Marian University: Promoting Academic Extracurriculars

Situation

We worked with Marian University while they were trying to expand their scholastic competition programs. Two in particular that wished to capitalize on the growing success they were experiencing were the Speech & Debate programs (a series) and the Ethics Bowl (an annual competition).

Solution

The Speech & Debate programs were a collection of different competitions over the course of numerous events such as debate, oratory, persuasive speaking, dramatic interpretation, etc. One consistent thing across all of these at the time was that they all involved a lot of paper (especially since this was prior to the ubiquity of phones). We decided to produce a special clip for students that they could use to bind together the different papers they were using. In addition to the sheer usefulness of the clip we added to the value by listing four crucial steps to making an argument (name it, explain it, prove it, conclude it). Then we gave the clips out freely to students as they checked in and throughout the event.

The Ethics Bowl on the other hand was a single annual event. They gave out prizes for the winners of course, but they also wanted to offer something to every attendee. In the past they had done such generic promotional items as branded notebooks or water bottles, however we helped them think even further to relevance. We realized that there was perhaps no better item we could offer at a “bowl” event than an actual bowl. People absolutely love mugs for coffee, hot chocolate, ice cream, soup, and what is a bowl if not just a slightly larger version of a mug! We produced and branded a bowl for the Ethics Bowl and gave it out to each of the participants.

Success

Immediately after we started distributing the Speech & Debate clips we began seeing them regularly. The Ethics Bowl proved to be so popular that everybody wanted one! We had countless requests to repeat both.