Pro Carton
Working at the intersection of project management and marketing.
Oh, I’ve learned so much during my time working with Pro Carton - The European Association of Carton and Cartonboard Manufacturers, I feel -theoretically- like a packaging design and industry expert myself! 😄
Scroll down for a more detailed description below.
Summary:
Project management of two international awards
Building 100+ collaborations with educators all over Europe
When taking the lead on the Pro Carton Young Designers Award participation rates increased by roughly 140% in one year, steady growth ever since for both competitions (Quote Horst Bittermann, Director of Pro Carton: “It’s now the biggest packaging design competition globally.”)
Video presentations in 17 European countries
Content management for the website with WordPress, administration of the digital content lifecycle
Social Media management for LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube & Pinterest, including minor Graphic Design work
Newsletter management with Mailchimp
Video production
Creation of event presentations
Lead coordinator for two virtual events
How it started and where it went…
It started with supporting Mc Ewen Marketing Communications in their CRM and communication efforts for the Pro Carton Young Designers Award. With my proactive nature, I also took on building the Pro Carton Social Media presence and supported the accounts’ communication efforts in any way I could. Next to Social Media, website management became also part of my work, as well as Newsletter Marketing. During the award events, next to the award presentation itself, I also started professionally producing interviews and image films for our clients to further enhance brand image and contribute to brand awareness, also for the European Carton Excellence Award. With the increasing success of the activities the workload grew and over the years other agencies, such as Storm Communications in the UK, were included in the PR efforts to promote more sustainability in the European packaging industry. Just before the pandemic hit I gradually took over the account of the Pro Carton Young Designers Award as well as the newly established Pro Carton Student Video Award. With the award event being the highlight of the year, a virtual solution was created with the help of PinPoint Media. It was an exciting project to coordinate and produce a virtual award show and a lot of fun collaborating internationally with such a skilled team. The production of the award show (award presentation, filming & interviewing winners) was always an exciting time of the year and my event management skills were very handy.
My main focus during the rest of the academic year was on strategically communicating about the two student awards via Social Media, newsletters and direct contacts with schools and universities in Europe. The goal for the Pro Carton Young Designers Award was to continuously engage more teachers & students in working with sustainable cartonboard and learn about its benefits. Through this sustainable approach, they will be able to make an educated decision about the materials they will use during their careers in design and ideally replace less sustainable materials when possible. The focus of the Pro Carton Student Video Award was to engage students in storytelling about the fibre-based industry to come up with video ideas to further enhance brand awareness from different and fresh perspectives. One part I liked about my work a lot was collaborating with educators to create learning experiences and presenting the award briefs to classes of collaborating schools and universities, sharing knowledge about the industry and the associations’ many activities in them, as well as giving the students advice in packaging design as well as video making.
“We could not have managed to achieve this without Helena's endless and enthusiastic support, who has been a key player in shaping our annual campaigns, in her role as project coordinator in recent years. I’m hugely grateful for everything she has done and wish her all the very best!” - Suzanne Mc Ewen