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Communicating about Rutgers
Rutgers logo
Communicating about Rutgers

University Communications and Marketing

About Us

About Us and Our Work

University Communications and Marketing (UCM) includes two major divisions—U-wide Comms and R-Comm—charged with elevating the public prominence of Rutgers. U-wide Comms is the universitywide communications and marketing department for Rutgers and includes the offices of University Brand, Marketing, and Creative Services and University News and Media Relations. It focuses on protecting the university brand, broadly advancing the university’s reputation, promoting Rutgers people and programs from all campuses, and managing initiatives and priorities of the university’s central administration. R-Comm is the communications and marketing department that focuses on promoting Rutgers–New Brunswick and Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS). While R-Comm reports centrally through UCM, the department is dedicated to advancing the AAU flagship and is guided by the priorities of its two chancellors. The alignment of these two divisions within UCM provides opportunities for collaboration, clarity of message, and support of a strategic focus on elevating Rutgers' prestige and reputation.

 

By the Numbers

Highlights of FY 2022

16.5 million
pageviews
Rutgers.edu
11,000+
image downloads
Rutgers Digital Asset Library 
46.2 million
social media impressions
@RutgersU
155,000+
circulation
Rutgers Magazine 
2.3 million
pageviews
Rutgers Today 

MarCom and CASE Recognize UCM's Work with a Dozen Awards

MarCom International Awards
Great Things to Know about Rutgers (educational brochure) - GOLD
Rutgers.edu (educational website) - GOLD
The Inauguration of Jonathan Scott Holloway (special event) - GOLD
Rutgers Magazine Summer 2022 (print media) - PLATINUM
Faces & Voices of Rutgers (team initiative) - PLATINUM
Faces & Voices of Rutgers (video series) - GOLD
#HowWeMetatRU (social campaign) - GOLD
Pep Band Director Behind Ear-Shattering Chants (video) - HONORABLE MENTION

CASE Awards (Storytelling Category)
Med Student's Disability Helps Him Connect With Patients by Lisa Intrabartola
World Trade Center Health Program Saves Lives 20 Years Later by Robin Lally
Protein Data Bank Marks 50 Years Unlocking Human Disease Mysteries by Robin Lally
Senior's Newsletter for the Asian Community Makes National Impact by Robin Lally

 

Great Things to Know about Rutgers

UCM released a digital version of Great Things to Know about Rutgers along with the new printed brochure. This universitywide communications tool spotlights the people, programs, and achievements that make Rutgers a distinctive institution.

The digital version features robust content, including videos, a photo gallery, links to news stories, and expanded details that a print version cannot support. To engage users and provide us with content for future scheduled updates, we added an online form to the digital version for users to submit their Great Things to Know about Rutgers suggestions.

The new print version of this national award-winning Great Things series is also available and can be easily printed on your desktop as a downloadable PDF.

Great Things to Know About Rutgers 2022 cover

Rutgers Excellence Campaign

Excellence happens at Rutgers every day, and the world needs to know. To advance the awareness of Rutgers’ excellence and support a presidential initiative to improve Rutgers' reputation, UCM launched the Rutgers Excellence campaign in 2021. Spotlighting the accomplishments and innovations of our scholars, our multichannel approach to content distribution in FY 2022 reached nearly 4 million readers and resulted in 138 million impressions, and our work continues in FY 2023.

UCM created unique pieces of Rutgers Excellence content that were distributed across multiple channels to about 4 million readers.

To reach target-specific audiences of academic leaders and alumni working in higher education, sponsored LinkedIn posts were placed.

Multiple digital and print ad placements ran in focused media outlets including The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Science, Nature, and other outlets by target media markets.

Using cultivated lists to reach academic leaders and other higher education influencers, UCM sent direct emails featuring university accomplishments and initiatives, promotional content, and faculty and student achievements.

There were 70,473 pageviews last year to the Rutgers.edu/excellence campaign landing page from digital advertising, enewsletters, social media, and direct email click- throughs to learn more about campaign topics and facts.

Proactive outreach to news media has earned the attention of 12 target publications, selected for their influence on higher education leaders. Rutgers has appeared 900+ times in these media outlets, with mentions about Rutgers' initiatives, research, faculty, and students.

To support and elevate our stories of excellence making it more likely that our audiences see and remember our messaging on multiple channels, UCM developed a series of videos that feature topics from across the campaign.

During the six months, the campaign:
• Secured more than 18 million impressions
• Reached over 1.8 million readers
• Distributed 26 unique pieces of content promoting Rutgers’ excellence
• Earned over 500 mentions in the 12 most influential news publications
• Included over 45 paid ad placements
• Sent 24 direct emails to higher education leaders, alumni, and Rutgers Research subscribers

Rutgers Today

Rutgers Today is the universitywide news center promoting news, features, and videos with daily content additions and updates on all things Rutgers. 

Highlights of FY 2022

  • 2.3 million pageviews
  • 610 daily and special issues published
  • 350+ stories written or edited

Distribution channels

Rutgers Today email

University Initiatives and Communications

UCM provides communications planning, consultation, promotion, and support for selected university initiatives, events, and programs.

