From Whiteboard to Wilkes Barre to Webinar: A Student’s Marketing Journey
I thought it was just another school project, but I could not have been more wrong.
How it all began
In the fall of my senior year at Point Park University (PPU) in Pittsburgh, PA, I was given the opportunity to participate in a Direct Effect Innovation Challenge with three other PPU students: Sabrina Tatalias, Information Technology; Kayla Snyder, Advertising and PR; and Divine Kennedy, Marketing and Sales. Being a multimedia and graphic design major, I thought we made a pretty diverse team.
Our advisors, professors Dorene Ciletti and Camille Downing, explained the objective of the challenge: to create an integrated marketing campaign for the America250PA initiative. This initiative, spanning from 2020 to 2026, aims to encourage PA residents to celebrate Pennsylvania’s impact on the birth of the United States, as well as preserve history, boost tourism and drive economic development. Our goal was to market to all Pennsylvanians, utilize at least three marketing channels, and use direct mail as one of those channels.
“ALL Pennsylvanians?” I can’t speak for my team, but I can say that was surely my first thought. How do we market to such a large and diverse target audience? How do we reach people within the digital divide? Where do we even begin?
A whiteboard was our first step — a place to display even the craziest of ideas.
We used design-thinking strategies to come up with important keywords. We all shared our personal experiences living in Pennsylvania and what we valued most about the commonwealth. We blurted out every concept that came to mind from a PA storybook to an interactive puzzle to a pop-up timeline. Surely something would stand out…and it did.
Taking inspiration from Pittsburgh-native Fred Rogers, we all expressed an interest in PA neighborhoods and communities, and how these places shape who we are as Pennsylvanians. The people, places and pivotal moments are part of us, just as PA is part of the U.S.
This lead to the creation of our main concept and visual: PArt of US. Our visual illustrates Pennsylvania as a welcoming neighborhood with “PArt of US” as the keystone that holds it all together. From farms to suburbs to cities, PA residents call these places home, and every person has a different story to tell. This became our focus: an emphasis on statewide engagement where all people could share their PA stories to show how the commonwealth is part of who they are.
The Southwest Regional Direct Effect Innovation Challenge
The Direct Effect Regional Innovation Challenge was made up of 32 schools across four regions in Pennsylvania. The southwest regional challenge was hosted at Point Park University and included six college teams: Robert Morris University, Point Park University, Westminster College, Saint Francis University, Pittsburgh Technical College, and Carlow University.
Each team had about five hours to take their initial concepts and expand them into practical integrated marketing campaigns capable of being produced. This included the implementation of three or more marketing channels and the design of a mail piece mockup. In the end, all teams would go on to present their ideas to a panel of professional judges, and two schools would advance to Wilkes Barre, PA, to pitch their ideas to Governor Wolf’s America250PA Commission.
Each member on my team took on a different role. Sabrina worked on developing a live website, Kayla and Divine tackled research and writing, and I focused on creative development including the design and construction of the mail piece. We chose to focus on direct mail, digital media, social media and broadcast media to bring our PArt of US vision to life.
The competition structure was something that I wasn’t used to. As a creative, I like to put a lot of time into my work when I’m able. I like to look things over 10, 20, 30 times before I show anyone else. However, given the time limit, I had to work fast and put trust in myself and in my team mates. One of the greatest things that I took away from this experience was a boost in self-confidence.
Throughout the day, we also had the chance to network with professionals of various backgrounds. I talked with several people including Victoria Stephen, Director of Mailing Services at USPS, who helped me plan the functionality of a reply card on our mail piece. President of RRD Pittsburgh, Jake Zoller, and Vice President of the company’s Hoechstetter plant, Mike Cercone, offered advice and showed me examples of mail pieces featuring augmented reality. In the end, our mail piece mock up conceptually incorporated texture, QR codes, augmented reality, and more.
All of the teams presented amazing ideas. There was so much passion and talent in the room that day. Truly, all of the campaigns had the potential to make a positive impact on the commonwealth.
In the end, Robert Morris University and Point Park University advanced to Wilkes Barre. We had only a few weeks to polish our ideas and condense our presentations down to five minutes.
The Final Pitch in Wilkes Barre
After a 4–5 hour road trip, my team arrived in Wilkes Barre for the Wilkes Barre Connect Conference. When I first got involved in the Direct Effect Innovation Challenge, it sounded like a large project; however, I had no idea how significant it would turn out to be until I walked into the conference room. The room was filled with marketing and business professionals from all across the commonwealth. I shook hands with industry leaders, and though I quivered from obvious inferiority, I soon felt welcome. I saw excitement in the eyes of those looking forward to our pitch, and for the first time, I felt accomplished as a student and as a designer. I felt accomplished knowing that my team and I got to a place where we could make our names known and potentially be part of history by doing the things we love.
We spent the night practicing our pitch using a makeshift lint roller microphone, and taking intermittent bites of hotel pizza as we made final edits to our slides. The morning of the competition, we were well prepared.
Our pitch went smoothly despite some nerves. I had never spoken in front of so many people, let alone people who were experts in the field that we were presenting in. The audience seemed to like the PArt of US concept and how it translated in our refined mail piece.
