Work Samples Prepared for:

Situation

The University of Arizona is the state’s flagship university. As a double-designee land- and space-grant institution, an AAU member, a Carnegie R1 research powerhouse, and a designated a Hispanic-serving institution, home to not one but two medical schools, the university is instrumental to the state and holds unique influence across the county and around the globe. But for all those accolades, what UArizona didn’t have was a cohesive story. Identifying and celebrating a common ethos across its vast enterprise became an essential and urgent task—prodded by a too-noisy neighbor, and prioritized so that the institution’s reputation could be cemented in advance of a major comprehensive fundraising campaign.

Solution

When 160over90 entered the picture in early 2019, we started with one big question: What’s behind the ‘A’?

We fielded a Brand Perception Study to uncover general awareness levels and the school’s perceived reputation, as well as consideration among parents and prospective students in Arizona, Texas, and California. We employed an online survey with perceptual maps to test messaging perception, max diff to identify messages with the strongest impact, as well as ad recall for UArizona creative. At the same time, in anticipation of the upcoming fundraising campaign, UArizona Alumni commissioned 160over90 to conduct a segmentation study on alumni affinity and giving. Using data from donor files and a global survey of more than 2,000 alumni, we developed a model to group Wildcat grads based on propensity to give in the future.

This research, coupled with qualitative Discovery insights, led us to this: as the state’s first university, founded in 1885, The University of Arizona has long been in the discovery business. We’re talking world discovery, from space astronomy and optical engineering, to water scarcity and climate change, to the opioid crisis and immigration. And also self-discovery.
For certain, the desert of Tucson is a wellspring of imagination. But even more than the surrounding environment, we found that innate wonder lies at the heart of each and every Wildcat. It’s wonder that drives them to do the unknown, the unimaginable, and the unprecedented. And it’s a beautiful tension between heads-up wondering and heads-down doing that ultimately makes them who they are.

To share just how “Wonder Makes Us” at Arizona, we captured the stories of three incredible individuals who emulate wonder to the core: Phil Evans, an international wheelchair basketball player and student; Marcia Rieke, Astronomy Professor and Principal Investigator for the NIRCam on NASA’s James Webb Telescope; and Sama Alshaibi, multi-media artist and Professor of Photography. These stories—sometimes standalone, sometimes interwoven as part of a larger Wonder narrative—have been mobilized in a 360-campaign including out-of-home, custom content, TV, OTV, programmatic digital, and social, and are now live in Tucson, Phoenix, and key out-of-state markets like California and Texas.

Results

In the first wave of brand work in market, Arizona has seen tremendous results:

Awareness/Perception:
• 134 million impressions
• 0.35% CTR (exceeded benchmark by 2.9%)
• 68.3% VCR (exceeded benchmark by 7.4%)
• 252.3K LP Sessions
• 34.3% increase in YOY Arizona.edu traffic (non landing page traffic)
• 7% increase in unaided awareness among AZ teens
• +15% increase in association with “gives students a head start in their career”
• +17% increase in association with “excellent academics”
• +19% increase in association with “diversity”
• 8% increase in likelihood for TX parents to recommend The University of Arizona to their child

Admissions:
• Visitation increase in opportunity markets: TX (+17,000) and CA (+12,000)
• Record number of first-year apps for Fall 2020 ( 5.4% increase from the previous year)
• Enrolled most diverse class in history (48%) in Fall 2020
• First-year, first-generation grew to 30%+

Rankings:
• In 2021 U.S. News & World Report rankings, jumped into the Top 100 universities for the first time

Situation

The nation’s first public university, the University of Virginia (“UVA”) has played an integral role in the evolution of public education in the United States. Thomas Jefferson architected a new model for higher education, and the Academical Village—designed to create cross- disciplinary exchange—was positioned at the center of it all. For more than 200 years since, UVA has fulfilled its cinematic origin story as a heavy-hitting research institution, consistently ranked among the top publics, with 11 prestigious schools, a comprehensive health system, and top athletics programs. But the legend of Jefferson and UVA’s museum- like traditions were overpowering critical stories of ingenuity and innovation, compromising relevancy. So in 2014, in the lead-up to the launch of its Bicentennial Commemoration and its largest-ever comprehensive campaign, UVA engaged 160over90 to redefine, reanimate, and future-proof UVA’s brand platform and narrative.

