Over the course of three years, The Ivy Group provided marketing strategy, publicity, and website development for the Tayloe Murphy Center and the Resilience Awards—honors that recognize businesses in struggling economic environments in Virginia. The Resilience Awards recognize successful businesses in communities that have faced economic hardship. In addition to managing branding, press relations, collateral materials, marketing, and advertising, we developed web content and programming—including an interactive application submission process--for the Tayloe Murphy portion of the Darden School's website. A Virginia Business insert, printed and digital invitations to submit applications, publicizing and celebrating the winners all centered on a gala.

The Organization: Encouraging Business Growth

Tayloe Murphy International Business Studies Center, an affiliated agency of the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia, encouraged successful business growth on a global basis. (Note: The Resilience Awards are now run by now The Institute for Business in Society.) The Center developed and implemented educational programs and research projects that broaden understanding of issues, enabling managers to respond effectively to opportunities.

The Challenge: Get Businesses to Apply to the Resilience Awards

Businesses will always have challenges--whether funding, supply chain, human capital, market shifts or changes in technology. Businesses located in communities that have their own economic and social woes are doubly challenged. In keeping with its mission, the Tayloe Murphy Center launched a variety of educational and outreach initiatives to support these enterprises and to recognize those that have overcome significant barriers to success. The Center turned to The Ivy Group to identify these businesses and encourage them to apply for the opportunity to attend Executive Education classes at the Darden School by applying for the Resilience Awards.

How We Helped

Branding the Resilience Awards--crafting targeted messaging and a distinctive visual presentation--worked in concert with marketing and outreach planning. Both branding and marketing gave a respectful nod to the School's graphics standards, and we worked closely with internal staff as the program was developed. We managed an aggressive program of advertising, public relations, and digital promotion. The new website we created enabled applicants to complete the extensive application documentation over time and included documentary video of the stories of the finalists.

The Results

Winners were featured in press stories across the Commonwealth and in the Metropolitan Washington area. Between the Resilience Awards and a Darden research report on "unbanked" Latino households that The Ivy Group's media outreach program promoted, the Center and its Executive Director, Greg Fairchild, became one of the top-cited subjects in Darden's overall media coverage. Our efforts were commended for adding to the Center's prestige and Darden's market profile. Working in close collaboration with internal staff, we produced an 8-page Virginia Business insert and placed dozens of stories throughout the US (in publications such as TIME Magazine and major metropolitan dailies) on the Resilience Awards and a recently released Latino banking study.