April 14th, 2013, by sel5543

In the Winter quarter, graduate students in the Print Media Masters program were tasked with the design of a comprehensive, cross-media campaign to market for the graduate program. This assignment followed six weeks of Cross Media Workflow Analysis, taught by Professor Graham Anthony, and students were able to utilize their new knowledge of media channels in a practical application. Students were split into three teams of four students and had four weeks to complete their campaign designs. The campaigns had various criteria to fulfill for the purpose of the assignment, but the bulk of the work was left up to the student’s imaginations and creativity. Additionally, any and all content or collateral proposed for the campaign had to be designed and executed (posters, t-shirts, etc.).

All three groups opted for the inclusion of an iPad app, direct mail pieces and a Mindfire campaign (emails, pURLs, surveys) in some capacity, but from there the group presentations were very different.

Stephanie Fallon explains her group, “Our goal was to create a stand alone identity for the Print Media Masters program. However, we wanted it to be cohesive with the overall branding of the school to make it easier for people to identify.”

Group 1 – Innovate, Transform, Connect

Trevor Schroeder’s group had similar goals, to “…launch a multimedia campaign that delivered valuable personalized content to potential applicants.” All three groups agreed that the program itself suffers from poor visibility, partially in light of the recent changes to the name and branding of the school itself.

Group 2 – Be Uncommon, Be Print Media

Primarily, the students sought to create a brand identity for the new School of Media Sciences (previously Print Media) that was clear and identifiable. “Print Media has so many facets that it’s sometimes hard to explain just what the program entails for graduate students. That was the driving force for our campaign. We wanted it to appeal to a variety of degrees and backgrounds.” explains Sarah Lawrence.

Group 3 – You and Print Media

The project, of course, had it’s challenges. Trevor identified his team’s greatest challenge as creating an “…unified visual campaign across several media channels that promoted the brand of media sciences.” Stephanie agreed, citing her own group’s obstacle to be “Integrating each media channel and utilizing them to their full potential. The accelerated time frame was also challenging.”

Graham Anthony weighed in on the results of the class project. “I think overall that the important thing was the process. I think that the students achieved more than they would have expected to coming into the class. In regards to marketing for the department, each project offered an unique opportunity for further investigation. With any project-based class, if you do it right, you end up with a disparate end result which opens the door for more opportunities for exploration.”