Gingerbread Converse Competition

Make Your Holidays Sweet


Goal

The 2020 holiday season came on the heels of a challenging fall semester overshadowed by an election and the coronavirus. The Westminster community was fatigued and couldn’t join together in our usual traditions. The university’s usual holiday card and social media content wasn’t going to cut it. To infuse some joy into the Westminster community, the Office of Marketing and Communication created an interactive campaign: a Converse Gingerbread Contest. Converse Hall is Westminster’s most iconic and beloved place on campus. It is much more than bricks and a bell tower: it embodies and is a symbol of the Westminster experience for every student, alumni, professor, and staff member.

The campaign included a stunning gingerbread of Converse created by a local pastry chef, a high-quality holiday card, a keep-sake worthy, vintage-inspired recipe card, and a virtual alumni bake-off event all culminating in a social media contest. The purpose wasn’t to have the perfect Converse (though we certainly got one) but to revel together in the memories and emotions that Converse evokes. The ultimate objective was to increase engagement on social media and curate a collection of gingerbread Converses that reflected the many experiences and traditions of Westminster. We successfully engaged our campus community and their families in making the holidays sweet.

 

Strategies

  • Make it Interactive
  • Keep it Classic  
  • Channel Unity  
  • Build Community 
  • Integrate on Digital Platforms 

Results

In addition to sending a holiday card that was unique from what we traditionally send, the main goal of the Westminster Converse gingerbread campaign was to engage community members through social media and on our website. This was the first time we have done a campaign like this, and we were pleased by the level of engagement we experienced from our Westminster community.  
Now, for some numbers. 

Data for visits to the westminsteru.edu/gingerbread page

Total Pageviews: 607 
Unique Pageviews: 344 
Average Time on Page: 2:04 
Entrances: 283 
Bounce Rate: 43.79% 
Exit Rate: 49.4%  

The social metrics provided include totals from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn

Total Impressions: 47,045 
Total Engagement: 2,886 
Total Reactions:  2,507 
Total Comments: 237 
Total Shares: 84 
Total Submissions: 16 
Total Votes: 803 

Comments and Messages

“Very lovely! Brings back snow-capped campus memories” —Diana Brailoiu 
 
“This was so much fun to make. I am not American, and thus I had never done this before and it was so much fun.” —Douglas Fajardo 
 
“Love the story and creativity! It has so much detail and really shows how much you care!” —Jacey Kelly Douglas Fajardo 

"I opened the card from campus and saw the cute Gingerbread Converse. Warmed my heart. Perfect metaphor for our sweet, little campus." —Spencer Potter
 
“This is amazing. I love the light shining through, the colors, the textures, just beautiful” —Beth Dobkin 

Multimedia Campaign