Congratulations to all of the 2011 Gold Tower Award winners.
Campaign Georgia Tech Dinner Invitation
Georgia Tech Office of Development
This high-quality, unique, and prestigious piece invited top-tier donors and their guests to an exclusive dinner celebrating the public launch of Campaign Georgia Tech—Tech’s $1.5 billion capital campaign. Several hand-inserted components made this french-folded invitation interesting to explore. The visual elements inside the invitation are repeated in other Campaign pieces, creating one cohesive look. With high attendance at the celebration dinner, the invitations were a key part in generating donor awareness and interest in Campaign Georgia Tech.
Founder’s Day Celebration Invitation
Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
Using classic metallic gold, white, and navy blue, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Founder’s Day invitation auspiciously motivates invitees to attend the annual event. Beautiful calligraphy and heavy textured card stock communicate the event’s prestigious nature to the target audience, which includes donors and potential donors. The refined serif typography is well applied throughout the program. Overall, the invitation is a beautiful example of a piece designed for a formal audience.
Student Alumni Association Launch Posters
Georgia Tech Alumni Association
Specifically targeting undergraduate students, the Student Alumni Association (SAA) pre-launch posters show the power of the Georgia Tech network in a unique and interesting way. The posters generate curiosity and intrigue with their mysterious, student-chosen taglines and bright attention- catching graphics. In addition to these images and taglines, the marketing directs students to the SAA pre-launch website, includes the official date of the launch, and utilizes QR codes to increase the mystery of the organization. As a result of the pre-launch marketing efforts, more than 1,000 students joined the SAA on launch day—well exceeding the original goal of 500 members.
Campaign Georgia Tech Case statements
Georgia Tech Office of Development
Campaign “case statements” are viewbooks of varying lengths and sizes that communicate the vision and giving opportunities of the colleges, schools, centers, and initiatives of Georgia Tech. Internationally recognized faculty and their research are highlighted, as well as the impact of philanthropy for current and future students, faculty, and staff. The series of case statements exhibit outstanding use of appealing photos blended with illustrations and graphics. While each unit has a unique case statement, each statement follows a consistent layout, and when seen as a group, appear cohesive to the Campaign and complement each other.
The Theater of Our Imagination—Hinman Building Dedication Program
College of Architecture
The Hinman Building, located in the College of Architecture, is a prime example of renovating an existing facility and transforming it into a bright, vibrant studio space for students. The building’s dedication took place on March 30, 2011, and this piece served as the grand opening brochure/program for invited Architecture alumni. The brochure features a subdued, grayscale design with subtle touches of color—an excellent choice for its target audience.
GTRI 75th Anniversary Special Edition Annual Report
Georgia Tech Research Institute
The GTRI Annual Report balances the past, the present, and the future of the organization in a single publication. The design successfully reinforces the organization’s problem-solving heritage while taking full advantage of GTRI’s vast collection of newly discovered historical and current research photography. The annual report drove more than 23,000 visitors to online pages for stories featured in the publication from July 2010 through January 2011.
2010-2011 T-Book
Georgia Tech Student Publications
Created by students for students, the T-Book is a history and traditions guide to Georgia Tech. Beginning with the artistic cover design, the T-Book introduces the many traditions unique to Georgia Tech, as historic words and names are strategically placed in the form of a ‘T.’ Throughout, the look and feel of the book transitions from traditional and retro to more modern and cutting-edge to encompass the progress of the Institute from a storied past to a pace-setting future vision. From beginning to end, the T-Book is packed full of pictures of the past and present, giving readers a look at the Tech of old and the progress made throughout the 126 years of Tech’s existence. The book is a great piece of memorabilia that students will cherish for years to come.
Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine
Georgia Tech Alumni Association
The goal of the Alumni Magazine is to further the mission of the Institute and the Alumni Association by strengthening the connection between our alumni and Georgia Tech. Striking cover images on each issue impel readers to pick up the magazine, and clever illustrations provide visual interest throughout. Research is conducted after each issue to ensure the publication is meeting its objectives and the magazine is consistently rated highly in overall quality.
