A picture of Finola Cliffe outside the UL Library, who participated in the award winning campaign
University of Limerick has won top honours for its Stay Curious campaign, which featured graduate Finola Cliffe, now Chief Operations Officer with Hooke Bio Limited Picture: Alan Place
Friday, 14 July 2023

University of Limerick’s multi award winning marketing team has claimed another top international honour, this time at the prestigious Heist Awards in the UK.

The Heist Awards, which were held in Manchester on Thursday night, celebrate exceptional creativity, innovation and strategic thinking in marketing and communications campaigns in the education sector by universities across the UK.

University of Limerick was the only university in the Republic of Ireland on the night to win a gold award for its ‘Stay Curious’ postgraduate marketing campaign.

UL competed against marketing teams from Imperial College Business School, University of Manchester, University of East London and Robert Gordon University to take the top honour.

Judges commended UL’s marketing team particularly on the creative concept which was conceived entirely in-house and the brand toolkit that was created to execute the ‘Stay Curious’ narrative.

UL Head of Marketing and Campaigns, Eleanor McCormack said: “UL is never without excellent ambassadors among our student and graduate community and telling the stories of real students and graduates is at the very core of Stay Curious.

“It is the dedication, innovation and creativity of the marketing team that has brought these stories to life and to thousands of students who are considering further study. I am so delighted that the expertise of the team has been acknowledged by so many awards this year. From the outstanding digital campaigns to the creativity of the design and innovative storytelling, the campaign has been recognised nationally and internationally and we are delighted with that.”

The ‘Stay Curious’ campaign already claimed global honours with an historic double gold win in the international CASE Circle of Excellence international awards last month where 4,000+ nominations were received from entrants in 27 countries worldwide.

Competing against third-level institutions from across the globe, University of Limerick took the top spot in two hotly contested CASE categories; ‘Marketing initiatives by a team of >10’ and ‘Branding Programs for a Department or sub-unit’.

Stay Curious also took the top honours in Ireland at the Irish Digital Media Awards and the ‘Sockies’ Social Media Awards in 2023 with UL’s Marketing and Communications team also winning ‘Best Marketing and Communications Team’ at the 2023 Irish Education Awards.

Congratulating Eleanor and her team, UL Director of Marketing, Communications and Public Affairs, Laura Ryan said: “For UL to receive such international recognition demonstrates how bold, creative, and resourceful our marketing team can be, championing teaching, learning and research in an authentic and engaging way.

“Limerick’s True Media shot the campaign and proud UL graduates Jerry Flannery, Mamobo Ogoro, Finola Cliffe and Siobhan Ryan told their engaging stories reflecting on a different stage in their careers and personal lives. Our aim was to attract new postgraduate students to UL and to inspire current undergraduate students to stay with us, we are thrilled it was such a success not just nationally but internationally and to now get peer recognition globally is something to be celebrated.”