CASE’s Awards Celebrate Outstanding Achievements in Educational Advancement
On Wednesday, June 22, 2022, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) announced its 2022 Circle of Excellence Award winners, naming The Colorado Springs School (CSS) a bronze medal winner in the “Marketing: Marketing Initiatives (Less Than 10 Staff)” category. Each year, the peer-selected and adjudicated Circle of Excellence Awards honor colleges, universities, and schools of all sizes and shapes worldwide whose talented staff have advanced their organizations with resourcefulness and ingenuity. In 2022, CASE received more than 4,500 entries from 636 institutions in nearly 30 countries. Of those, numerous panels of volunteer judges selected 626 exemplary entries – that’s less than 14 percent – for bronze, silver, gold, or Grand Gold recognition.
The Colorado Springs School – a premier independent day school catering to over 300 students PreK through grade 12 across the Pikes Peak region – consists of a two-person Marketing and Communications team. Together with the school’s same-size Office of Admissions & Financial Aid, they developed a 2021-2022 marketing campaign titled “Discover The Colorado Springs School Difference.” In addition to featuring consistent branding and messaging across a variety of media – from radio to digital and print magazine ads, social media posts, in-person tabling and more – the campaign was designed to “pinpoint exactly which media source offered the most return on investment and best reached the school's target demographic with the promise of a conversion,” said CSS’s Director of Strategic Marketing & Communications Megan Winnicker. “Each ad's captivating photos and text [also] demonstrate the key programs and offerings that make CSS so ‘different,’” she added.
CASE’s Circle of Excellence Awards are the top recognition program for educational advancement. Winners in 2022 were selected based on several factors, including overall quality, innovation, use of resources and the impact on the institution or its external and internal communities, such as alumni, parents, students, faculty, and staff. “Our CASE Circle of Excellence Awards celebrate the creative, resourceful, and innovative ways advancement professionals around the globe champion their institutions’ success,” says CASE President and CEO Sue Cunningham. “These 2022 Circle of Excellence recipients showcase how advancement empowers teaching and learning, ignites institutional progress, and helps communities thrive. I hope you take the opportunity to explore these award winners and become inspired.”
In their remarks on the “Discover” campaign, the judging panel applauded The Colorado Springs School’s effective use of resources, including a unique URL, to better track and understand its target audience. “This project serves as a good reminder to all of our marketing teams that we need to actively find ways to track our marketing spending,” they said. “Few schools can say that their initiative helped to double their applications year-over-year, and we love to see evidence of interdisciplinary cross-collaboration between different school departments!”
To learn more about the CSS’s “Discover The Colorado Springs School Difference” campaign and explore other award-winning work, please click here.