Research Horizons
Georgia Tech Research News & Publications
The mission of Research Horizons is to communicate the results of Georgia Tech’s research to organizations and individuals that can use it to solve important problems, such as tackling global cybersecurity threats, improving healthcare technologies and information systems, innovating in manufacturing, and improving defense weaponry. The magazine helps research sponsors and potential sponsors understand how Georgia Tech can help them and lets them know about research relevant to their needs. The magazine has a clean and simple look, with photography designed to illustrate the development of the story and writing that puts the news at the top. More than 42 percent of survey respondents said a Research Horizons article or news release led to additional external funding or opportunities for such funding, and 61 percent of respondents said a Research Horizons article or news release led to new collaboration opportunities.
School of Civil & Environmental Engineering Website
School of Civil & Environmental Engineering
The School of Civil & Environmental Engineering redesigned its website by updating the look of the site, as well as restructuring the organization of the content. By taking into account feedback from students, faculty, and staff, the school was able to make changes to content, design, functionality, and site structure to better meet the needs of both internal and external audiences. In addition, Drupal, a content management system, was implemented to better organize content and improve processes. Information is now easy to find, and cross-linked throughout the site, providing ways for individuals to stay in touch and get involved.
Industry@Tech
Georgia Tech Research Corporation
As a collaborative effort of the Office of Technology Licensing, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Enterprise Innovation Institute, Industry Contracting Office, and the Development Office, the Industry@Tech site was designed to bring together activities from across campus under one user- friendly domain. The site provides campus entrepreneurs with a single point of entry to learn about the licensing process for startups, to declare a conflict of interest, to register for the Georgia Tech Integrated Program for Startups (GT:IPSTM), and to apply for VentureLab. Industry@Tech aligns with and addresses several aspects of the institutional initiatives outlined in Georgia Tech’s strategic plan. The portal does an excellent job of making it easier for industry to do business with Georgia Tech and for Georgia Tech research members to engage with industry.
Georgia Tech-Savannah Website
Georgia Tech-Savannah
Georgia Tech-Savannah implemented the Drupal platform and redesigned its website to create a user- centric navigation structure, improve search, and leverage the Georgia Tech brand while developing its own look and feel. Two frameworks were developed, one for the internal users and one for the external users, in order to better meet the needs of the individual audiences. By keeping in mind keyword and search queries, Georgia Tech-Savannah updated site content to better optimize search, resulting in an increase of 111 percent of visitors from search engines. In addition, since the redesign, the site has increased in total number of visits, returning visitors, and average time spent on site.
50th Anniversary of the Matriculation of Black Students at Georgia Tech Commemorative Video
Georgia Tech Communications & Marketing
The 50th Anniversary of the Matriculation of Black Students at Georgia Tech video was created to commemorate the anniversary and to highlight Georgia Tech’s standard of excellence as a result of our commitment to diversity and inclusion for the past fifty years. The video was targeted towards numerous audiences, including faculty and staff, alumni, current students, and future students. In order to meet each of their unique needs, the content was reviewed by representatives of each group to ensure that perspectives from all vantage points were addressed. In turn, the video used a combination of historic and present images to reinforce the strength and clarity of the message.
Campaign Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech Office of Development
Using the Campaign Georgia Tech video, donors and prospective donors were targeted by tapping into the nostalgia of being on the Georgia Tech campus and reestablishing their connection to Georgia Tech. Through iconic images, clips, and alumni stories, the video aimed to “tug at the heartstrings” and evoke an emotional response from viewers. The video was shown at regional alumni events.
