COVID-19 Public Health Campaign
I led the creative and editorial direction and co-led the overall communications strategy for a university-wide COVID-19 health campaign for Cornell University in partnership with the Ithaca, NY regional county and state health departments.
The fully “in-house” project included an integrated owned, earned, paid media and virtual event strategy in coordination with scores of internal and external partners in local and state government and private sectors.
The campaign was accompanied by a highly publicized national media strategy based on Cornell’s success with containing the pandemic in the first year of quarantine.
My Roles:
Strategic Leadership — Brand Strategy — Editorial Strategy — Positioning & Messaging — Campaign Development — Brand Storytelling – Audience Segmentation — Creative Direction — Concept Development — Visual Direction — Creative Briefs — Multi-channel Campaigns — Cross-functional Alignment — Stakeholder Management — Internal Buy-in — Presentation Development — Leadership Communication — Project Oversight — Scope Development — Resource Planning — QA & Approvals — Collab & Integration — Cross-unit Collaboration — Interdisciplinary Coordination — Team Leadership — Creative Partnership — Vendor Management — KPI Definition — Performance Reporting — Campaign Analysis — Community Engagement — Audience Research — Persona Development —
Strategic Leadership — Brand Strategy — Editorial Strategy — Positioning & Messaging — Campaign Development — Brand Storytelling – Audience Segmentation — Creative Direction — Concept Development — Visual Direction — Creative Briefs — Multi-channel Campaigns — Cross-functional Alignment — Stakeholder Management — Internal Buy-in — Presentation Development — Leadership Communication — Project Oversight — Scope Development — Resource Planning — QA & Approvals — Collab & Integration — Cross-unit Collaboration — Interdisciplinary Coordination — Team Leadership — Creative Partnership — Vendor Management — KPI Definition — Performance Reporting — Campaign Analysis — Community Engagement — Audience Research — Persona Development —
Campaign Identity
Flexible, modular campaign identity based on the main themes recommended by in-house and public health partners.
Digital, Print, and Outdoor Advertising
Coordinated content strategy across all formats of owned, earned and paid media.
Owned Media
The separation between campaign messaging, which was based on behavioral modeling, and the institutional pandemic response, which was based on information sharing, proved critical to both efforts' success. This allowed the behavioral modeling to be shared more authentically with peer-to-peer and word-of-mouth efforts and helped to limit message fatigue.
My team built and managed all channels and relevant properties in coordination with university leadership, staff, faculty health experts, and multiple partners across the institution.
User Journey Map
This simple user journey demonstrates how the campaign landing page provided light information and utility while aggregating inbound traffic to more in-depth information based on user needs.
The campaign was flexible enough to accommodate new, vaccine-related messaging in the second year as circumstances with the pandemic reponse changed and evolved.
Social Media Videos
Student voices on public health mandates.
An overview of the challenges and successes of the first year of the pandemic at Cornell.
Student perspectives on returning to campus during the pandemic.
Innovative campus installations help make physical distancing fun and safe.
Credits
The project was produced by an in-house team of photographers, video producers, designers, writers and web/application developers in the Cornell Brand Communications team, including coordination with multiple college, school and administrative partner units and county and state health departments.