"W" Day with Romar & Nabes

Erin Allett

Happy Birthday, UW!

Friday, October 25 was "W" Day on UW's campus - marking not only the University of Washington's 152nd birthday (HBD), but also Homecoming in Seattle. Upper Campus Marketing and Events teams approached us to include our Husky Basketball Coaches, Lorenzo Romar and first-year head coach Mike Neighbors, and our student-athletes into the programming of the Homecoming Pep Rally. While this was a great opportunity for our coaches to increase their exposure with UW students, it was equally important to Upper Campus given that Athletics is such a large part of life on campus and of a student's experience (there's that theme again...).

With the help of the Husky Marching Band an introduction by University President Michael Young, they got 300+ students rocking with a "Go Huskies," giveaways, and got them hype about the upcoming Men's Basketball and Women's Basketball seasons...which are right around the corner!

Coach Lorenzo Romar, President Young, & Coach Mike Neighbors after a successful W Day Pep Rally.
Check out the Husky Band!

Coach Romar & Coach Nabes entertaining a group of 200-300 students on Red Square.

Members of the 2013-14 Women's Hoops team joined the coaches on stage for a "Go Huskies" (see video above)
Brianna Ruiz, Heather Corral, Katie Collier, Kelsey Plum, & Aminah Williams

Definitely a great event all-around (Romar and Nabes had a blast) and something Husky Athletics will continue to be involved in for years to come!

BlackOut & DPA: Hallelujah! We Have Promotional Synergy, Folks!

Erin Allett

BlackOut Rally

Dawg Pack Appreciation & BlackOut Husky Volleyball Style

ESPN College Game Day
ducks.

There are times while working in intercollegiate athletics marketing & game day experience when the stars align and you get a BlackOut-themed football game against your biggest rival, a Dawg Pack BlackOut Rally, ESPN College Game Day (UW-created ESPN CGD landing page), and Volleyball Dawg Pack Appreciation Night all on consecutive days. And the Marketing Directors, Assistant Directors, Interns, and Administrators rejoice. Hallelujah! Ladies and gentlemen, we have a perfect storm for Promotional Synergy.

Thursday Night - Alaska Airlines Arena
Dawg Pack Black Out Rally

Photo courtesy of The Seattle Times.

We held a sick Dawg Pack Black Out Rally (Seattle Times article) to promote the BlackOut Football game against Oregon on Saturday afternoon, a game that ESPN College Game Day picked up - a first for UW. We had to blow it out of the water. And we did.

3,000+ students through the doors

4,000 FREE BlackOut t-shirts

3,000 FREE purple glow bracelets

FREE hot dogs and drinks

We tried to get Sol from the Blue Scholars to perform before the Rally began at 8 p.m., but we weren't quite down with the $10,000 tune he was singing. For 2014, we will need to add live entertainment from the time doors open to the Rally begins. Husky Cheer and Dance Team, as well as Harry the Husky and the UW Drumline, did a great job of entertaining the crowd as we waited for things to kick off. Our emcee, Ken Carson is a pro that truly made the event stellar and we had some "interesting" speeches by our fall coaches.

Program

• Husky Drumline + Husky Marching Band
• Women's Soccer Video - Lesle Gallimore
• Men's Soccer Video - Jamie Clark (aka Craig Weibel)
• Cross CountryVideo - Greg Metcalf
• Volleyball - Jim McLaughlin
• ESPN CGD Promo - BREAKFAST!
• "Go Huskies" Cheer
• BlackOut Video
• Football - Sark

The Husky Street Team, with the help of Harry the Husky and UW Cheer Team, hit the mean streets of campus on the golf cart borrowed from Event Management to distribute thousands of the flyers (below) and stuck 3,000 with promo stickers (below). Feedback and hype was insanely positive from students. HST also distributed flyers and stickers at Greek houses and Residence Halls. The flyer below also doubled as a full-page ad in "The Daily" to promote the event.

Harry helping HST promote the BlackOut Rally to students on Red Square during passing period.

Flyer & full-page ad in "The Daily"

3,000 3" promo stickers were used to promote the BlackOut Rally on campus the day of the event.

Promo release

Friday Night - Alaska Airlines Arena
Dawg Pack Appreciation Night AND BLACK OUT at Husky Volleyball

“It was awesome. The crowd, the atmosphere, it gave me chills when I came out."
- Head Coach Jim McLaughlin.

The hook: Students were told at the Rally that if they attended the Husky Volleyball Pac-12 opener the following night (Friday) that they would receive a VIP wristband for breakfast on Red Square Saturday morning before ESPN CGD and would have a chance to win a pair of sideline passes to the game. Aw yeah, it worked! 4,589 fans were in attendance at Volleyball Friday night, including 2,000+ Dawg Pack! The Husky Street Team pumped this one hard by:

• Promoting the BlackOut Rally
• Hitting Greek Chapter dinners
• Golf carting
• Residence Halls and cafeteria flyering

Facebook promo compliments of Daniel Hour and his New Media crew.

