PR Students Achieve MarCom Platinum Award

Pictured above: Taylor students pictured with 174 pounds of unused prescription drugs collected during the campaign in November 2020.

Upland, Indiana—Taylor University Public Relations students have achieved a Platinum Award from MarCom, one of the communication industry’s most recognized bodies.

The students were members of Dr. Donna Downs’ Cases & Campaigns class, and were honored for the Grant County Opioid Educational Campaign they created in partnership with the CORE group from Marion General Hospital. The campaign featured a county-wide effort to remove unused prescription drugs in November 2020 from the surrounding community, and an initiative to educate local schools and churches on the dangers of the opioid crisis that has claimed nearly 900,000 lives throughout the United States since 1999.

“This is very exciting news, and I am grateful for each of the students, partners, Dr. Downs and the Lord for this opportunity to showcase our hard work,” said Claire Nieshalla, a junior majoring in Multimedia Journalism with a Business Media concentration from Zionsville, Indiana, who worked on the campaign. “I am humbled to have worked alongside each of these incredible men and women in an effort to clear out unused prescription drugs from Grant County community's homes.”

This marks the third time in Taylor’s history that a student public relations campaign has achieved a Platinum MarCom award. According to its website, the MarCom Awards recognize “excellence in marketing and communication while recognizing the creativity, hard work, and generosity of industry professionals.

“Since its inception in 2004, MarCom has evolved into one of the largest, most-respected creative competitions in the world. Each year about 6,500 print and digital entries are submitted from dozens of countries,” the site stated.

MarCom is administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP), an international organization consisting of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, digital, and web professionals.

“Our students worked creatively and thoughtfully with our community partners at Marion General Hospital in this campaign,” said Downs. “As pleased as we are to see their great work recognized by the Marcom organization, the greater joy came from making Grant County a safer place by removing unused prescription drugs and equipping schools and churches with relevant information regarding the opioid crisis. I am very proud of our team of students.”