Building a Wikipedia Presence—Delivering Results for GTRI and Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech Research Institute
This innovative Wikipedia initiative began as an effort to repurpose the overwhelming amount of rich historical content gathered and written about GTRI over a two-year period. It was realized that the content could be given “infinite” life and engage a wider audience by placing it into the public domain via Wikipedia. As part of this ongoing project, twenty-seven new pages have been created. One story about former GTRI Director James Boyd reached “Featured Article” status, a feat that only about one in every 1,100 articles submitted attains. As a result, Wikipedia has become the fifth most popular site referring traffic to the GTRI site, driving 2,597 visitors, of which 80 percent are new visitors.
“The Internet’s Gatekeepers”
College of Computing
This op-ed about Internet transparency and censorship is a great example of strategically using world events to demonstrate thought leadership about a high-level topic to a well-defined target audience. It’s a very well-written piece about an engaging and provocative topic, and it was targeted to the appropriate media outlet—a highly visible technology blog read by key technology influencers and decision-makers in the public, corporate, academic, and research sectors. Effectively incorporating Georgia Tech into the piece helped increase brand awareness for both the Institute and the College. Since the op-ed appeared, the College has been awarded $4.5 million from Google to pursue research in Internet transparency, which is the largest university research investment that Google will make in the area.
Summer 2011 Website Features
College of Computing
These five website features using students to deliver the College of Computing’s key messages were very popular—generating nearly 800 unique page views in the thirty days following publication. The variety of stories shared makes the features section of the website compelling, and the well-written profiles really let the voices of the subjects shine through. The features that showed who the students were before they came to Georgia Tech and what they’re doing now (e.g. the Undercover CEO) were particularly powerful. Allowing prospective students to hear from students already in the program makes the website an effective recruitment tool.
Attacking Ethical Issues and Scoring Major Media for Robot Deception Research
Georgia Tech Research News & Publications
Kirk Englehardt—Senior Director of Communications, Georgia Tech Research Institute
Abby Robinson—Communications Officer, Georgia Tech Research News & Publications
This press release describing Georgia Tech’s work in teaching robots deception provides a number of compelling elements that effectively tell the story and help establish the researchers as go-to people in the field. The experiments are explained candidly and concisely, making it easy to understand what the robot can and can’t do. The use of cultural references in the press release provides a point-of-entry for a non-technical audience, and makes it easier for reporters to understand and translate the research for their readers.
The team was able to secure more than one hundred placements in a number of high-profile media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, CBS News, The Colbert Report, Wired, Discover magazine, Popular Science, Engadget, and Slashdot. As a result of the media coverage, the researchers were invited to present at two industry organizations and have been approached by new potential research sponsors.
Password Cracking, Reputation Building, and a $10 Million Contract
Georgia Tech Research Institute
GTRI’s campaign to promote its cyber-related research program impressed the judges through its positioning of GTRI as a thought leader in information security. This entry’s engaging news release detailing the risks of using short, seven-character passwords helped create an informative campaign for the public as well as the scientific community. This story became the most popular page on the GTRI website, with more than 23,360 page views and was covered in more than one hundred major news outlets. In addition, the campaign led to $10 million in new research funding.
Improving Human Health: Demonstrating the Impact and Importance of Biomedical Research
Georgia Tech Research News & Publications
This media relations campaign focused on demonstrating how Georgia Tech’s biomedical research is making a significant contribution toward improving human health. The entry captured the attention of the judges through a creative campaign that emphasized photography and resulted in national media coverage. The ten news releases engaged the reader through clear and interesting writing, showing Georgia Tech as a leader in the biomedical research field. The articles clearly show Georgia Tech’s ability to lead in this area by featuring research conducted in eight different campus units.
GTRI: There’s a Lab for That
Georgia Tech Research Institute
The “GTRI: There’s a Lab for That” student-employee recruitment campaign was praised by the judges for its strong integration across all communication channels. The campaign reached out to students on the web, in print, at sporting events, on buses, and where they live to make them aware of the job opportunities available at GTRI and specifically to drive them to the annual Discover GTRI student recruitment fair.
In the months following the campaign, GTRI had 356 undergraduate and graduate student employees working in its labs—believed to be a record number. In addition, more Georgia Tech students attended the Discover GTRI student-employee recruitment fair than ever before, with more than 200 students participating.
