We Are CPUT and not Kaput!

With the institution celebrating 10 years of creating futures and innovations, the university is taking to the roads of Cape Town to change the perception of the brand through vehicle advertising.

The project is the first of its kind at CPUT and was spearheaded by the Marketing and Communication Department (MCD) in collaboration with the Transport Department.

The vehicles, which hit the road earlier this year, each boast a different tag line, a photograph of a student, along with the university’s details and the hashtag #WeAreCPUT.

Nastassja Wessels, Senior Publications Officer at MCD who leads the project, says after 10 years many people refer to the institution as Kaput, Pentech or Cape Tech.

“After 10 years of awesome innovations, we can proudly say that we are CPUT and what better way to do that than through vehicle branding” she says.

Wessels says vehicle branding has become an innovative method of advertising to a much wider and unsuspecting market.

“Everyone's welcome to see your advertisement.”

“When I sit in gridlocked traffic on a near-daily basis, I notice the branded vehicles all around me the way I would a billboard or an attention-grabbing sign. The difference is that I don’t have to sprain my neck to see the advert or even miss it during the five seconds of visibility when passing a bilboard or a sign,” says Wessels.

“Our hope is that the newly-wrapped CPUT vehicles will accelerate the exposure of the CPUT brand, at a legally-acceptable pace of course.”

Written by Candes Keating
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The Marketing and Communication Department is ending the year on a high note – scooping four prestigious awards in recent weeks.

The awards are: the Marketing, Advancement and Communication (MACE) Award of Excellence - Gold Award for SMART Graduation December 2021; the MACE Award of Excellence Bronze Award for Virtual Open Day; the Silver Quill Award of Excellence for Virtual Open Day and the Silver Quill Award of Excellence for SMART Graduation December 2021.

The International Association of Business Communicators – Africa Region facilitates the annual Silver Quill awards programme, which recognises business communication excellence across the African continent. It salutes work that makes a significant contribution to business outcomes, and that is innovative and unique. Entries are scored independently by two evaluators, who reconcile scores together. They review each entry against the International Association of Business Communicators’ (IABC) standard of excellence, ensuring that communicators can demonstrate the impact their work has had on business goals. The aim is to encourage the pursuit of excellence rather than competition.

The MACE Excellence Awards takes place annually and recognises and celebrates excellence and the achievements of specialists and practitioners in marketing, communication and advancement in the higher education sector. Out of 171 entries from universities across South Africa, only 16 were awarded gold and 37 bronze.

Some of the comments the team received from the Silver Quill evaluators for the Virtual Open Day entry included:

“I commend you on creating an engaging platform that is unique and novel, and very relevant to a dispersed and tech savvy audience.

With reference to the SMART Graduation entry, the evaluators stated: “Congratulations on executing the project in a professional manner. We liked the look and feel of your videos and slides, they exude a feeling of warmth and connectedness. Your key message that CPUT cares, comes through clearly in the work sample.”

A proud Dr Garth Van Gensen, Director of the Marketing and Communication Department, said these industry awards show that the Marketing and Communication team were never happy to be average.

“We consistently provided innovative and creative solutions to satisfy the events and marketing requirements of the Western Cape’s largest university. We reinvented virtual events in a way in which the higher education industry had never seen before, and I am very proud of my team for consistently pushing the envelope and thinking outside the box. That is truly One Smart CPUT thinking.”

In terms of future plans, Virtual Open Day will run in parallel with a physical Open day next year and will feature a new user interface that lets visitors experience CPUT by creating a metaverse-type experience that enables them to explore various parts of our campuses in 360 degrees.

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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