Brand Elevation to Increase Awareness

163M

Impressions delivered across media channels

150K

Click-throughs to the MUSC website

2024 Communicator Award of Excellence

Silver Telly Award

A bold national brand campaign elevates awareness for an academic health sciences leader.

To unify its brand voice and strengthen national visibility across higher education and healthcare, Medical University of South Carolina partnered with Carnegie to launch its first-ever brand awareness campaign—building a strategic foundation for long-term brand growth.

The Challenge

The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), an academic health sciences center at the intersection of higher education and health care, sought to launch its first-ever brand awareness campaign to elevate national visibility, unify its brand voice, and strengthen its reputation across both industries. In 2022, recognizing the need to modernize its digital presence and communicate its unique value proposition in an increasingly competitive environment, MUSC partnered with Carnegie to embark on a transformative journey and establish a strategic foundation for long-term brand growth.

Our Approach

To begin MUSC’s brand evolution, Carnegie conducted a comprehensive mix of qualitative and quantitative research, including internal stakeholder research, an external market perception study, and a competitive brand analysis. The insights revealed MUSC’s unique market position and distinct brand personality. Using this foundation, Carnegie developed a marketing plan to guide the rollout, a university-wide campaign concept adaptable across channels, and a suite of compelling photography and videos to build brand awareness and reputation.

With a differentiated brand message and fresh creative assets in place, Carnegie executed a comprehensive marketing strategy. This included traditional media, display ads, social media, and mobile footprinting to expand reach and visibility. Carnegie also supported internal engagement by training MUSC stakeholders to “live the brand” and communicate its message consistently through effective storytelling techniques.

Following the launch, Carnegie conducted benchmarking studies and monitored campaign performance. These critical efforts enabled ongoing measurement, optimization, and refinement of the brand’s impact over time.

The Results

MUSC’s inaugural brand awareness campaign has delivered powerful and measurable results, validating the strength of its multi-year partnership with Carnegie. To date, the campaign has generated over 163 million impressions across digital, social, and traditional media channels, effectively reaching prospective students, academic leaders, health sciences researchers, health professionals, and prospective collaborators nationwide across targeted publications, LinkedIn, YouTube, and the wider web, leading to 150,000 click-throughs to the MUSC website.

A follow-up external market perception study conducted in 2024 confirmed the campaign’s effectiveness. While peer institutions saw declines in brand reputation scores, MUSC experienced a significant rise in brand familiarity and improved clarity around its brand personality—clear indicators of elevated national positioning.

Carnegie’s creative work on this project has been praised. In 2024, MUSC’s brand anthem video won the 2024 Communicator Award of Excellence for Film and Video in Education. The “Dr. Wrangle + Kerry” video received a Silver Telly Award for Online Commercials – Educational Institutions and a full-page ad in The Cancer Letter earned Bronze at the 40th Educational Advertising Awards.

Through this ongoing engagement, Carnegie and MUSC have built a distinctive and enduring brand platform that continues to advance MUSC’s mission in education, research, and patient care.

163M

Impressions delivered across media channels

150K

Click-throughs to the MUSC website

2

National awards for outstanding video creative

Partnering with Carnegie has been a transformative experience for MUSC. Academic health science centers are inherently complex, but their team took the time to understand who we truly are. They approached the work with thoughtfulness and intention, asked the right questions, pushed us to think beyond ourselves, and held us accountable when it mattered most. Through this collaboration, we gained a deeper understanding of our identity and how to share our story more effectively with the world. The real success lies in how natural the collaboration felt. It never felt transactional. They were fully invested in our success.

Mack Altman Assistant Provost for Strategic Initiatives + Communications Medical University of South Carolina