Optimising stakeholder engagement in award-winning campaigns: From concept to evaluation
Samuel Harriman & Olivia Finch
Campaigns Project Manager & Campaigns Producer
University of Oxford
Last year, Oxford produced two research-related campaigns – ‘Brain and mental health’ and ‘AI at Oxford’.
A shared objective of each of these campaigns was to showcase research breadth and excellence across the University.
At Oxford, we have more than 50 academic departments, with most departments having their own communications teams, as well as a vast array of other internal stakeholders and external partners.
Both of these topics are vast and can be emotive subjects. We knew that stakeholder engagement and buy-in would be essential in the production of these campaigns.
So how did we do it?
Before the campaigns began, we did our research. We scoured the University’s website and departmental pages to find out as much as we could about how each department researches these areas.
We asked departmental leads for their opinions on key topics and figures and presented back our plans before we published any content.
During the campaigns, we shared content with departments before publication. We were reactive to requests and commissions, and we provided updates on performance and upcoming content.
After the campaigns we implemented lessons learned and we’ve shared our results – page by page, activity by activity.
Key takeaways
From this talk, we would like our audience to walk away with:
an understanding of how you can achieve ‘buy-in’ stage by stage,
an understanding of the importance of learning lessons and implementing changes
and an understanding of the importance of transparency and communication about results
About your speaker
Samuel Harriman (He/him) is responsible the delivery of large scale multimedia campaigns as Campaigns Project Manager at the University of Oxford.
He has previously worked in digital media management at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, student recruitment and marketing at the University of Leicester and in stakeholder engagement at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.
Olivia Finch (She/her) plays a pivotal role in delivering campaigns in her role as Campaigns Producer at the University Oxford.
She has previously been responsible for marketing languages and library content at Oxford University Press and worked as a marketing executive at Auckland Writers Festival.