As Digital Services gears up for 2019, it is important to acknowledge some leadership changes that have taken place. Through the restructuring within the President’s Council (formerly the Executive Team), University Relations and Enrollment (URE) was elevated and University Marketing and Communications (UMC) has been tasked with boosting the University’s external reputation and recruitment efforts nationally.
Project Mix
What does this mean? Digital Services—the web team and studio team within UMC—has shifted to prioritize external-facing projects—spearheaded by URE—that have a large, external audience(s). Some examples include:
- digital/online/social media advertising
- Michigan Tech News and Unscripted
- Michigan Tech and Research Magazines
- national recruitment initiatives
- recruitment/research marketing photography packages
- research narrative promotions
- student testimonial and researcher videos
- TV commercials and brand videos
Recent Project Launches
We have already launched a brand campaign and website and have launched two supporting video campaigns:
- My Michigan Tech: our students talking about why they came to Michigan Tech and the experiences that make this place so awesome
- Up-Close-and-Personals: faculty, staff, and student researchers showcasing their research in their own words.
Our playlist of videos has been feeding the Tomorrow Needs website, our University social media channels, the undergraduate admissions website, and strategic digital advertisements. This rich content is also available for departmental websites—we have been alerting relevant CMS liaisons when videos are released. Additional videos are in the works and will be launched during the spring semester.
We have also partnered with a video agency to launch a 60 second commercial spot for Michigan Tech. Depending on your market or streaming platform, you may have seen it while watching the GLI. It is outstanding.
We will be pushing our commercial on Tomorrow Needs, YouTube, and over digital ads in the coming weeks and I will be sure to share it out. We are also working on some new versions and some shorter 30 and 15 second cuts for secondary TV markets and digital advertisements.
Campus Projects
As our campus community looks to partner with Digital Services moving forward, we will be taking in your requests and checking the following:
- Does your request support our University reputation or recruitment goals?
- Is your target audience external?
- How big is the reach of your project?
We are committed to meeting these requirements and are working on streamlining our online request forms to better reflect this new mission. Campus can continue to submit requests as they normally would in the mean time.
When requests do not fit our new mission or when our project volume precludes us from helping right away, we will let our clients know and attempt to offer alternatives, including other project ideas, other campus collaboration resources, or outside vendors that can help.
Tomorrow Needs . . .
I am very excited about these changes as it sets up Digital Services to make the biggest impact possible to get our message out nationally. Tomorrow needs Michigan Tech. Seeing the launch of Tomorrow Needs, our 60 second commercial spot, and more than one dozen student testimonial and ‘up-close-and-personal’ research videos provide proof of the work we can do and the impact we can have when empowered to focus on our goals.
I appreciate campus’ support and welcome any feedback on this shift as we move into 2019 and beyond. I also want to thank all the faculty, staff, and students that have helped with our initial projects. We have interviewed dozens of outstanding people and have captured photos, footage, and stories in more than two dozen campus locations in a short timeframe. We would not be able to accomplish this without your help. Thank you for being great collaborators with us!
Joel C. Vertin
Director of Digital Services
jcvertin@mtu.edu