Dawg Pack members also received:

• $5 concessions vouchers to first 50 in attendance
• UW Volleyball sunglasses
• BlackOut gear including jerseys, t-shirts, and jackets which were thrown out between each set
• ESPN College Game Day VIP wristbands postgame - for breakfast at Red Square and a chance to win a pair of sideline passes
  

Promotional. Synergy.

2,000+ Dawg Pack members joined Husky Volleyball the night after The Dawg Pack BlackOut Rally

Saturday at the crack of dawn (actual time) - Red Square
ESPN College Game Day

A Smashing Success.

Just wow.

The rundown of the day from Husky Athletics...

Location:  Red Square, UW Campus

Broadcast Schedule:
3:30 a.m.	Dawg Pack line for "The Pit" opens
4:00 a.m.	"The Pit” opens for public
5:30 a.m.	UW Band and Cheer Perform
6:00 a.m.	College GameDay on ESPN begins
9:00 a.m.	Broadcast concludes

Breakfast was served at 3 a.m. on Red Square.
*All photos of the HST and staff have been deleted. They weren't pretty. Ouch.

Suzzallo lit up at 3 a.m. Saturday morning

Seattle icon, Rosie the pig, showing Husky love.

SaturdayAfternoon - Husky Stadium
BLACKOUT

 UW Manage of Visual Presentations, Terrence Santos, promoting BlackOut and his DOPE video on IG

Conceptualization of the Black Out theme began well before Oct 12 during pre-season Marketing Day

Matte black helmets had students buzzin'.

Asst. Director of Game Day Experience, Erin Allett, with Jamaal Walton (Alabama Director of Marketing) and local Dawg fan Brette Woessner enjoying pregame outside Husky Stadium in their BlackOut t-shirts.

Dawg fans and UW Cheer getting a "Go Huskies" going at the start of the game.

What. 
A. 
Weekend.

- Erin

BlackOut Rally. Wow.

Sam Millang

It was awesome to see so many passionate UW students show up to the Blackout Rally Tuesday night that the Husky Street Team worked so damn hard to promote! We had no idea THAT many students would show up and that 4,000 exclusive Black Out t-shirts would be gone with tons of fans still waiting in line.  T-shirts, glowsticks, food, drinks, and good times had by all!  To promote the event we speak hours on campus distributing 3,000 promotion stickers - we had a blast! 


Check out the video of Morgan below - she wouldn't take "no" for an answer from this guy!

3,000 promotional stickers went out that Wednesday & Thursday leading up to the event.

Speaking of the line, that thing extended all the way to the E1 parking lot and when people finally got into the building they were so overjoyed that there were still shirts, glow sticks and posters waiting for them that they could hardly breathe. I wish we had more giveaways because some people did not get anything. And for those of you who took more than your share...karma will get you!

The event was really exciting, and the buzz in the air about the looming Oct.12 clash with the Oregon Ducks and the other events in the next few days following the rally really made the event awesome - not to mention ESPN College Game Day was already on campus. Husky Football has been reviving; but to have a Husky team ranked among the Top-15 in the nation, combined with Husky Men's Soccer and Volleyball squads regarded as Top-5 teams, really added to the environment.

There was a buzz in the air that I haven't experienced as a Husky since the Brandon Roy days or the 2001 season. In those days I still rode the bus to school and could not truly appreciate Husky Athletics because I wasn't a student here. But this was different and seeing so many equally passionate fans was sick.

Full page flyers went out to all Greek Houses & we hit the Residence Halls

DAWG DAZE

Morgan Farrar

Click to check out what Dawg Daze is all about!

Welcome to the first week of the school year, fellow students and sports fans! The Husky Street Team took campus in stride our first week of the year to get you all pumped about this upcoming year in Athletics!

HSTer Sarah giving out our first round of "This Week in Husky Athletics." Next year: we need a legit sign.

Along with all the other campus RSOs we held a booth at the Activities Fair during Dawg Daze to promote Athletics and all the opportunities and fun experiences we have to offer to the Dawg Pack. Our goal of bringing awareness about the sports teams and the fact that EVERY OLYMPIC SPORT IS FREE FOR STUDENTS with a Husky card is of big importance to us!

Hope you all enjoyed getting to know the clubs on campus and I hope you all are ready for a great year in Athletics. We sure are!

Harry kicked it with students all day. They LOVE him.

Natalie workin' it to get our Fall Sport posters out to students.