University Housing and Culinary Services (UHCS) marketing team won a national award for the Kent Kraziness campaign at the 2024 Association of College and University Housing Officers International (ACUHO-I) Business Operations Conference.
The UHCS team received first place in the Overall Campaign category in the .
The first Kent Kraziness happened in 2023. The campaign is a competition that occurs in March between black squirrel designs through .
Julia Keahey, video and digital marketing coordinator for UHCS, said the campaign was designed as a fun way to connect University Housing with the excitement surrounding ’s participation in the 2023 March Madness. Once Keahey thought of the campaign, she had six weeks to make it a reality.
“We saw [social media] engagement rates go over 50%, and we thought it was going to die down, but people just got more and more excited as it went on,” she said.
Keahey said the inspiration for the campaign came from March Madness and Fat Bear Week. However, as she tried to find a name for the campaign, she spoke about it with her husband, and he came up with the “Kent Kraziness” name.
The initial black squirrel designs were created by Celia Martin, a alumni who graduated in 2023 with a bachelor of arts in visual communication design and worked as a multimedia designer for UHCS. Martin had already created around 20 designs for other marketing requests and made a few more to be included in the campaign.
“The campaign would not have been possible without Celia’s original design,” Keahey said.
The winner of the 2023 Kent Kraziness was the drag queen squirrel. Keahey said the voters loved the design, and it became a symbol for the campaign this past year, with UHCS creating a cardboard cutout of the famous squirrel.
For the 2024 Kent Kraziness, UHCS had more student workers involved in creating black squirrel designs. David Taylor, Ph.D., senior director of planning and operations in the Division of Student Life’s Student Engagement and Services, developed unique names and biographies for each design.
This year’s winner was Cadence, the marching band squirrel. Keahey said she was surprised that ’s Marching Golden Flashes created an online campaign to ensure Cadence won.
“All of our squirrels are designed by students,” she said. “Celia has paved the way, and students have taken it and made it their own. [The campaign] is successful because students are so passionate about it. Everything is due to the students.”
Keahey said that about half of the black squirrel designs will return for the 2025 Kent Kraziness to compete with brand-new ones.
“We have a couple of things that have not been officially declared, but we’re looking to build on the hype,” she said. “Students love it, so we want to give them what they want.”