Solution

To combat UVA’s historical reliance but honor its great legacy, 160over90 adjusted the narrative from Jefferson himself to the timeless ideals he espoused. The resulting brand platform, Living Idealism, draws on the past while always looking to the future, reflecting the endless pursuits of the community and demonstrating a continued commitment to excellence, ingenuity, and leadership throughout UVA’s third century.

Themes of collaboration, experimentation, and constant evolution were explored via print, digital, TV, radio, social, and high-visibility out-of-home placements. We’ve worked to reposition the incredibly iconic Rotunda from a ‘monument’ to a bulldozer, honoring UVA’s radical ways of thinking about what sits at the center of an educational experience. We’ve reimagined the President’s Report as Illimitable, a biannual editorial publication showcasing the best of UVA’s pursuits, relaunching it as a rich media online magazine.

And through a diligent process of engaging all corners of the community and equipping more than 1,600 communicators with proper marketing tools and assets—we’ve built a creative and cohesive storytelling ecosystem at UVA that aligned the overarching institution, schools, health system, athletics, admissions, advancement, and individual sub-brands/business units.

Results

In six years’ time, we’ve built more than a brand identity for UVA—we’ve created a dynamic ecosystem that reflects the true diversity, shared energy, and bold mission of one of the nation’s great universities.

We’ve increased the institution’s visibility and perception within the Commonwealth of Virginia and in the national landscape. An awareness campaign yielded more than 22 million impressions, resulting in the most successful video in school history and an 87% lift in unique site visits. A new subscription campaign for the news platform increased reach by 85% and generated 40,000+ subscribers. And a realignment of social properties grew total followers by nearly 40% in just the first year.

We’ve helped UVA achieve an historic high in quality applications and student diversity, growing undergraduate applications by 27%; increasing first- generation and minority applicants by more than 25% and 11%, respectively; and securing the largest number of early-action applications in UVA’s history, while also improving average SAT scores by more than 60 points.

And as a testament to internal adoption and brand alignment, in 2017 UVA was recognized by the American Marketing Association as the Higher Education Marketing Team of the Year.

SITUATION

UVA Health System is a comprehensive health system whose historical focus on revenue drivers has caused the organization to lose its way. Trailing in patient amenities and employee dissatisfaction have eroded repeat visits, and under-performance in safety scores and reputation have affected clinical volume. New leadership has shifted focus to employee and patient safety, capital investments, health and wellness, and an emphasis on improving the human condition—all so that UVA Health System and the commonwealth remain strong for years to come.

SOLUTION

As Agency of Record for the University of Virginia, 160over90 was able to build upon the institution’s creative strategy and approach (The Endless Pursuit of Better) to develop a robust strategy for UVA Health System that complemented that of UVA’s, while also haloing the institution’s academic reputation to the health system itself. The end result was a creative platform of “You’re Better Here,” which confidently speaks to UVA Health System’s focus on a better patient experience and the most positive outcomes possible. This powerful platform positions UVA Health System as an authoritative, yet approachable first choice option for all forms of care—and extends into reputational advertising, academic medicine, research, clinical, and recruitment.

RESULTS

UVA Health has achieved the following results:

• University of Virginia Medical Center was ranked as the 2018-2019 No. 1 hospital in Virginia by U.S. News & World Report “Best Hospitals”—for the third consecutive year

• Named part of 2018 “100 Great Hospitals in America” by Becker’s Hospital Review

• Nine specialties were ranked among the Top 50 Nationally by U.S. News & World Report

• Number of inpatient admissions increased by 800 from 2016 to 2017

• Full-time faculty increased by 11 percent between 2015 and 2017

Results

In six years’ time, we’ve built more than a brand identity for UVA—we’ve created a dynamic ecosystem that reflects the true diversity, shared energy, and bold mission of one of the nation’s great universities.