Your Voice, Our Rutgers, a universitywide website, showcases a series of climate surveys to assess the experiences of faculty, staff, and students. Each survey is part of a larger effort by the university administration to use research-based assessment methods to gather data that will help the university realize opportunities to make Rutgers a better place to work and learn.

UCM continues to support Rutgers–New Brunswick with the 15+ to Finish campaign aimed at current students and advisers, encouraging them to consider a minimum of 15 credit hours a semester to decrease time to graduation and lower overall student debt. The campaign was featured on digital screens throughout campus and in flyers. Also, UCM published social posts on the @RutgersNB platforms that coordinated with emails sent to students.

UCM began sharing posts to the @RutgersNB social media channels highlighting the news that Rutgers–New Brunswick was a top producer of Fulbright Scholars this year. The promotion of this achievement is ongoing.

@RutgersNB social media: 16,936 impressions and 411 engagements

Includes coverage from NJ Spotlight News

 

 

 

 

 

In support of the Cannabis Decriminalization Impact Task Force, UCM created a comprehensive communications plan to inform the university community about the continued prohibition of cannabis on campus. A webpage includes FAQ, resources, the task force report, and university policies about the prohibition of the use and possession of cannabis on university property.

 

Rutgers.edu

The universitywide gateway site to Rutgers, UCM manages this important channel to the Rutgers digital universe.

  • 16.5 million pageviews in FY 2022
  • 2.9 million visitors
A person viewing the Rutgers website on a laptop

University News and Media Relations

UCM tracks all news coverage of Rutgers and develops daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual news coverage reports for university leadership and governing boards that capture the breadth and sentiment of the coverage.

Highlights of FY 2022

815,000+
news stories citing Rutgers
551
Rutgers experts in the news
9 out of 10
Rutgers news stories are favorably ranked as neutral to positive for the institution

Managing Universitywide Social Media Accounts

 UCM tracks, manages, and monitors the five @RutgersU social media accounts: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.

Highlights of FY 2022

750,213
total social media followers
46.2 million
social media impressions
@RutgersU channels
3,253
social media posts

Monitoring Rutgers across All Social Media Channels

UCM uses social media listening tools to monitor the conversations people are having about Rutgers across all social media to gain insights that inform our understanding of public sentiment regarding Rutgers, its reputation, and its overall brand.

1.5 million Rutgers brand mentions in FY 2022

Mentions are counted across over 100 million data sources, in 50+ languages, and across 25+ social networks and other platforms.

Graphic treatment of social media icons

Issues, Emergency, and Crisis Management Communications

UCM coordinates with Institutional Planning and Operations and communication teams across the university to notify the Rutgers community of urgent issues, testing, and emergency notifications.

UCM Wins Six 2022 Hermes Creative Awards

About 6,500 entries from around the world were entered in the 2022 Hermes Creative Awards, an international competition for the creative and marketing industry. UCM's work was recognized with the following achievements.  

Platinum Awards 

Gold Awards 

 

Hermes Creative Awards platinum and gold winner logos

Rutgers Pride Campaign, #DYKRutgers

UCM designed a campaign to deliver bite-sized institutional facts and figures to build pride among our strongest brand ambassadors: faculty, staff, students, alumni, and Rutgers supporters. Distributed through myRutgers portal, search.rutgers.edu results, and social media, we use #DYKRutgers (Do you know Rutgers?) to frame the collection of weekly university facts, many correlating to major news stories, holidays, or events.

Did You Know campaign sample

Rutgers Core Component Library

The RCCL is a multi-template, 65+ component building tool for websites that empowers university units to create brand-forward, accessible sites with an improved online presence and better user experience. It is managed by UCM, R-Comm, and the Office of Research. Using Drupal (and in the future WordPress), the component library will continue to grow to meet the web needs of the university.

Examples of Sites Created by Units Using the RCCL

UCM Videos Earn Prestigious Awards

Telly Award

With over 12,000 entries from all 50 states and five continents in 2022, the Telly Awards represent work from some of the most respected advertising agencies, television stations, production companies, and publishers worldwide. UCM was recognized with:

Bronze Award in Online: Non-Scripted Web Series for Faces & Voices of Rutgers

 

Collegiate Advertising Awards

The national Collegiate Advertising Awards honor excellence in higher education advertising, marketing, and promotion. Entries are judged by a panel of higher education marketing professionals on criteria that include creativity, quality, and overall experience. UCM won:

Gold Award in the TV/Video Advertising/PSA–Single category for schools with 20,000 or more students for Rutgers’ Big Ten commercial: Progress Is Earned

Telly and Collegiate Advertising award logos

Photography and Other Digital Assets

UCM provides the Rutgers Digital Asset Library to store, organize, and share photos and videos with the university community. Providing access to thousands of images and a growing number of videos, the self-serve asset management tool is accessible to faculty and staff who can create collections and share and download photos and videos.

Highlights of FY 2022

  • 19,500+ total assets in database
  • 11,000+ assets downloaded
  • 5,000+ assets added
Login screen of the Rutgers Digital Asset Library