The Daily Egyptian ended 2020 with an ambitious schedule of projects. They prepared a complete redesign of the brand, an expansion of service, and the beginnings of a network of news bureaus throughout the state of Illinois. We couldn't sit back and watch all of this effort go unnoticed.
Social Media
In anticipation of the Daily Egyptian's big launch day, we prepared an extensive social media plan to excite their audience. Each day consisted of a unique comic staring their decades-old regular character, Gus Bode. We portrayed Gus in a variety of situations, each one hinting that the DE had something big up their sleeve, but never saying what it was. In our most ambitious project, we rendered a 3D model of Gus Bode that fans could interact with directly via Snapchat.
Application Development
The Daily Egyptian's great new design was destined to impress their readers both in print and online. However, with so much of the campus studying remotely, we knew we had to work extra hard if we wanted to make sure everyone got to see their work. That's why we created a brand new way for readers to experience the brand—via a mobile app. We developed the app in house and distributed it on behalf of The Daily Egyptian to Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store. The Office of Information Technology at SIU was generous enough to share access to their Apple developer account with us, allowing us to distribute the app as an offline "SIU" app. Pictures just won't do it justice, we recommend downloading and experiencing it yourself.
Podcast
There would be no point working so hard to engage their audience if we didn't plan to maintain that engagement. That's why we worked with the DE to introduce them to the world of podcasting via insiDE. insiDE is a weekly podcast distributed via Anchor.FM/dailyegyptian that invites listeners to step into the newsroom. Every episode explores an article in-depth with the reporter and/or editor who created it. To top it all off, we feature music generously provided to us by SIU alumni Kevin Lucas that ties the whole experience together. Go ahead and subscribe, you've made it this far already.
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