ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership announced on Friday, June 2, that it had recognized the Society of Women Engineers with its 2023 Gold Circle Award in the Sponsorship/Exhibits/Advertising Promotion category and Water Professionals International with its 2023 Gold Circle Award in the Rebranding Campaign category.
DJG is proud to have partnered with SWE and WPI on these impactful projects and congratulates both organizations on their well-deserved wins.
“In both these wins, we are grateful to have clients that embrace new ways of approaching how they operate within their areas of expertise and serve their members and missions,” says Drew Navolio, Vice President of Client Services. “SWE saw an opportunity to shake up its sponsor and exhibitor sales approach. WPI had the courage to rebrand and rename its organization to better reflect its role in an evolving industry.”
WE22 Conference Prospectus and Partnership Guide: A Better Opportunity for Results
DJG worked with SWE on a solution to allow its events team to efficiently provide updated information to prospective exhibitors and sponsors for SWE’s 2022 annual conference and career fair, WE22. The Society of Women Engineers is the world’s largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology. We helped SWE ditch the cumbersome, traditional PDF approach and develop a microsite/online prospectus that allowed staff to update information easily via Google Sheets. As a result of the WE22 online prospectus, sponsorship and partnership sales grew 32% from 2021, and SWE’s exhibit hall/career fair sold out. Selling out the exhibit hall/career fair has only sold out two times in the past before WE22.
Jennifer Scott, SWE’s Executive Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and Events, shared that involved staff had this to say: “Working with the new microsite was “more valuable—easily editable and shareable.”
SWE’s 2023 ASAE Gold Circle Award Submission:
The Successful Rebrand to Water Professionals International
President & CEO Paul Bishop, CAE of the organization formerly known as the Association of Boards of Certification, first approached DJG during the summer of 2021 to help potentially rename and rebrand ABC. The trade organization supports and enhances the expertise of water and wastewater treatment professionals through testing and certification. Employing DJG’s Brand Health Index research tool, we used a data-driven approach to help ABC determine that a new name was in order. Then, we helped develop the new “Water Professionals International” moniker, create an all-new brand, and reveal these changes at ABC’s annual meeting six months later. Soon after the big reveal, we launched a new website and several sub-brands. A follow-up BHI survey we conducted one year later showed that the decision to rebrand ABC ultimately was the right decision, setting the new WPI up for future success.
“For years, we had wrestled with the ‘ABC’ name. People were never quite sure what our organization does and who we serve,” says Bishop. “DJG was able to show through data, personal interactions, and interviews with our leadership what our collective guts told us—we needed to change. Even our more skeptical board members came around once they saw how ‘ABC’ held us back. Of course, the DJG team helped us create the perfect name, brand, and a very cool logo, too.”
WPI’s 2023 ASAE Gold Circle Award Submission:
Entries for the Gold Circle Awards competition are judged consistently in each category based on criteria established by the ASAE Gold Circle Award Committee for excellence in association marketing, membership, and communications programs.
These two ASAE Gold Circle Awards bring the DJG client Gold Circle wins count to nine. Read about past DJG client ASAE Gold Circle wins here.
For more information on these ASAE Gold Circle wins and how we can take similar approaches to your association’s marketing needs, contact Drew Navolio.
