GCC Enrollment Initiatives Receive Telly Award and Three Paragon Awards

Long-term Partnership with Forest Productions Continues Outstanding Results

Batavia, NY (06/25/2018) — The work of a team of professionals from both Genesee Community College's Admissions and Enrollment Services offices and Forest Productions and Photography, Inc. of Buffalo, was recently recognized by two well-known organizations for several recruitment initiatives. The College's 360 Degree Virtual Tour Video received a bronze Telly Award in the Craft Virtual Reality/360 Online Category, and also a "gold" Paragon Award from the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations (NCMPR). Additionally, a series of GCC admissions materials won two "silver" placements from NCMPR's Paragon Awards.

Developing the unique virtual tour of GCC involved a multi-talented team to create the nearly 10-minute video that allows viewers to actively engage and control their campus tour. Narrated by Val Bello, GCC's associate professor of Communication and Media Arts (and also a DJ at MIX96 radio station in Buffalo), the tour covers all major facets of student life-from the many academic programs to student clubs, College Village to the Child Care Center, athletic teams to Campus Centers, and much more. The tour also works interactively on all types and sizes of digital platforms.

The GCC team that created the award-winning 360 virtual tour was led by Rebecca Green, recruitment communications specialist who served as GCC's in-house producer by coordinating the many facets of the incredibly complex project which took about a year to complete. She worked closely with Michael and Christina Mandolfo of Forest Productions, who produced and directed all of the script writing, photography, video, editing and production. Overseeing the project were Tanya Lane-Martin, now GCC's associate dean of Student Support Services but was the dean of Admissions during the project and Dr. Virginia (Ginny) Taylor, who was the vice president for Student and Enrollment Services during the project. The GCC admissions staff also provide essential support on the project, specifically Tom Kinsey, reporting analyst, Theresa Gorecki, Career Services specialist, and Kelly Stone, clerk-typist.

"We have worked with Forest Productions for many years and on many projects. It was exciting to collaborate with them again for our online virtual tour," Tanya Lane-Martin said. "The 360 degree virtual view of our campus was innovative and masterfully executed. We appreciate their artistic and creative vision that now illustrates our campus so beautifully. Additionally, we are very grateful to a host of students and faculty members who rallied behind this massive project and helped make it happen."

To view GCC's award-winning 360 Virtual Tour video, go to: https://www.genesee.edu/home/offices/admissions/virtual-tour/

Established in 1979, the Telly Awards are internationally known as the premier prize-honoring video and television platform across all screens. This past year more than 12,000 entries were received from all 50 states and five continents. Entrants are judged by the Telly Awards Judging Council, an industry body of over 200 leading experts including advertising agencies, production companies and major television networks reflecting today's multiscreen industry. The Telly's recently restructured some categories to recognize the type of work being created today. Among them: branded content, social video, animation and technology that now plays a key role in the ways stories are being communicated, including categories in Virtual Reality, Interactive and 360 Video.

This is the second Telly Award that Forest Productions received on behalf of projects produced for GCC. The first award was for a Financial Aid video produced in 2014. The complete list of this year's Telly Award winners is available at https://www.tellyawards.com/winners.

The NCMPR formed the Paragon Awards to recognize outstanding achievement in design and communication at community and technical colleges. It is the only national competition that honors excellence exclusively among marketing and public relations professionals at two year colleges. This year, the Paragon Awards included 53 categories and the competition drew 1,943 entries from 243 colleges across the United States. The complete list of Paragon Award Winners is available at https://www.ncmpr.org/cp/uploads/17_Paragons-WinnersFlierFNL2.pdf.

The winning GCC projects promoted the Fall 2017 Open Houses. With Forest Productions directing the photography and art direction, a series of fun, colorful postcards featured specially created cookies decorated with headlines and graphics "A Taste of GCC," "You're one smart cookie," and "We're the sweetest campus around." These were developed and designed by Rebecca Green. Green also created a flyer series that included a dynamic new illustration of the updated GCC cougar mascot.

For more information, contact Marketing Communications Associate Director Donna Rae Sutherland at (585) 343-0055 ext. 6616, or via email: dsutherland@genesee.edu.

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Editor's Note:

To see samples of GCC's award winning Open House postcard series and Cougar flyer go to:

http://marketing.genesee.edu/images/ParagonAwardWinners201805.jpg

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