Refreshing CCE’s Visual Identity To Reflect A Diverse, Ivy-League Student Body on Owned Social Media, OOH/ Digital Billboards, and Newly In-Person Following the COVID-19 Pandemic

Opportunity

When I joined the team as the Associate Director of Event Management and Communications in 2022, the university was preparing to return to in-person operations for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. CCE now needed to (re)connect with a cohort of undergraduate students that may not have engaged with the Center or even stepped foot on Columbia’s Morningside Heights Campus yet. Among the challenges were a major office relocation taking place days before the Fall 2022 semester began and a bank of pre-existing social media graphics that received low engagement.

Creative Execution & Strategy

• Photographed and commissioned photographers to capture images at large-scale CCE events including undergraduate career fairs, industry showcases, and experiential learning opportunities like the Spring Break Site Visit Program to refresh the Center’s photo repository.

• Organized focus groups and listening sessions with student organization leaders to measure needs, impact, promote events, and encourage direct partnership with the Center. Crafted a biweekly email newsletter for this particular audience to share with their respective organizations.

• Oversaw the creation of all multimedia content and branded assets. Inventoried the Center’s bank of pre-existing social media graphics and made recommendations for immediate improvements before undertaking a larger project to redesign the overall visual identity including creating social media asset templates, indexing for evergreen use, and design of slides and upkeep for several rotating digital billboards on-campus. Content was developed to market CCE programming, lead way-finding to the new office, promote social media engagement, and share partner office’s information in a timely fashion.

• Established more ubiquitous use of QR codes (and tracking) in print and digital materials for use during New Student Orientation Programs (NSOP), large-scale career fairs, office way-finding and centrally-located digital signage.

• Designed and ordered portable retractable banners for both office and event use that reflected the tremendous diversity of the student body and their career interests, which senior leadership agreed was a key priority.

• Prioritized the use of social video, utilizing past performance and analytics to gain Senior Leadership Team and staff buy-in.

• Directly incorporated student voices wherever possible.

Results & Impact

• Led a successful way-finding and awareness campaign, with Tech and Operations team support, as the Center rapidly relocated from the basement of Wien Hall to the 2nd floor of the more centrally-located Uris Hall mere days before the beginning of the Fall 2022 semester.

• Led integrated MarComm campaigns and executed on back-to-back large-scale student events in Spring 2023 including 1/31 Diversity Recruiting Showcase (Project Manager), 2/8 Impact and Policy Showcase, 2/15 Creative Industries Showcase (Project Manager), 2/17 Spring Undergraduate Career Fair, 2/22 Tech Connect and 2/24 Engineering Micro Career Fair. Phew!

• Built out a robust Social Media Toolbox to provide models for building Reels and TikTok content, plus platform best practices.

• Newly created visual assets - used across social media and digital billboards on-campus - were brighter, more colorful, human-centered, representative of ethnic and industry diversity, and featured clear and succinct copy with social engagement rates 3-6x higher than previous assets.

• Collaborated with public affairs and communications colleagues from across the university to highlight the return to in-person career fairs after two years of COVID (”Recruiters Return to Campus for Undergraduate Career Fair”) and the successful return of the Spring Break Site Visit Program after three years (featured in the Friday Five).