CNN had a lot on its plate in 2014: its reporters were covering a spirited Midterm election campaign and its leadership was moving forward with an ambitious original series strategy, all while rebranding the network to better compete in the evolving television landscape.
Not exactly a recipe for an stress-free year if you’re on the marketing side of the house.
But CNN’s in-house team didn’t just rise to the challenge: they produced some of their best work ever.
On Thursday night CNN was named Marketing Team of the Year at the 2015 PromaxBDA Promotion, Marketing and Design Awards.
The team, led by Rick Lewchuk, senior VP of creative marketing, CNN Worldwide, were honored for their work supporting The Sixties, the launch campaign for the CNN Go platform, as well as the overall “Go There” brand campaign.
“We had a really big challenge in that we needed to relaunch the brand of CNN, and typically you work on those kinds of things over a year or so. And just the way things came together, we had to condense it into four months, and do a brand launch,” Lewchuk said. ” The result was that everyone had to pull together, and we were all so thrilled to launch this new brand and get it done.”
CNN’s new emphasis on original series has allowed Lewchuk’s team to flex new muscles.
“This team that has really been working on live news promotion for years has gotten excited about doing a different kind of genre, and I think they’ve had a lot of creative ideas that they’ve had a chance to express and it’s really been great to see them blossom and enjoy it.”
So what’s next for the team?
“The Seventies,” Lewchuk joked. “It’s one thing to launch a brand and it’s one thing to have ‘Go There,’ but how does it live and how does it keep going? It’s about continuing to revitalize that. And we have some really great and cool shows we’re really excited about launching next year.”
Here’s a selection of CNN’s work from 2014 that earned it the title of Marketing Team of the Year:
“Go There” Campaign
Introducing CNN Go
The Sixties on CNN
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown
Mike Rowe: Somebody’s Gotta Do It launch promo
Chicagoland promo
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