Skip navigation

Southern Miss Communications Team Wins Coveted Award

Fri, 09/26/2014 - 10:12am | By: Van Arnold

The University's Closer Look campaign has been recognized with a prestigious Lantern Award.

The Office of University Communications at The University of Southern Mississippi took home a prestigious Lantern Award for the University's Closer Look advertising campaign during the Southern Public Relations Federation's annual conference earlier this month in New Orleans.

The federation – comprised of public relations professionals from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and the panhandle of Florida -- recognizes outstanding work in the field of public relations through its annual Lantern Awards program.

The Closer Look campaign, conducted in the first half of this year, was honored in the category of “short-term strategic plans.” The criteria for this category included: community relations/corporate/external communication (functions in which the organization managed its point of view among key stakeholders on which the organization depends).

“Winning a Lantern Award is external, professional validation, that the work being done by the Office of University Communications is not only par, but in many cases exceeds the work of not only other universities, but businesses, corporations and agencies,” said Jim Coll, chief communication officer at Southern Miss.

The campaign was an advertising initiative targeting key markets and audiences throughout South Mississippi. It challenged misperceptions about The University of Southern Mississippi and South Mississippi in general.

“The great work being done in our classrooms, research laboratories and communities is surprising to some, but it should not be,” said Brittney Westbrook, manager of marketing in the Office of University Communications. “The University of Southern Mississippi is a better and stronger institution than many outsiders might believe. We presented factual evidence in a creative way to directly challenge those misperceptions.”

Entries for the Lantern Awards must have appeared (published, printed, presented, etc.) between May 1, 2013 and April 30, 2014.

For more information about the Office of University Communications, call 601.266.4491 or visit: http://www.usm.edu/university-communications