Student Alumni Association Launch
Georgia Tech Alumni Association
The launch campaign for the new Student Alumni Association impressed the judges with its comprehensive use of traditional and new media communications channels, including a website, QR codes, T-shirts, stickers, window clings, chalking, door hangers, and social media. Cohesive messaging and taglines tied the entire campaign together. Today, the Student Alumni Association boasts more than 1,900 members, and 18 percent of them mentioned the marketing campaign as their reason for joining.
Get a Professional Master’s in Supply Chain Engineering in Just One Year
School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
This campaign was seen by the judges as an innovative and cost-effective means of generating awareness for Georgia Tech’s new professional master’s degree program in supply chain engineering. The judges liked that the video, which was the key element of the campaign, featured a current graduate student with an international background. The campaign creatively employed non-traditional tactics, including QR codes, on print materials. Through this campaign, the new degree program recruited more than fifty students from four continents.
2010 Burdell-Phoenix Dinner
Georgia Tech Alumni Association
The Burdell-Phoenix Dinner is an annual event thanking the Alumni Association’s most generous donors. The Burdell Society and the Phoenix Club are the top two giving levels of Georgia Tech’s Leadership Circle, representing the largest individual donors of unrestricted annual gifts to the Institute. Not only does the event exist to recognize donors, it also serves as an opportunity to showcase the Institute, to remind guests why they give to Tech, and to encourage continued financial commitment.
The 2010 Burdell-Phoenix Dinner was the Alumni Associations’ first-ever “green” dinner. The dinner was hosted at the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation Office, Georgia’s first Gold-Certified LEED building. This venue exemplifies Georgia Tech’s own institutional dedication to creating an enriched, more prosperous, and sustainable society for the citizens of Georgia, the nation, and the world. Other earth-friendly elements of the dinner included: invitations, catering, wines, linens, centerpieces, take- away gifts, and menu cards/programs.
The judges were extremely impressed at how well the “green” elements were integrated into the entire dinner, all while staying within the event budget. They also applauded the Alumni Association’s creative efforts in planning an annual dinner that changes in scope yearly and keeps the interest of the audience.
2011 Graduate Recognition & Awards Ceremony
Georgia Tech-Savannah
Each semester, Georgia Tech-Savannah recognizes its graduates at a special ceremony before the students travel to Atlanta for commencement. The ceremony provides the opportunity to recognize the graduates and to present student scholarships and awards. Unique to the Savannah campus, all graduates have the opportunity to be inducted into the international Order of the Engineer.
The Spring 2011 Ceremony recognized thirty-five graduating students (thirty undergraduates and five Master’s candidates). Approximately 180 guests and participants attended the ceremony, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, business partners, and family and friends of the graduates.
The judges thought the planning and execution of the event was superb. The size of the event allowed students and guests to interact and be recognized in an intimate setting. Judges felt that the attention given to the event logistics and details was impressive and resulted in a well-executed ceremony.
SAA Launch Day
Georgia Tech Alumni Association
The Launch Day event was the official reveal of the Student Alumni Association (SAA). The main goal of Launch Day was to open membership into SAA and show how making a donation to Tech and being a part of SAA is crucial to all students. Launch Day simultaneously occurred at five locations across campus from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. with an evening celebration for members and young alumni from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Each Launch Day location was themed according to pre-launch marketing. At every location, students could sign up for SAA, network with alumni, learn about SAA programming, and enjoy free food like Chick-fil-A sandwiches, Rita’s Italian Ice, Waffle House, and more.
The goal of Launch Day was to reach at least 500 SAA members within the first six months, 1,000 members within the first year, and 3,000 members within three years. After the first day, SAA had more than 1,000 members all giving $10 to Tech through their membership donation. By the end of the year, the organization had 2,056 members/donors. Judges were impressed with the ability to coordinate multiple locations and themes, as well as the campaign’s visual design that was reflected on the web, T-shirts, etc. Judges applauded their efforts and the amazing results, which far exceeded their original donation goals.
