Company: ECMC Group
Company Description: ECMC Group is a nonprofit corporation focused on helping students succeed by creating, providing and investing in innovative educational opportunities. Headquartered in Minneapolis, ECMC Group and its family of companies are focused on advancing educational opportunities through financial tools and services; nonprofit career education and workforce training; and impactful, mission-aligned funding.
Nomination Category: Marketing Campaign Categories - Specialty
Nomination Sub Category: Branded Content Campaign of the Year
 Nomination Title: Question the Quo Campaign
- Which will you submit for this nomination, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length about the nominated campaign or program, OR written answers to the questions for this category? CHOOSE ONE:
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the nominated video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this first question: Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched:
January 1, 2022
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this second question: Describe the genesis of the nominated campaign or program: the reasons it was initiated, the challenges it was created to address, the problems it was developed to solve, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 229 words used.
In 2022, ECMC Group chose to humanize its Question the Quo public awareness campaign, which was launched in 2020 to empower Gen Z teens to take the education and career path that is right for them versus defaulting to the status quo four-year degree, which might not necessarily align with their goals. The first two years of the campaign focused on gathering insights from Gen Z teens–who had not been previously surveyed–about their future plans after high school, whether they wanted additional education, the types of resources they needed and more.
To further advance the goals of the campaign and expand its reach, the team launched an effort to humanize the campaign by giving it a “face” in 2022, to meet students where they are on Instagram and TikTok using a variety of tactics. Based on evidence from other campaigns and measurement of our own communications efforts, we determined that focusing on storytelling and the personal experiences of students would lead to greater reach, more engagement and increased awareness and thereby position ECMC Group as a thought leader focused on helping students succeed in the eyes of students, their families, policymakers and leaders in the education and workforce spaces, as well as supporting students on their education journey–a key tenet of ECMC Group’s mission. Based on this, we identified the clear need for multi-channel communications that highlighted student experiences.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this third question: Describe the development of the campaign or program: the planning process, the goal setting, the creative and media development, the scheduling, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 248 words used.
After identifying data points that highlighted a change in Gen Z teens’ wants and desires for their education and career journey after high school, we developed a multi-pronged strategy that elevated student voices, provided insight from an approachable source and offered resources that would provide useful as they planned their future. Goals:
- Elevate student stories that align with our data to help drive awareness and credibility in our media outreach with a goal of obtaining media coverage of Question The Quo survey results in at least 100 publications, ranging from vertical media in education and workforce, to national consumer media and regional outlets.
- Engage with 20 Gen Z individuals who can illustrate various education and career paths, while sharing their stories through a variety of mediums (social media, presentations, media interviews, etc.), in addition to launching Gen Z-specific outreach efforts on TikTok with a reach of 30,000 in the first 30 days of launch.
- Raise awareness of all postsecondary education options and the Question The Quo campaign by driving traffic to the campaign website and our education and career planning resources, receiving an average of 500 visitors per month, with most traffic driven by social and earned media coverage.
- Engage with at least 10 potential industry partners that have student audiences for their own content by providing presentations of survey and campaign data that lead to partners amplifying the campaign with their own constituencies through owned content and using the data and resources with students they serve.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this fourth question: Outline the activities and concrete results of this campaign or program since the beginning of 2021. Even if your initiative started before 2021, limit your response to activities and results since the beginning of 2021 only (up to 250 words):
Total 238 words used.
With a budget of $300,000 we fielded a nationally representative survey of high school students, performed media outreach, developed a TikTok ambassador network that featured trusted influencers sharing their career journey and engaged with a media company to gather man-on-the-street interviews with individuals that showcased a wide variety of education and career pathways.
- Earned 370+ media mentions (90 unique articles) in a wide variety of high-profile outlets (CNBC, Newsweek cover story, Fast Company, Inside Higher Ed, Minneapolis Star Tribune)
- 100+ unsolicited articles (did not actively pitch the media that covered the survey)
- Elevated news coverage on social media through 1,200 posts from accounts with a combined followership of 69M+ that received 9,700+ engagements
- Established an ambassador network of four TikTok influencers who shared their education and career experiences, leading to 33,000+ views and 4,300+ engagements in the first 30 days of the ambassador campaign
- Short-form video strategy helped us increase our engagement rate across our channels by more than 50%
- Average of 550+ website visits per month
- Majority of traffic driven by direct links to the website or social elevation, particularly posts from our campaign ambassadors indicating that teens were seeing our content and interested in our resources
- Connected with 16 organizations that led to seven invitations to present survey data and student perspectives to individuals who had the potential to put our campaign in front of thousands of students, parents and educators
- You have the option to reference here any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 72 words used.
- See PR plan for a description of our goals and project outline from the start of 2022. This document illustrates that we had clear goals and tactics in mind when approaching this campaign, leading to successful execution.
- See "Metric Tracker" for detailed scope of results including media mentions, social amplification, ambassador activation and web traffic. This document provides evidence of the results of this campaign that show how we met our goals.
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