Denver university taps brand journalism to tell stories better

Not long ago, Metropolitan State University of Denver was facing a set of challenges familiar to many organizations.

College communicators were cranking out internal and external publications that were often ignored. They also needed to find a way to better engage with MSU employees.

“It seemed like we were just spinning a lot of wheels, focusing on all these different vehicles,” says Cathy Lucas, MSU Denver’s chief communications officer.

“We were looking for a new, not-traditional strategy and approach on how we can get our message out, how we can better tell MSU Denver stories.”

The solution? Brand journalism—jettisoning the marketing-speak and press-release huzzahs to tell the university’s own stories in the style of daily papers and magazines.

“Instead of putting all this content out there that people weren’t reading, we wanted to produce really rich content that was interesting,” Lucas says.

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