We’ve increased the institution’s visibility and perception within the Commonwealth of Virginia and in the national landscape. An awareness campaign has yielded 22 million impressions, resulting in the most successful video in school history and an 87% lift in unique site visits. A new subscription campaign for the news platform increased reach by 85% and generated 40,000 subscribers. And realignment of social properties grew total followers by nearly 40% in just the first year.

We’ve helped UVA achieve an historic high in quality applications and student diversity, growing undergraduate applications by 27%; increasing first-generation and minority applicants by 10% and 4%, respectively; and securing the largest number of early-action applications in UVA’s history while improving SAT scores.

On the fundraising front, despite facing a challenging philanthropic environment in 2020, the “Honor The Future” campaign has successfully raised more than $4.6 billion to date of its $5 billion goal and is now looking at an iconic campaign close-out.

And as a testament to internal adoption and brand alignment, UVA and 160over90 were recognized by the American Marketing Association as the 2017 higher education marketing team of the year.

Situation

Since the 1830s, Tulane University has experienced a history of ongoing evolution and ever-increasing impact. New Orleans is a place that pushes you to be you, and Tulane has always maintained a symbiotic relationship with the city it calls home. Just over 10 years ago, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the city was devastated and the university was on the brink of closing. In the decade since, Tulane transitioned from a comeback mentality to becoming a distinguished national leader in higher education and offering a highly sought after experience.

Solution

Tulane approached 160over90 at the onset of the university’s largest fundraising effort in its 184-year history with a goal to raise $1.3 billion to bolster research, scholarships, and faculty. We were tasked with developing a campaign narrative that authentically represents how Tulane is thinking big, differently, creatively, and with urgency to solve significant issues of today. We conducted a robust Discovery and created the campaign’s message and brand centered on the theme Only the Audacious. With this campaign platform, our team created a multi-year campaign communications strategy and full suite of executions to support the campaign, including a dynamic microsite, anthem video assets, case statement, save-the-date, donor gifts, campus signage, print collateral, and a campaign launch event.

Event Strategy & Execution | Designed to generate awareness, instill pride, and foster excitement among the entire Tulane community, the Only the Audacious event served as an experiential extension of the Brand Concept work 160over90 created on behalf of the University. Our team developed and executed on a series of activations and “media moments” leading up to and during Tulane’s Only the Audacious campaign launch, as a means to effectively reach key audiences such as alumni and donors—and amplify the event’s reach to extend well beyond day-of attendees. Throughout the engagement, the 160over90 team liaised with and consulted alongside the Tulane Advancement Events Team to ensure cohesion and alignment on all event elements, including bringing the strategy to life and assisting with pre-activation logistics and day-of, on-site event execution.

Event PR | To help bolster the institution’s reputation and brand awareness on a national stage, and to court public opinion of key influences in support of the comprehensive campaign, 160over90 implemented a targeted earned media strategy. Media relations outreach was centered on achieving heightened visibility through a steady drumbeat of positive press coverage specifically surrounding recent rankings and recognitions, brand stories that expressly ladder up to the Only the Audacious campaign initiatives, as well as milestones, major gift announcements, and expert source positioning to increase share of voice.

Results

A successful campaign launch event in December 2017 was framed as a daylong celebration near Tulane’s Uptown campus. Attendees participated in a luncheon, concert, and other events designed to highlight the university’s contribution to areas including coastal restoration and medicine. 54,000 individuals have already donated $820 million during the campaign’s silent phase. The number of donors has increased by 2,400 donors year over year. Last year (2018-2019) Tulane set a new record with over 25,000 donors in a single year. The campaign has currently raised $1.0B towards the $1.3B goal.

