Melbourne receives top marketing awards

The University of Melbourne’s 2015 Collision brand campaign has received two awards at the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) 2016 Awards for Marketing Excellence.

The University shared the top award – Marketing Program of the Year – with Meat and Live Stock Australia, while the University also won the Education category.

Held overnight, the AMI’s annual Awards for Marketing Excellence are presented to organisations and marketers who have achieved extraordinary success from innovative and effective marketing practices.

This year's awards saw 120 judges assess 215 entrants across 28 categories and awarded 61 national and state winners.

In making the award presentation, the AMI praised the University’s work to revitalise a 160-year old brand and said the campaign achieved some extraordinary results.

Collision celebrated the contribution of staff and students, perhaps best represented by a 60 second brand film that involved a cast of over 100 University staff, students and alumni that screened in cinemas and attracted more than two million views across digital media.

The campaign further told the stories of collaboration at the University of Melbourne that has lead to significant research achievements, delivering innovations and ideas that genuinely make a difference to people’s lives; from city planning for climate change to water conservation in the Goulburn Valley and the ongoing fight against melanoma.

University of Melbourne Marketing and Communications Executive Director Lara McKay said while the University was thrilled with the result, it also demonstrated the way marketing in higher education was excelling in the the sector overall.

“It was so pleasing to see nominations from Australian universities in multiple categories last night and we congratulate the winners from other universities,” she said.

“It is a testament to the work the higher education sector is doing and I really believe we are all challenging each other to be as innovative in our marketing efforts as  possible.”

University of Melbourne Acting Vice-Chancellor Margaret Sheil also celebrated the significance of the awards.

“It’s vitally important that universities do everything they can to engage with communities, and our recent Collision campaign is a key part of this approach," Professor Sheil said.

"That it has received such positive feedback not just from peers and experts, but our entire university community, is testament to its impact.”

AMI Chair Andrew Thornton said: “These awards recognise and celebrate excellence in marketing at both an individual and organisational level. The quality of the entries and the spread of award winners is testament to the fact that the marketing profession in Australia is in a very healthy state”.

The Collision campaign was produced in conjunction with McCann, and has previously been recognised in the 2016 CASE Circle of Excellence Awards.

The University is expected to launch the next phase of its brand campaign in November.