Campaign: Pi Kappa Phi’s 56th Supreme Chapter

Client: Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity

Roles: Copywriting, video production, photography, motion graphics, social posting, and community management

Goals: Get alumni and students excited for the event, promote registrations, entertain, document every aspect of the weekend

The Largest Gathering of Pi Kappa Phi Members, Supreme Chapter requires the best marketing, reporting, and presentation of all events the communication team covers. This biennial event in Chicago was host to nearly 1,000 brothers and family members and served to showcase all fraternity entities, update the organization’s laws and structure and reignite brotherhood across generations.

Over a year in the making, the marketing campaign spanned all mediums, including paid and organic social, interactive shareable digital content, and even custom-branded hotel access cards. On-site, staff contributed to the highest quality coverage of a Pi Kappa Phi event ever, including conducting over 15 video member interviews, documenting morning philanthropy runs through downtown Chicago and capturing 4k video of a harbor cruise on Lake Michigan. The 56th Supreme Chapter saw the highest attendance of any Supreme Chapter, and the coverage and high-quality experience leave the organization poised to repeat that success in the future.

Results: Record-Breaking Attendance, Satisfied Attendees, Social Following Growth

Centered around the city elements, our social media marketing used high-quality branded illustrations, shareable giveaways and paid marketing to blanket our message across the U.S. This teaser promotion used custom list targeting on Instagram and Facebook and encouraged brothers to tag friends for the chance to win a t-shirt, to be collected on-site in Chicago.

Shortly after the teaser, the initial promotion began with an introduction video, supplemental posts with more detail, and paid posts boosted to our student members.

During Supreme Chapter, guests had access to unique, daily Facebook Photo Frames and Snapchat filters, customized to the day’s events. Custom hashtags were promoted and pre-populated by staff to encourage use, and custom Supreme Chapter backgrounds were posted for members to screenshot from our Instagram stories.

Taking full advantage of our digital options, we created custom welcome, event rules and transition videos to generate excitement at key sessions. Upon check-in to the hotel, guests were given custom designed keycards featuring the Supreme Chapter logo and an illustration of their hotel. Digital podium displays featured slowly animating event logos that quickly shared on social media.

The 56th Supreme Chapter quickly became regarded as marquis Pi Kappa Phi event of recent history. The combination of high quality, effective marketing with cutting edge on-site execution drove engagement never before seen at an event of this scale and will serve to bring attendees back to future events.