The University of Florida is well-known as an athletics powerhouse and, as with many schools, athletics is a front door to alumni pride and engagement. 160over90 and UF Athletics used that to its advantage at the 2017 football season opener, taking over a national game and turning it into national conversation.

This was the Advocare Classic, a nationally televised event played in AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. The eyes of the college football-watching world would be on the Gators for a match-up against Michigan, with all the attention and excitement of a bowl game. And the Classic would attract the largest gathering of Gator fans outside of Florida.

So we approached UF Athletics with a Texas-sized idea for a “Chompville” weekend takeover in Arlington. It would claim the city in the name of Gator Nation – complete with an airport takeover, outdoor advertising, custom SnapChat filters, skyline illuminations, branded hotel key cards where fans (and opponents) were staying, and even the election of Chompville’s very own mayor, Gator great and Cowboy legend Emmitt Smith. Factor in social amplification and the stunt reached 35 million people, galvanizing fans and winning bragging rights off the field.

SITUATION

There are few universities in the world that have the gravitas of UCLA. Globally recognized, highly sought-after, and one of the most applied to schools in the country. Yet, in the broader community, there are still a lot of misconceptions out there about who and what UCLA actually is and what it stands for. As the institution approaches its centennial anniversary in 2019, the leadership team recognized this was the perfect moment to clarify UCLA’s narrative for all audiences, drive key revenue generators across the institution—such as advancement, enrollment, athletics, and more—and lay the groundwork for the institution’s most ambitious fundraising effort to-date.

SOLUTION

160over90 was tasked to create an overarching institutional brand that would shape perception in the community and beyond, and also to translate that brand narrative for the centennial comprehensive campaign. The vehicle we found to deliver this message came from an in-depth discovery process. From the moment we stepped on UCLA’s campus we felt an overwhelming sense of optimism. Just about every student, faculty and staff member we met projected an air of informed, inclusive, positive enthusiasm. They not only knew they could make a difference, they were absolutely certain that they would. This unique, powerful, inspiring anomaly became the through line of the brand we built. The brand platform then translated to the campaign by drawing on the UC System’s motto, “Let There be Light,” while leaving the phrase open-ended to create a flexible device that could serve every area and cause across the entire institution. The Let There Be campaign launched in 2014 and has since surpassed its $4.2M goal 18 months ahead of schedule.

UCLA has capable and robust in-house teams of communicators across advancement, communications, and enrollment. From the start of this process, this relationship has been more than a collaboration. It’s been a shared journey of uncovering the institution’s essence, articulating and coauthoring a resonant campaign narrative, and co-creating the massive body of work that moved this campaign—this entire institution—forward to UCLA’s centennial anniversary, and beyond.

RESULTS

During our partnership, UCLA has achieved the following results:

• Increase to #18 in U.S. News & World Report Rankings

• Recognized as the #1 Public University by U.S. News & World Report

• Admissions increased by 36%

• Total applications in 2017 were 113,000

• First-generation applications increased by 9%

Situation

Texas A&M University is a fearless front. A community, standing arm in arm, ready for anything. Steeped in history, pride, and reverence, yet fueled by diverse backgrounds, talents, and search for excellence and truth. As a world-class institution, the university seeks to combine knowledge, research, and innovation to create solutions to far-reaching challenges that few institutions have the depth and breadth to achieve.

Together, Texas A&M’s top leaders and faculty members identified key areas in which the university has the proven expertise and creativity in research and teaching to take on society’s most critical problems and look fearlessly ahead at those yet to come. From now through 2020, former students and friends are uniting with faculty and staff in the Lead by Example campaign to enhance Texas A&M’s ability to tackle real-world problems. Such a transformational endeavor requires considerable resources that Texas A&M understood are neither present today, nor likely to become available from public funding sources. Only with private support will Texas A&M take its place among tomorrow’s most prestigious universities.

