From the Nominator

The University of Cincinnati’s Bicentennial Homecoming served as the official finale of the UC Bicentennial and was a unique celebration of Bearcat spirit. The Bicentennial Homecoming included a full week of activities involving alumni, students, fans, and friends. Nov. 8, 2019, will go down in UC history for the memorable and historic celebration in Fifth Third Arena that formally launched Next, Now: The Campaign for Cincinnati, and brought the curtain down on UC’s Bicentennial year of festivities. More than 30 Bicentennial Homecoming events occurred during the week, including the culminating Bicentennial Bash, an all-call event on campus for alumni, faculty, staff, and students that happened exactly 200 years after the university’s first day of class. The UC Alumni Association’s integrated marketing team developed a multi-faceted, multi-channel campaign that aligned with the university’s overall Bicentennial marketing strategy and executed its own Bicentennial Homecoming strategy. The team created more than 100 tactics across all channels to drive attendance at Bicentennial Homecoming festivities and increase awareness for UC’s Bicentennial. There were 5,000 attendees at the Bicentennial Bash, more than 43,000 engaged constituents at all Homecoming events, and online engagement topped 65,000, with more than 18 million impressions across all marketing channels.

From the Judges

UC successfully capped the end of their Bicentennial with a week-long homecoming celebration that also served to launch their campaign. Building off the momentum of their year-long anniversary celebration, the team leveraged an historic moment to lay the path for UC's future. The methodologies and strategies deployed through this plan: university partnerships, strong visual identity, omnichannel marketing, and smart segmentation were evident throughout the nomination package, which provided a thorough representation of the final product and overwhelmingly positive outcomes. This is what every alumni marketing strategy should look like, and it can serve as a scalable road map for other institutions. UC's ability to stay on brand and cover everything from tubas to T-shirts with the Bicentennial Bash and Boldly Bearcat graphic treatments left no one in doubt about what was happening on campus. While the list of tasks to prepare for a school's Bicentennial is already long, UC's Alumni Association went above and beyond to guarantee a successful week of celebration.