Sharp website design, conversational and quirky messaging and a tremendous focus on metrics made Loughborough University's "Road to Rio" stand out among the 64 multimedia campaigns entered in the CASE Circle of Excellence Awards. Judges agreed that the bespoke website and comprehensive media plan transformed a creative idea into a truly exceptional example of best practices in our industry - and it was all done for a quite reasonable budget of 35,000 pounds.
The judging panel loved how Loughborough's entry delivered consistent visuals and tongue-in-cheek messaging across all platforms, and how the University incorporated the Olympics colors with their own branding.
The team at Loughborough created comprehensive plans in advance of the games, mapping out when Loughborough alumni were competing or could offer expertise on a topic. Their entire budget outlay was sending a staff member to Rio to get photos and interviews with Loughborough University Olympians in the moments following their medal finishes. They capped it off by using annotations and novel keywords on their Youtube channel so their videos were served to their audience and converted them to their website.
A thorough understanding of how people interacted with this content- paired with a conversational and memorable way of presenting the data-pushed this entry over the top. Not only did Loughborough throw off quips like "If every impression (social, video and web) was equal to a mile, you could have made 1,720 trips from Loughborough to Rio," they also benchmarked their social reach during this campaign against other institutions.