The final mail piece, graciously printed by RRD Pittsburgh, features a gravel texture on the road, a pop-up die cut of our logo, a scannable QR code that linked to our live website, and a concept of augmented reality (AR). If fully developed, the AR would allow people to scan the mail piece with their phones and drive a 3D car along a road to learn more about different locations around PA as well as submit their commonwealth stories for an opportunity to take a trip to one of the locations. The piece also features a perforated reply card mailer so those without technology can still participate.
My team had the opportunity to visit RRD Pittsburgh’s printing facility and see our mail piece being produced in real time. Jake Zoller from the regional competition gave us a tour, explained the printing process and showed us similar augmented reality pieces that he produced. Overall, it was exciting to see the process of the mail piece from a 2D image on a screen to a high-quality print. This was the first time I had prepared a design file for a die cut and texture process, so it was amazing to see that the final result turned out even better than I had imagined. I am thankful for RRD’s help in bringing our piece to life.
All eight of the university teams gave incredible pitches (you can hear ours in the webinar recording below). It was interesting to see so many different ideas stem from the same objective. I learned so much about integrated direct marketing by simply watching the other teams present and observing the many different ways an audience can be reached.
The judges announced that Wilkes University won the Direct Effect Innovation Challenge—a great team and a great concept. Despite the outcome, we were happy with the work that we put into our concept and walked away proud with new skills in our tool belt and a larger network of individuals interested in helping us succeed.
Zooming Forward: A Marketing Webinar For a New World
Each of us benefitted in unique ways from the Direct Effect competition. Personally, I grew so much as a graphic designer and creative strategist. Though I was studying multimedia and graphic design, I hadn’t really branched into the world of integrated direct marketing prior to the competition. It was fascinating to see how various channels and elements can strategically be used to not only reach desired people, but to also keep them engaged with the content I create. This observation has influenced how I approach all creative projects. I’m now constantly focused on interactivity, and I have a newfound appreciation for direct mail and other non-digital approaches. Since the competition, I’ve been doing more work in marketing and have reconnected with the Direct Effect Innovation Team to help encourage more educators and students to implement similar projects like the DEIC. Lastly, I now carry a diverse set of knowledge gained from working with teammates of different backgrounds. My teammate Sabrina Tatalias shares a similar experience:
“My favorite part of the experience was most definitely collaboration in the sense of connecting with so many talented individuals along with sharing personal accounts on how the DEIC challenge has shaped my future career path — coming from a tech background with my studies, I am now able to leverage this knowledge to tie with newfound marketing skills.” Encouraged by the experience, Tatalias now explores various aspects of marketing and shares her knowledge through writing. Her latest piece highlights innovative direct mail.
Dr. Dorene Ciletti, one of our team mentors, also acknowledges the impact of the challenge:
“The Direct Effect Innovation Challenge was an exciting opportunity for our students to work together in developing an idea and taking [it] from [a] concept to a polished pitch. One of the most powerful elements of integrated direct marketing is its ability to seamlessly integrate mail and digital to increase attention, brand recall, response and conversion. Direct marketing is often a critical part of organizational marketing efforts. These students are building career-ready skills through this competition.”
Dr. Ciletti encourages the use of Direct Effect curriculum, and has recently been featured on a Direct Effect Live webinar. My team and I joined alongside her as she explained the process we used to develop our campaign, the impact of live client work, and how educators can implement similar projects in their classrooms. We presented the pitch that we gave in Wilkes Barre as an example of the Direct Effect curriculum, and we took part in a discussion with industry professionals, Jeff Tackes of USPS and Julie Anixter of Maga Design and the Direct Effect Innovation Team, to share how we were all positively impacted by the experience.
I would love to see more students involved in hands-on, live client projects, as I know firsthand how beneficial they can be on so many levels: confidence building, hard skill development, public speaking and more. It was incredibly fulfilling to be able to share my experience with others.
With the Innovation Challenge concluding in November 2019 and the surge of COVID-19 causing nationwide social distancing in 2020, it would’ve been easy to fall out of touch with people in my network if it weren’t for online communication methods like Zoom webinars. Though being-at-home boredom may seem like a great time to binge Netflix or spend hours on Animal Crossing, it also offers the perfect opportunity to expand your knowledge in many fields and find different ways to maintain and promote online communication. The Direct Effect Live webinar series, among other educational tools, strives to keep students, educators and professionals connected and engaged in the marketing field. Having a consistent, weekly event to look forward to has provided a sense of normalcy in this new age of social distancing, and I feel that I am constantly growing as a professional at the same time.
“Being a college student during this current pandemic, it has taught me how we need to adapt with the technology provided to us — and be fortunate for the resources we have readily available to us,” Tatalias adds. “I have been using Zoom along with other platforms on a day-to-day basis, between career opportunities along with personal interactions while we need to continue taking health and safety precautions to prevent further spread. This pandemic has also allotted how we can educate, learn, and network with much more diverse people from across the globe that being in-person would have been a huge limitation. I think that having the opportunity with MAGA Design and the DEIC initiative to help educate professionals from all spectrums is the perfect way to unite us and keep us connected during this time as well. “
While this journey hasn’t progressed as I expected—presenting in crowded rooms to talking to a webcam—my hope is that it provides some inspiration to explore new realms, stay connected and never stop learning.
To learn more about Point Park University, follow @pointparku or visit pointpark.edu. You can also learn more about Direct Effect by visiting directeffectinnovation.com and following @directeffectinnovation on Instagram.
