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WSC Wins 3 National Collegiate Advertising Awards

Published Friday, April 2nd, 2021

WSC Academic Brochures

Wayne State won a gold award for a series of academic department brochures, a gold award for student testimonial recruitment videos, and a bronze award for its television commercial, “Lead Tomorrow."

Wayne State College was named among the best higher education advertisers in the nation in the 2020 Collegiate Advertising Awards Program. The announcement for the winners in the annual contest was made March 31. Wayne State took home two golds and a bronze award in three separate categories.

The Collegiate Advertising Awards (CAA) program is an elite, national program recognizing higher education organizations for excellence in communications, marketing, advertising, and promotions of their schools. The 2020 CAA program received entries from the United States and Canada, representing small community colleges to large schools and universities.

Wayne State won a gold award for the College’s Academic Department Brochures, a series of 16 brochures produced by WSC’s College Relations team and used by the Admissions office in its recruitment efforts to highlight the benefits and features of each of the college’s academic departments; a gold award for student testimonial recruitment videos, which were produced by Clark Creative Group in Omaha and StudentBridge, a leading provider of personalized, digital engagement solutions for educational institutions; and a bronze award for its television commercial, “Lead Tomorrow," which was produced and directed by Clark Creative Group.

“I have always been impressed with the quality of the work produced by the College Relations team,” said Wayne State President Marysz Rames. “They are innovative and creative in their approach to ‘Telling the Wayne State Story.' I am thrilled and honestly not surprised by these awards. This acknowledgement clearly represents the outstanding work of this group of professionals.”

“I am exceptionally proud of the creative materials produced by my staff at the college,” said Jay Collier, director of College Relations at Wayne State. “Amanda Broberg, Trudy Muir, Kristi Nelson, and Angela Steffen deliver exceptional work under tight deadlines each year to help tell the Wayne State story used in our recruitment and fundraising efforts. It has also been my pleasure to work with Clark Creative Group in Omaha on our television commercials for the past five years along with other video projects, radio ads, digital advertising, and the redesign of the college’s visual identity and with our recruitment partner, StudentBridge. Our work with Clark and StudentBridge has contributed to the college’s success in growing enrollment more than 20% in the past four years.”

Submissions were reviewed and scored by a national panel of industry experts, with a possibility of 100 total points. Wayne State’s entries competed against similar-sized organizations in their specific groups and categories. Gold awards received a judges’ score of 95 to 99 (top 5% in the nation); silver awards earned 90 to 94 (top 12% in the nation); and bronze awards earned 85 to 89 (top 16% in the nation).

“We greatly enjoy collaborating with the Wayne State College marketing team,” said Melanie Clark, president of Clark Creative Group. “It’s such a thrill to produce video products that effectively showcase Wayne State’s excellent education, beautiful campus, and incredible students. To receive this kind of recognition for our work is truly an honor.”

Awards were issued for entries that received top marks from judges placing them in the top 16% of the nation for advertising excellence. Judging criteria included creativity, layout and design, functionality, message effectiveness, production quality, and overall appeal.

“Representing all areas of communications, medias, marketing, advertising, and promotions, the 2020 Collegiate Advertising Awards program contained some of the best advertising projects arguably in the world,” CAA noted on its website. “The Collegiate Advertising Awards program is pleased to recognize the outstanding creative achievements of Wayne State College.”

Award winners included large national universities such as Auburn, Clemson, Syracuse, Michigan, Emory, and Vanderbilt, and regional colleges such as Wayne State College, Elmhurst University, and Fort Lewis College, among others.

View all winners on the Collegiate Advertising Awards website.