In my senior year, I served on the Executive Board for our college’s Dance Marathon (AUDM). As a six-person Executive Board, we led 145 staff members in a yearlong fundraiser which culminated in total fundraising amount of $424,617.01. This 78% percent increase from our previous year’s fundraising amount totaled our five-year fundraising sum to over $1 million.

I personally oversaw the Media, Marketing, Graphic Design, and Tech Development committees consisting of over 40 members. The committees I supervised created numerous on-campus marketing campaigns, designed over 300 unique designs, filmed and edited 25+ videos, and raised over $30,000 with our in-house merchandise designs. Though I did oversee our design committee, all designs on this page were designed by me.

BEST ONLINE STORYTELLING WINNER

National Dance Marathon Leadership Conference 2016

EXCELLENCE IN MARKETING & DESIGN WINNER

Auburn University Involvement Awards 2016

Shortly after our logo rebranding, I took control over our Public Relations branch (overseeing Marketing, Design, Media, and Web Development committees) for Auburn University Dance Marathon. I knew that for the rebrand to be successful we needed to ensure that we utilized our new logo, imagery, and font for every piece of merchandise we printed, every billboard we painted, and anything we placed on our social media. Based on national design standards from Miracle Network Dance Marathon, our logo needed to include our school colors to personalize the national logo from other schools.

However, using Auburn's colors made for a tricky situation when trying to stand out on campus in a sea of navy and orange. To overcome the hurdle of trying to stand out, I set out to create a brand image that accurately reflects the spirit and passion of the organization by using a third, lighter accent blue (now been named “AUDM aqua”) in addition to Auburn’s traditional color scheme. AUDM consistently used the new logo, color scheme, and fonts (Gotham, Gotham Rounded, and Tungsten) across all platforms so to ensure that organization’s logo is recognizable and unmistakably ours.

Though I oversaw the change and initiated the vision for our band, I also created over 140 designs personally in over calendar year (some included below) and the the AUDM Design Committee as a whole created over 280 unique designs for anything ranging from billboards, fliers, banners, social media posts, buttons, merchandise, profile pictures, and cover photos.

INFOGRAPHICS

MARKETING & CAMPAIGNS

Marketing for AUDM involves creating awareness of our cause on campus and also engaging Auburn University with that cause to incite dancers to register and fundraise. Throughout the year, AUDM produced over 20 different billboard designs to engage campus with certain events and also create buzz about the organization as a whole. The most effective use of billboards derived from the reveal of the public fundraising goal in the fall. Large billboards with nothing other than “#5YRS1MIL” were placed all over campus for one week to create interest and then were tied in with a social media campaign on AUDM’s Twitter and Instagram accounts. The public fundraising goal was revealed on the concourse with individual billboards to form “$395,000.” The event was publicized by Eagle Eye TV and on social media which led to AUDM fundraising over $7,000 that day just from releasing the public goal. Another massive marketing campaign for AUDM this year was the revival of AU Baby (@AUBaby16 on Twitter). The giant inflatable baby was brought back to Auburn’s campus and went viral on Auburn’s social media immediately upon its return. The @AUBaby16 Twitter account attracted over 380 followers in just a few short days and the giant inflatable baby himself was featured on Auburn Tiger’s official Twitter and Instagram accounts. Finally, AUDM’s Marketing committee produced over 26 full length videos in a span of just seven months. These videos were used to recruit new staff and dancers, activate them to fundraise, and also entertain dancers and guests at our Main Event. Furthermore, AUDM’s talented videography team created Instagram length videos to post on social media to advertise for the FT5K and incite fundraising over the holidays and at Main Event. Links to examples of these videos are included in the supplemental materials.

INSTA DESIGN GAME

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I believe that you have to find a formula for every type of social media that works for your particular organization. On AUDM's Instagram, we found, unsurprisingly, that cute kids and a cool graphic are our keys to success to getting the most likes. All of the graphics that utilized both photos and text I created on the fly using apps from my iPhone so we could quickly post our happenings.

Creating cohesive merchandise is about finding your voice and sticking with it. I sought to design merchandise that meshed with our brand identity - creative, witty, and passionate - and display that with strong typography in simple designs. By updating the designs consistently throughout the year, focusing on what is selling and current pop culture trends, we stay current with our college audience. The results? We sold over $15,000 of merchandise for AUDM 2016.

SO. MANY. BUTTONS.

This merchandise is sold not only to contribute towards the program’s fundraising total, but also as a means of advertising to our target market - Auburn University students. Another great opportunity I decided to pursue for AUDM was with the growing interest and love that Auburn students have with placing buttons on their backpacks. This year, we created buttons for students to wear for game days, for reaching fundraising benchmarks ($100 for Miracle Maker button, $1,000 for Comma Club button), for Delegates, for returning dancers, to honor sponsors, and also ones that shared the legacy of the late Miracle Child, Martin Thiele.

Additionally, at Main Event, AUDM sold made-to-order sorority buttons that showcased each sorority’s letters, colors, and their dedication to be FTK (For The Kids). AUDM sold over 300 sorority buttons in 14 hours and were featured on Chi Omega’s national sorority Instagram. At Main Event alone (14 hours out of the year), AUDM sold over $4,800 of apparel merchandise and over $1,500 from sorority buttons (over 300 buttons sold).