Leading the way for growth and innovation in the NY region

Challenge
In 2019, Cornell University partnered with Empire State Development to launch a multi-year annual business competition. The goal of the competition was to identify, attract, support, and ultimately fund top innovators and technology startups to help make NY their new home for operations. The name and branding was established internally but the university needed assistance with rolling out marketing materials and gaining brand awareness for the competition.

Execution
To ensure Grow-NY got attention, applicants, and attendance at the culminating Food & Ag Summit, I worked with a team to develop a fully integrated campaign starting with a suite of materials introducing the Grow-NY brand that included a media press kit, pop-up banners, targeted paid and organic social media efforts, and more. I also worked with an outside vendor to produce a number of environmental graphics for the year-end Pitch Competition and Food & Ag Summit. In the end, we ultimately surpassed the client’s goals for applications and on-site attendees.

In 2020, we evolved the competition to keep up with the changing global climate and transitioned their press conferences and finalist announcements into virtual, live stream events that were promoted over social media.