VISUAL PORTFOLIO
Casey Cotton
Phi chi theta
Since becoming an active member in December of 2013, I have served as public relations chair, rush co chair and merchandise chair in the three semesters after my initiation. I just finished a year long term as the Vice President of Marketing.
Public Relations
As public relations chair I created rush graphics, our alumni invitations for our 10 year anniversary and started a "brother of the week" to increase member retention and event attendance.
Rush Chair
As co-rush chair I helped organize and coordinate rush events. I also created rush graphics, a new scoring system, and worked to redesign the following semester's rush events.
Merchandise
I created merchandise for our social stage recruiting event as well as multiple clothing and merchandise orders throughout the semester. I had to create clothing that would be well received by the chapter while simultaneously following our brand standards.
Vice President of Marketing
Planned pre recruiting events including Quad Day, Business Quad Day, and Informational Night. Created rush graphics and recruiting collateral. We had the largest turnout for Info Night in the two semesters I was VP Marketing since the organization came to campus 12 years prior. I led our rebranding effort primarily focused on breaking away from our national colors to better distinguish ourselves from the other business fraternities on campus. I ran our Facebook and Twitter platforms and have done Twitter Q&As with University of Illinois faculty. We have done these twitter Q&As with the Business Career Services of the University of Illinois and with a professor who is also a world renown travel blogger. I started our #TravelTuesday Twitter promotions that showcased our members studying abroad as well. As VP of Marketing I increased the average percent change for interactions by over 5300% and page visits by more than 880%.
PR, Rush, Merchandise
Public Relations
Rush
A flyer that was passed out to Business 101 students to encourage attendance at Phi Chi Theta's informational night.
The invitation sent to Zeta Gamma alumni that I made for University of Illinois Phi Chi Theta's 10 year anniversary.
Cover photos for Facebook that our members used before rush. The VP of Marketing at the time chose the Rolex theme and these were the cover photos I created based on that idea.
RUSH RUBRIC
One of the biggest challenges of recuriting is that each member has a different idea of what makes an ideal Phi Chi Theta brother. To resolve this problem my other rush chair and I made a new rubric to fairly asses canditates. We also made instructional videos to demonstrate what interviews looked like for each score on the new rubric.
Rush Graphics
These are a sample of the graphics I designed for each semester of rush following my initiation into Phi Chi Theta in December of 2013. The graphics shown are Facebook cover photos, although I also created profile pictures, postcards and graphics for electronic billboards on campus to match with that semester’s rush theme.
Spring 2014
Position: Public Relations Chair
Theme: Rolex
Position: Merchandise Chair
Theme: How I Met My Brother
Spring 2016
Position: Vice President of Marketing
Theme: Where Business is Personal
Fall 2014
Position: Rush Chair
Theme: Drafting the Phinest
Fall 2015
Position: Vice President of Marketing
Theme: The Story behind the Suit
merchandise
 BroomballTwo of our brothers wearing their letters while playing a game of broomball. |
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 Social StageMembers wearing our rush shirt from Fall 2015 at our social stage during rush. |
 YvesYves wearing our rush shirt from Fall 2014 while he was abroad in England. |
 EricEric wearing a recent design while abroad in Australia. |
 Biz BowlOur members wearing our PCT athletic clothes while playing in our annual Biz Bowl football game. |
 DarrenDarren wearing another recent design while traveling. |
 RakshithaRakshitha wearing a three pilar shirt while traveling. |
 Biz BowlThree of our members wearing our new biz bowl and three pilar shirts. |
There are more than 1400 Registered Student Organizations at the University of Illinois and many of them use Greek letters for their names. This large number of RSOs makes it difficult to differentiate ourselves. Merchandise helps create more recognition on campus. It not only lets our members showcase their pride in the organization but it also serves as free publicity for the fraternity. As both merchandise chair and Vice President of Marketing getting our members to wear more merchandise was a big priority for me. As VP of Marketing I started “Wear Em Wednesday” asking members to wear their letters on Wednesday and rewarding members for participating. This marketing effort greatly increased the number of members who wore PCT clothing and led to an increase in PCT merchandise orders as well.
Why Does Merchandise Matter?
vice president of marketing
vice president of marketing
pre-rush
Rush Theme
Fall 2015
Spring 2016
Theme: Behind Every Suit is a Story
Theme: Where Business is Personal
Profile Picture
Profile Picture
Electronic Bilboard
Electronic Bilboard
Cover Photo
Cover Photo
Infographic
Infographic
Spring 2016 Rush Trailer
rush
INFO NIGHT SPEAKERS
Emmanual Valtierra
Phi Chi Theta President
Megan Dino
Phi Chi Theta Advisor
Sheri Lambesis
Senior Speaker
James Zurawski
New Initiate Speaker
Michael Eichner
Phi Chi Theta Alumni (PwC)
Spring 2016 Info Night Video
Rebranded Bid Designs
Rebranded Bid Cards
Signed Bid Gift Cards
Post-Rush
Social Media
Travel Tuesday
Travel Tuesday was a marketing campaign I started the spring of 2016 because we had over 20% of our members studying abroad. Every Tuesday we would showcase a member studying in a different country and post it on both Twitter and Facebook. Our #TravelTuesdays were a good way to keep our members abroad engaged and highlight our impressive involvement in the College of Business study abroad programs.
Faculty Q&A
One of my goals when taking over as Vice President of Marketing was to increase our relations with the College of Business. A close relationship with the CoB leads to more resources and more faculty promoting the fraternity leading to a higher turnout and bid acceptance rate during rush.
A campaign I created to associate ourselves more closely with the College of Business while increasing our social media presence was a Twitter Q&A with well known College of Business faculty.
Our first one was surrounding our Winter Career Fair and our guest was the Business Career Service Advisor for Freshman and Sophomores as well as our RSO advisor, Megan Dino. Our second was based on study abroad from well known travel guide and marketing professor, Mark Wolters.
These two events were promoted by the College of Business itself as well as The Business Career Services at Illinois and Mark Wolter's highly followed Wolter's Word account. We were able to generate more attention for our social media, create better relationship with faculty and help answer students' questions.