Sharing a Bold Story
2
Major Creative Awards
2023 Award of Excellence from The Communicator Awards
2023 Gold Award from The Telly Awards
Bringing Grainger’s Bold Story to Life
Through deep research, brand alignment, and a full suite of creative assets, Carnegie helped the Grainger College of Engineering amplify its reputation and showcase the impact of its students and faculty.
The Challenge
Carnegie’s partnership with the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign began with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to build organic search visibility. When College leadership realized they needed to unify the brand to influence national rankings and global awareness, they recruited Carnegie for a broad brand strategy engagement leading into creative and multimedia expression. The College knew it had a strong story to tell but had not been boldly harnessing it.
Our Approach
Our work started with multiple internal workshops among Grainger stakeholders to build an understanding of its brand personality and how to express it. Carnegie analyzed competitor messaging and external market perception to determine where Grainger had opportunities to tell a distinct story in order to build engagement. We then moved into creative development, recommending that Grainger incorporate a bolder expression of its industrious and influential personality. Based on this personality, we developed a campaign concept to ensure a compelling expression of Grainger’s brand. Our Creative and Multimedia teams then planned and produced a full brand video designed to express the College’s distinct personality across communications, incorporating multiple social media clips.
Landing Page
Carnegie created engaging landing pages that highlighted Grainger’s most valuable assets—its students and their accomplishments.
Magazine Advertisements
Carnegie created print ads that emphasized Grainger’s industrious and influential personality by using bold, eye-catching imagery.
Posters
Carnegie developed print advertisements and posters that highlighted Grainger’s history of accomplishment and success.
Admissions Material
Carnegie developed print pieces (viewbooks and postcards) that focused on reputation and differentiating Grainger from competitors. The materials highlighted Grainger’s reputation as a place where the unimaginable is possible.
Video
Highlighting Grainger’s brand identity and story in a single video, Carnegie’s creative and multimedia teams produced a video that expresses what makes Grainger unique. A big part of the campaign was to highlight Grainger as a place where things happen. The video incorporates imagery of Grainger’s engineers doing just that: doing.
The Results
Driven by Carnegie’s psychometric model and brand strategy, Grainger now has the tools for brand expression and reputation building across channels—social, web, digital, among internal stakeholders, and more. As the College continues to build rankings and enhance its reputation among peers and corporate partners, it is armed with a brand strategy that is authentic and advantageous for telling the College’s story at a deeper level.
Having a strong partnership yields great creative outcomes, which is something we have found with Carnegie. Being a large college, we needed a robust team who could move on multiple different fronts simultaneously.
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