Our Portfolio: Gingerbread Converse Competition

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.