College of Management Scholarship Interviews
College of Management
Two years ago, the College of Management created the Dean’s Scholarship Program and the Faculty Merit Scholarship Program to attract the very finest talent. The College created five interview/campus visitation events to help select the high school students who would be awarded these prestigious scholarships. These five events, ultimately marketing events, attracted more than 110 students and their parents.
Instead of reviewing admission files and conducting phone or regular in-person interviews, the College of Management decided to host an on-campus event in order for students to learn more about the program. One of the goals of the four-hour scholarship interview event was to secure commitment to the College of Management from ALL high school students in attendance, not just the students selected for the scholarships. In addition to the interview, candidates and their parents attended information sessions to learn about the many competitive advantages of the undergraduate program and about the college’s exceptional career development opportunities. They toured the college with current students and spoke with recent graduates about their early career successes. The combination of all these positive interactions with members of our community drove the high success rate. More than 70 percent of all students who attend this and other scholarship events ultimately commit to our program.
Judges felt that this was a great approach to a scholarship interview event in order to market the College of Management. Creating opportunities for both students and parents to learn more about the College was well thought out and judges were glad to see the high success rate.
Mark Prausnitz
Regents’ Professor
School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Mark Prausnitz is contributing to Georgia Tech’s strategic goals as a well-respected thought leader. Mark consistently makes himself available for media interviews on drug/vaccine administration topics, and has received ongoing media coverage for his work in microneedles technology over the past decade. Taking the time to understand the media’s need for clear, scientific explanations, Mark has the communications acumen needed to deliver the information in language appropriate for readers and viewers without compromising its complexity. Mark has also shared his communications expertise with students for more than ten years through a course he teaches in the College of Engineering called “Effective Communication for Professional Engineering.”
Gil Weinberg
Associate Professor of Music Director,
Center for Music Technology School of Music
Gil Weinberg effectively uses emerging social media channels to help tell the Center for Music Technology’s story and to demonstrate the convergence of the arts and technology at Georgia Tech. When asked to feature his robot Shimon in last year’s Institute PSA, Gil instinctively knew that showcasing his research in a “playful” way would help advance Georgia Tech’s brand. He enthusiastically worked with the Communications & Marketing team on the initiative and the PSA has been a huge success, garnering a 2011 Southeast Regional EMMY Award. Exceptionally media savvy, Gil is consistently responsive to inquiries from journalists and Georgia Tech’s Media Relations staff. Gil seeks out guidance from Georgia Tech’s communication professionals and is receptive to coaching in terms of interacting with the media and learning brand guidelines.
John Toon
Director
Georgia Tech Research News & Publications
For nearly three decades, John Toon has been a writer, editor, and leader in research communications, sharing “what Georgia Tech thinks” with people across the globe. He is regarded as one of the nation’s foremost science writers because of his ability to translate complex, technical research into understandable and useful information.
Over the years, John’s work has garnered numerous regional and national awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Higher Education (CASE). His efforts as the editor of Research Horizons have helped position the magazine as a national leader in research periodicals. One letter of support said, “John’s tireless work in bringing Georgia Tech research to the world has unquestionably brought many benefits to the entire campus. He has helped raise Tech’s research reputation in the state and around the nation, which translates to new opportunities for us all.”
Nikki Troxclair
Assistant Director of Communications
Georgia Tech-Savannah
While Nikki is still relatively new to Georgia Tech, her accomplishments since joining the Savannah campus in March 2010 have been numerous. Upon arrival, Nikki quickly assessed the needs of the campus and prioritized the most urgent action items. She developed the first integrated marketing and communications plan for Georgia Tech-Savannah, and has adeptly implemented the tactics detailed in her plan, such as assisting with the development of a new website for the campus and the creation of the Savannah Buzz weekly electronic newsletter. Over a short period of time, her marketing and public relations efforts have raised awareness about the campus in the Savannah area.