everyone’s iGoogle page, to become their web homepage, and to place prominently in their news aggregators—from Twitter to Facebook to Flipboard. The goal is to engage audiences in the WVU narrative, every person, every day.”

Go here to view the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8obtTlMhgE

Click on this link to view the overall campaign: http://universityrelations.wvu.edu/tournament_campaign

-WVU-

dm/11/18/10

CONTACT: University Relations/News
304-293-6997

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