Publication Design, Communication Creative, Excellence Winner
Rotman Magazine
Karen Christensen
Rotman School of Management
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Contents:
Project Summary
The Rotman School’s goal is to be recognized as one of the world’s best business schools, alongside top-tier schools like Wharton, Harvard and Stanford. To accomplish this feat—which no Canadian school ever has—Rotman must:
- Differentiate the university’s brand and programs from those of competing schools.
- Increase engagement with alumni, thought leaders, business leaders, top-tier schools, the media and donors.
- Augment the global dimensions of the student body and faculty.
- Become recognized as a provider of thought leadership in business.
Published triennially, Rotman Magazine can contribute to all four of these elements. The bold, innovative approach to business education must be reflected in its graphic design, format and content.
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Intended Audience(s)
Primary Audience
Rotman alumni are the primary audience. The magazine is mailed to more than 19,000 business graduates of the University of Toronto in 71 countries worldwide, ranging in age from recent graduates (aged 28–33) to retirees (aged 60+). This is a highly sophisticated, demanding demographic: 38 percent are senior executives, and 44 percent are senior managers; 74 percent reside in the Greater Toronto Area, 13 percent in the rest of Canada, 5 percent in the U.S. and 8 percent elsewhere—from Australia to the Ukraine. Rotman alumni constitute the primary audience due to their positions of influence in the global business community; their status as potential donors, recruiters and ambassadors; and the organization’s stated promise to continually add value to their education through lifelong learning opportunities.
Secondary Audiences
The magazine also serves as a recruiting tool for students and faculty, is mailed to 500 business journalists to encourage reprints and mentions in the global media, and is made available at Rotman events to keep the local community “plugged in” to the school’s quest for excellence.
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Creative Objectives
The goals of Rotman Magazine are to enhance alumni engagement with the school, inform readers of the latest in business thinking and drive overall strengthening of the Rotman brand. Objectives for 2008 included:
- At least 80 percent of respondents in the annual Alumni Readership Survey should say the magazine makes them feel connected to the school, that they are satisfied with it, and that they place high or medium value on it as an alumni benefit.
- The number of alumni making cash donations to the school and the total amount donated should increase 15 percent year over year.
- Eighty “hits” of press coverage of the magazine should be generated globally (up from 66 last year).
- Data should be collected confirming that the magazine helped to attract the latest MBA class to the Rotman School.
- Contributors to the 2008 issues should include not only Rotman professors but faculty from top-tier schools such as Harvard and Wharton as well as global thought leaders with no ties to the school.
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Key Messages/Theme
The key message is that the Rotman School is an innovative and creative educational community that is taking a bold approach to 21st-century business education. In consultation with the dean and senior staff, the editor selects a particular theme for each issue approximately eight months before it is published. These themes are strategically selected to coincide with two things: current and brewing “hot topics” in the business world at large and current initiatives/strengths of the Rotman School. The content featured is equally balanced between Rotman faculty and academics from top-tier schools. At the request of alumni in recent readership surveys, a slightly larger number of contributors are business and/or thought leaders. The mix of input is intended to provide readers with a diverse, high-quality perspective on business issues. By their very presence on the magazine pages, these individuals strengthen the Rotman brand and lend credence to its bold approach to business education, while helping convey the school’s “new way to think” about business.
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Creative Rationale
The magazine’s design must be modern, creative and edgy—rather than academic and institutional-looking—reflecting the school’s bold institutional goals. The annual budget is CDN$255,000 or CDN$85,000 per issue. Design costs CDN$20,000 per issue, and printing is CDN$65,000 (for 25,000 copies). Rather than hiring professional writers and photographers, the team saves money by doing all the interviews with thought leaders and top-tier academics themselves, who provide their own photos. In addition, they take interesting (but lengthy) academic papers and condense them dramatically (from 10,000-plus words to under 3,000) to create magazine-friendly articles. On the pages of Rotman Magazine, the faculty share space with global thought leaders and academics from top-tier schools; since you are judged in large part by the company you keep, Rotman believes this indicates the level of excellence of the “new way to think” fostered by the school. As of the spring 2008 issue, half of the magazine is printed on Cascade Enviro 100 paper made with 100 percent post-consumer waste. The remainder is on Chorus Art Silk paper, made from 50 percent recycled fibres. The team feels it is important to use cutting-edge materials if they are to be perceived as a cutting-edge institution.
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Results
Objective No. 1: At least 80 percent of respondents in the annual alumni readership survey should say the magazine makes them feel connected to the school, that they are satisfied with it, and that they place high or medium value on it as an alumni benefit.
Result: In the sixth annual survey, 84 percent of respondents said the magazine makes them feel connected to the school (compared to 84 percent last year), 93 percent said they are either satisfied or extremely satisfied with the magazine (compared to 91 percent last year), and 87 percent said they place either medium or high value on the magazine as an alumni benefit (versus 82 percent last year).
Objective No. 2: Total alumni donations and the number of alumni making cash donations to the school should increase by 15 percent each year.
Result: In 2008, 698 alumni donated CDN$533,076.45 to the school, up from 586 contributing CDN$422,524.78 in 2007. This represents a 19 percent increase in the number of donors and a 26 percent increase in the amount donated.
Objective No. 3: Eighty “hits” of press coverage of the magazine should be generated globally.
Result: Magazine content was picked up 101 times in 2008 (versus 66 times in 2007) by the global media, including repeat mentions in Harvard Deusto Business Review (the Spanish Harvard Business Review), The Times UK and The Economist.
Objective No. 4: Data should be collected confirming that the magazine helped to attract the current MBA class to Rotman.
Result: In the 2008 MBA marketing questionnaire, 43 percent of first-year students indicated that Rotman Magazine played a role in their decision to attend the school (compared to 39 percent last year). The magazine was a major factor in the decision for 2 percent (1 percent last year), a medium factor for 15 percent (10 percent last year), and a minor factor for 26 percent. Also, when asked which sections of the web site were most important to their decision to attend Rotman, 32 percent said the online magazine was either a major or medium factor.
Objective No. 5: Contributors to the three 2008 issues should include faculty from top-tier schools such as Harvard and Wharton and global thought leaders with no connection to the school.
Result: The issues published in 2008 contain input from a total of 19 Rotman faculty members and 19 faculty from top-tier business schools (Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Columbia, University of Chicago, Duke, Carnegie-Mellon, MIT and NYU), along with input from 33 business and thought leaders. This comes very close to meeting the ratio of 30 percent/30 percent/40 percent requested by alumni in the last readership survey, with a ratio of 27 percent/27 percent/46 percent.
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