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Overview
Overview
Peninsula College held its inaugural Fall Spectacular in 2022. I was tasked with marketing the event—especially to folks with no interest in attending college.
The Fall Spectacular planning committee expected 300-500 hundred people, but our low-cost campaign blew the roof, resulting in 10X the expected number of attendees and snagging a 2023 Gold Medallion Award from the National Council for Marketing & Public Relations.
Because of the event's success in 2022 and 2023, the college plans to hold Fall Spectacular indefinitely so community members will continue to share fond memories of the college while learning about its services, facilities, and faculty.
Before the Event
Before the Event
The BRANDING
I wanted Fall Spectacular to have a unique brand that was completely independent from the college., so I hired a local artist to design the Fall Spectacular logo.
The BANGER
Fall Spectacular was going to be so fun and exciting, it merited a 1990s-style jingle. I contracted with a composer to produce a jingle and added a voiceover with event specifics. Local radio stations played the jingle at no cost for an entire month before the event. Listen to the jingle.
The SCHOOL FLYER with SCHEDULE
I mailed 8,000 two-sided Fall Spectacular flyers to all schools in our service district to ensure every kid and caretaker would know that the event was going to be free… and awesome. The college's Creative Services Manager designed this flyer and schedule.
The MEDIA VIDEO POSTS
In the months leading up to Fall Spectacular, I boosted a series of Facebook messages about the event. We introduced the local artist (and Peninsula College employee) who created the event logo with a video I prod, “Meet the Artist / Behind the Logo.” I also collected footage of kids dancing to the jingle to create a rough cut, which the Creative Services Manager refined, to demonstrate our unbridled Fall Spectacular enthusiasm in our jingle dancing video. Finally, we generated a lot of excitement in the community when our event emcees announced the opportunity to win a free laptop at Fall Spectacular in a video post about the Laptop-an-Hour Drawing, a drawing that resulted in 800 new contacts for our CRM (also edited by our Creative Services Manager).
The BANNER
I hung a banner over Sequim’s main street, which is the only street in our rural service district where residents can shop at big box stores like Costco and Home Depot. The banner’s date and times can be swapped out for future Fall Spectaculars, and it doubles as the perfect banner to hang over the entrance to Fall Spectacular on the day of the event. Our Creative Services Manager designed the banner.
At the Event
At the Event
The FREE POSTER
I wanted Fall Spectacular attendees to take home a memento, something for kids to hang on their bedroom walls to keep the fondness alive. Hundreds of event attendees went home with this free concert-style poster, which was designed by our Creative Services Manager. We plan to create a unique event poster each year and hang framed posters in the waiting area of the president’s office.
After the Event
After the Event
The LOCAL NEWS COVERAGE
The Peninsula Daily News ran news stories before and after the event and produced a short video about Fall Spectacular, which is highly unusual for this local paper.
The NUMBERS
Peninsula College's campus community came together in an unprecedented way to host Fall Spectacular, and I wanted to share its stunningly positive outcomes with this Fall Spectacular by the Numbers document.
One Year Later
One Year Later
As a member of the planning committee, I had insisted we plan a method of collecting event attendee contact information so we could estimate the event's ROI. The laptop-an-hour drawing accomplished this goal and allowed me to determine that, of the 820 people who submitted their contact information (~20% of attendees), 23 applied and 17 enrolled in an award-seeking program the following fall. Most applicants were completely new contacts; they had never even submitted a "request information" form.
I also showed that, in the 12 months following the event, the number of applications for award-seeking programs was up 30% compared with the previous period.
I produced this event overview video to help the Foundation secure sponsors for future events. The footage was taken by a videographer I hired to capture video of the inaugural event. For images of Fall Spectacular 2023, please see photographs.
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