WSU’s “Go Cougs” public service announcements will be presented with a Grand Gold Award at an education conference beginning Wednesday in Portland, Ore.

This will be the university’s third Grand Gold Award, which is given by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, said Tim Pavish, vice president for University Relations.

“CASE is an organization that is comprised of communicators and fundraisers for higher education internationally,” Pavish said. “The award that we’ve received is from the District VIII competition that consists of 46 different institutions of higher education throughout the western US and western Canada.” The “Go Cougs” PSAs were one of 574 entries but gained recognition from the judges for originality, Pavish said.

The concept behind these four different PSAs is to highlight the broad spectrum of research being done at WSU while adding a spin unique to the school, said Mike Hayward, senior writer for Copacino+Fujikado, a Seattle advertising firm.

“The objective is trying to raise the profile of Washington State University’s research, and in doing so, raise the profile of the university in general, which is important right now because we want to make sure that we’re reaching out to those who we might be able to partner with in research,” Pavish said.

Pavish worked with Hayward and Kurt Reifschneider, Copacino+Fujikado’s associate creative director, to redo the original “Go Cougs” campaign launched in 2006.

Often times, the research at WSU is not given the credit it deserves, so the team looked for an interesting way to showcase the work being done with biofuels, animal and human health, antimatter and plant breeding, Hayward said.

“We didn’t want to do the stereotypical college advertisement or sound like other universities because WSU isn’t like other universities,” he added.

As WSU graduates, the team knew the line “Go Cougs” is something anyone associated with the university would recognize, so the team decided to add the saying at the end of each spot.

“Anybody who’s affiliated with Washington State University has a warm spot for that line, and we knew based on the response to the first campaign that our students, faculty staff and alumni would really like this,” Pavish said.

Beyond being a fun and inventive marketing piece, what stood out to the judges was the university’s use of limited resources.

Due to a 21 percent budget cut last year, there was very little money to spend on paid advertisements. So instead, Pavish said he decided to produce these new spots and get them placed as free public service announcements.

Pavish called on fellow Coug, Gordy Bryson, president of International Media Partners Inc., for help.

Bryson provided strategic media planning and helped get more than 300 PSA placements, which aired around Washington, Oregon and Idaho beginning last November.

“Because of the financial condition of the state, there was no budget, so Tim asked me about presenting these spots to the stations as public service announcements to obtain exposure,” Bryson said.

Pavish said they received nearly $110,000 in free exposure during the last two and a half months.

“The elevated profile helps us to recruit faculty, staff, students,” he said. “And as we enhance the reputation of the university, it also helps us with our fundraisers.” The University Relations department wants to advertise the great work being done at WSU by faculty and students. They also want to help the community see the impact the university has in positively enhancing the lives of people around the world, Pavish said.

“As far as this campaign goes, we’re going to continue to push it,” he said. “It will be entered in the international competition, so we’ll know in few months how it did with that, but I’m optimistic that it will do well.”