Solution

In the fall of 2015, Texas A&M was readying to break precedent in Texas and launch a $4 billion campaign. At the same time, the campus welcomed a new administration—both a university president and a foundation president—who inherited the campaign and were charged with rolling it out to stakeholders first across the university, and then across the country. Coupled with a thinly staffed communications team, the mobilization of this ambitious campaign posed a serious challenge.

160over90 was tasked with developing a singular brand voice for the institution to elevate the recognition of the university’s academic and research excellence, secure increased private funding, and strengthen state and federal resources focused on educational and research needs. The new brand platform we helped launch enhanced the perception of Texas A&M as one of the best and most dynamic universities in the world: a single progressive force on the leading edge of it all. As a result, the institution’s new positioning engaged multiple constituents with diverse (and sometimes conflicting) perspectives in a consistent, yet meaningful manner.

Results

The new brand platform served to realign Texas A&M at the overarching level, including a new omni-channel marketing campaign that launched in epic fashion just six months after the new president arrived. The comprehensive campaign included print, digital, TV/video, social media, and web initiatives, and gained the following results:

• Campaign:
  Raised $3.87B to-date
  More than 194K donors
  834K gifts
  Overall: 49MM total campaign impressions
  PSA: 4.9MM views
  Digital Ads:
  17MM digital ad impressions
  Impact video unit had high CTR of 4.41%
  Display ads on The Chronicle of Higher Education (+50%), Forbes (+30%), and The Atlantic (+43%) performed well above CTR benchmark
  Print: “Ripped from the headlines” print ads impacted more than 12+ publications nationally with 4.6MM impressions thus far
  OOH: By leveraging markets with the biggest Aggie alumni networks, OOH placements gained extra traction on social media (in addition to 14.7MM impressions)

• Social Media:
  15K shares of PSA
  Posts featuring the :30 Fearless on Every Front video achieved .56% CTR on Facebook and .47% CTR on Twitter
  3.8% CTR for paid social

Situation

As Missouri’s largest and most comprehensive university, the University of Missouri (“UM”) historically attracted approximately one-third of the state’s high school seniors each year and enrolled roughly 25,000 students. The student body includes populations of interna- tional, minority, and out-of-state students. But beginning in the fall of 2015, UM faced a series of events that garnered negative national attention and led to significantly decreased enrollment—and ongoing issues that have persisted over the past couple of years.

Solution

SITUATION

At the beginning of 2020, we partnered with Yale University to develop branding for the institution’s most ambitious fundraising effort to date, intended to raise $7 Billion. And as we’re all keenly aware, in the time between then and now, the world has changed dramatically.

While building a campaign brand, we expanded our relationship with the University to help students and staff navigate the pandemic, and advocate for safety around Fall and Spring semester returns to campus (year over year).

SOLUTION

We created a highly visible, on-campus and virtual campaign with basic reminders for hand washing, mask wearing, and maintaining social distance. (See: “The future is in your hands, please keep them clean.”) We incorporated user-generated content to help with student buy-in, in addition to designing thoughtful creative to convey that Yale’s leadership is doing its part to support students and staff. And the campaign was cleverly ‘endorsed’ by the school mascot, Handsome Dan, which helped to personalize the message.

This was coupled with more advanced appeals for individual accountability/behavioral compliance for the betterment of the group and greater New Haven.

All campaign touchpoints pointed to online resources on prevention, testing, and tracing.

And in addition to reinforcing physical safety guidelines, the campaign also touched on mental health and wellness concerns stemming from COVID-19. Messages of “It’s OK not to be OK” recommended available counseling services.

RESULTS

As the pandemic approaches year 3, Yale continues to reinforce the messaging. And the agency has been brought into an additive consulting role, facilitating weekly student and staff focus groups on pandemic concerns and reporting sentiment to University leadership, to directly inform COVID communications.