Brand Campaign Success

January 2023 News Release

BYU’s nationwide brand marketing campaign, “For the Benefit of the World,” recently received a platinum award for creative excellence from the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals.

BYU collaborated with Lipman Hearne, a Chicago-based marketing firm, to create the “For the Benefit of the World” campaign, which launched in March 2022. Through the campaign, the university seeks to highlight specific ways that BYU seeks to serve God’s children all over the world. Examples shared in the campaign thus far include students and faculty who are

• screening children for rheumatic fever in Samoa,
• seeking ways to restore scorched landscapes with fire-resistant native plants,
• documenting an indigenous language in Ecuador,
• helping children with autism to learn social skills, and
• honoring the speakers of endangered Native American languages through photography.

“We are excited that through advertising we can shine a light on some of the ways that BYU regularly partners with local professionals throughout the world to help humankind and our planet,” says Shane Westwood, BYU’s associate director for brand marketing, who manages campaign development and strategy. “These stories show that BYU serves because of a love for God and his children.”

Campaign Engagement

In the first nine months of the campaign, the stories were seen more than 70 million times in a variety of platforms and venues, including online news channels, social media, YouTube, LinkedIn, streaming TV, airports, BYUtv, Y Magazine, and more. Those who click on the ads to learn more then spend an average of nearly four minutes on the campaign website watching videos, reading text, and clicking on additional stories.

“We are thrilled to see this sort of engagement, which is surpassing our expectations,” Westwood says. “After seeing our ads and possibly spending some time on our campaign website, we hope that people come away thinking that BYU exists to help the world and that this helps them feel a positive connection with BYU.”

The BYU Brand Project

The campaign grew out of BYU’s recent brand research project with Lipman Hearne, which revealed that nearly 70 percent of the US general public does not know much or anything about Brigham Young University. The campaign is designed to help raise awareness and increase the university’s academic reputation nationwide, which will then open doors for students as they graduate BYU and go forth to serve.

“It has been wonderful to work with Lipman Hearne because they have taken the time to really get to know BYU,” Westwood says.

The nationwide advertising campaign, coupled with visual identity work and campus signage upgrades, are all designed to support the BYU brand message, which is built upon the BYU mission statement and was reviewed and approved by the BYU Board of Trustees and the BYU President’s Council in summer 2022.