September 5, 2003

Integrated Marketing Plan enters third year

Loyola's integrated marketing communications plan enters its third year of implementation with the 2003-04 academic calendar. The plan will continue to promote Loyola's unique combination of academic excellence, ideal size, and rich Jesuit tradition that distinguishes us from other institutions as we strive towards our institutional strategic agenda of national preeminence.

To kick off the school year, new images and messages have been incorporated into the main Loyola home pages. The plan is to develop consistent format and messages throughout all the main college, division, department, and unit home pages. This new consistency is necessary to comply with standards set by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), as part of Loyola's upcoming accreditation process, which will be conducted mostly online.

The student-driven grassroots Proud to Be Part of the Pack campaign, which has now had two successful years in promoting school spirit, will be continued this year, led by junior communications student Martina Mills with direction from communications chair Teri Henley and assistant professor of communications Debra Woodfork. The committee invites faculty and staff participation this year as we celebrate and recognize our many Loyola successes, which are examples of academic excellence and the values of our Jesuit tradition.

Our advertising and media relations programs will expand dramatically this year as we begin to target a wider array of external audiences from prospective students in other parts of the country, to prospective donors as we enter into our next capital campaign, to New Orleans community leaders, neighborhood residents, and city and state officials. Loyola student, faculty, and alumni successes will be touted through the news media and special mailings to these various constituents. A full-page image ad was published in the September Best Colleges issue of U.S. News and World Report, this year in the metro editions of Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Miami, St. Louis, New York (Manhattan), Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles plus all of the state of Louisiana. The issue will reach 550,000 subscribers plus it will be on newsstands in Manhattan, L.A., and D.C. The School of Law recently ran an ad in Newsweek in 20 cities.

The Alumni Association will continue to contribute to the effort through its integrated marketing subcommittee. College integrated marketing teams are developing to bring together deans and faculty with admissions and advancement staff to develop marketing ideas specific to each of the colleges.

—Julia McSherry, Assistant Vice President for Marketing and Communications