If you want to get a handle on great marketing strategies and tactics, look no further than the finalists for the 2011 International Brand Master award.  All three of these outstanding professional are examples of the best practices in higher ed branding.

Claudia Jackson, Del Mar College:  took a well-known Corpus Christi brand and expanded on it to create an action packed 75th Anniversary for Del Mar College, with $0 budget. In addition, she utilized the brand to turn the college into a flagship institution for the BoldFuture initiative, bringing together over 3,000 local community members and more than 300 community leaders to build and rejuvinate the Coastal Bend Community.  For more information on Claudia Jackson.

Emma Leech, The University of Nottingham: a highly respected leader of an award winning,creative, and high performing marketing and communications team that created a brand with a robust set of strategies, tactics, and goals that ultimately saved the University over £200,000. Complimentary brand work was then transferred over to an equally impressive £150 million fundraising campaign called, Impact – The Campaign for Nottingham. For more information on Emma Leech.

Teri Lucie Thompson, Purdue University: manages a strategic brand now its highly active third year of life that has increased social media, web, and information requesting traffic for each year. Making sure that all stakeholders are heard as well as targeted with pinpoint accuracy, along with every possible piece of data carefully analyzed, she has lead the charge to focus the brand year after year. Find out more about Teri Lucie Thompson.

With three extraordinary finalists to vote for, we are now asking you to help determine who you think is the 2011 International Brand Master. Read more about the finalists.

While the three finalists above are extremely talented, the judges had a very tough time of choosing the three from the pool of this year’s twelve outstanding nominees. Congratulations to all of the nominees for being recognized by their peers and being apart of the competition. We hope to see your names show up again next year.

• Carole Beaulieu, Associate Vice President of University Relations at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada
• John Carfagno, Assistant VP of Integrated Marketing and Communications at John Carroll University in Ohio, United States
• Jay Colombatto, Associate VP of Communication, California State University, East Bay in California, United States
• Corinne Hansen, Director of Marketing and Communications at Black Hills State University in South Dakota, United States
• Ron Kennedy, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Liberty University in Virginia, United States
• Elyse Meyer, Marketing Specialist at Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona, United States
• Aron Myers, Director of Marketing and Communications at The Florida State University in Florida, United States
• Heather Newton, Manager of Marketing and Recruitment at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada
• Mark Sproul, Head of Web & Digital Communications at Edinburgh Napier University in Lothian, Scotland

Find out more about the talented group of nominees by clicking here.

I have thanked them numerous times in emails, phone calls, tweets and more. But I would like to thank them one more time. A sincere thank you to the judges listed below for taking time out of their busy days to use their knowledge and expertise to judge the branding work of this year’s outstanding group of nominees.

• Patrick Freeland-Small: A long-time FOSTER’S global marketer turned chief marketing officer at The University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia
• Chas Grundy: a highly involved marketing, fundraising, and engagement professional as well as blogger at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana
• Jan Erik Kaarø: an award winning communications professional with over 30 years of experience at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondhiem, Norway
• John Lichtenberg: Vice President, Chief Marketing and enrollment officer at Walsh College in Troy, Michigan and winner of the 2010 International Brand Master Award
• Michael Stoner: 30-years experience behind the co-founder and president of mStoner, a nonprofit communications consulting firm based in Illinois, Missouri, and Vermont
• Marian Theobald: a branding leader at The University of Sydney in Australia as Director of Marketing and Communications with more 22-years experience in higher ed marketing

Read more about this year’s judges.