Team members included Annie Bishop and Christie Montague of Cary, Meagan Sams of Greenville, and Lauren Wright of Raleigh. Teams tackled issues around branding and recommended options for brand positioning, unique and credible benefits to feature, and other factors common in brand development programs.  

 

UNC Creative Strategists, a team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, won $1,000 as first runner-up.

 

 “I’m thrilled with the creativity and innovative thinking offered by all of the contestants” said N.C. Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker in the announcement of the winners. “The passion these entries display for the special place we call North Carolina is truly inspiring.”

 

 The two engagement contests are part of The Brand North Carolina Project, an initiative being conducted by the University of North Carolina’s Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise (KIPE) and sponsored by the N.C. Department of Commerce.  The Project seeks to assemble basic research findings, core concepts, and examples of creative expression for a statewide brand into a bank of creative ideas and knowledge that can serve as a source of insights for further brand development work.

 

Judges for the finals in the creative expression contest included Larry Wheeler, Director of the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, Chapel Hill muralist Michael Brown, Billy Maupin and Angela Lin of Hillsborough’s Yep Roc Records, and Becky Mormino and Jay Lowe of Durham’s Merge Records.

 

 

Judges for the final round of the case competition included William D. Perreault, Professor Emeritus, Kenan-Flagler Business School (KFBS), Dudley Lacy, President and COO, O’Brien/ Atkins, Michael Schinelli, Chief Marketing Officer, KFBS, and Tom Pashley, President and CEO, Pinehurst Resort and Country Club.