From the Nominator

"To expand Northeastern’s brand awareness beyond the university community, Experience publishes an online edition for a general interest audience. We view our competitors as the highest-quality mainstream publications. Our key metric of success, beyond traffic and engagement, is appearing alongside national magazines in aggregators such as The Sunday Long Read and Pocket.  

While many of our print features appear in our online version, the expmag.com website serves a different purpose than the print magazine, and contains a different content mix as a result. We publish new stories weekly, accompanied by a newsletter that goes to more than 5,000 people within and outside the university community. We also publish Spotify playlists and interactives, such as a feature on immigration history and a series of games that demonstrate how A.I. can mimic brain science. Our social media channels supplement our stories with videos, quizzes, and live interviews. Our website features lively animation and eye-catching illustrations. And we meticulously workshop our online headlines to make them as engaging and clickable as possible.  

Through an aggressive newsletter signup strategy, social media promotion, SEO, and pickup in media aggregators, our online stories reach more than 350,000 unique readers every year. For many online readers, our stories are an introduction to the breadth of expertise of Northeastern faculty, who are quoted in nearly every feature. For those already connected to Northeastern, our stories deepen their understanding of the university and its engagement with the world."

From the Judges

Quite a large budget, but the digital magazine is high quality and creative. Diverse number and content of stories. Their strategy is pretty sound with all the extra outlets in which their audiences can engage.