The University of Tulsa

Who is The University of Tulsa? 

The University of Tulsa (UTulsa) is a private, comprehensive research university with just under 4,000 students across undergraduate, graduate, and law programs. Known for its intimate class sizes and a nine-to-one student-faculty ratio, UTulsa is a leader in attracting National Merit scholars and boasts one of the top-ranked petroleum engineering programs among private universities in the U.S. 

Post-pandemic, staff reductions and shifting objectives left the team grappling with a backlog of paused projects and unclear campus needs. Implementing a ticketing system revealed the scale of the problem: over 2,500 requests in 14 months, ranging from event flyers to full marketing campaigns. 

“In January 2023, our department was suffering from a staff deficit,” said Amanda Hodges, Creative Director at UTulsa. 

A significant portion of these requests fell into what Amanda termed “pebbles”—high-volume, low-impact tasks such as business cards and digital screen promotions. These tasks consumed valuable resources and hindered the team’s ability to tackle “rocks and boulders”—the higher-impact projects crucial to advancing UTulsa’s mission. 

They turned to a MediaValet DAM integrated with Templating by Marq to help centralize the university’s marketing initiatives and enable better control over priority tasks. 

The goal of implementing a DAM at University of Tulsa was to reduce marketing workloads but it has further improved marketing operations across the campus. Through strategic use of their MediaValet DAM, UTulsa has created a scalable, efficient ecosystem that enhances collaboration, empowers departments, and safeguards brand integrity.  

Empowering Departments with Self-Serve Access 
One of the key pillars of UTulsa’s DAM use case is the self-serve access enabled by centralizing the DAM as the Marketing Resources Hub. By enabling access to Branded Portals, the team provides faculty and staff with the tools to independently access brand-approved materials such as logos, templates, and photography.  

The self-serve model not only ensures brand consistency but also reduces the burden on the central marketing team by eliminating routine requests. 

Enabling Creative Independence 

With MediaValet Templating, powered by Marq, UTulsa has streamlined the process of creating branded materials. The tool empowers a select group of university employees, known as “brand champions,” to independently produce high-quality digital screens, event flyers, and other assets. By locking critical brand elements within the templates, the team ensures consistency while granting creative freedom.  

This approach not only upholds UTulsa’s brand standards but also eliminates the need for frequent interventions by the MarCom team.  

Simplifying Asset Retrieval Across Campus: 

MediaValet’s AI-driven Face Recognition feature has been a game-changer for asset retrieval at UTulsa. By tagging individuals through facial recognition, the platform makes it effortless to find relevant photos, even from vast collections. This capability has been especially useful for projects like campaigns with graduating seniors, where the team can retrieve images spanning years of a student’s journey—from first-week group photos to graduation day.  

Self-Service/ Brand Portals: Brand Portals have revolutionized the way UTulsa’s teams access resources, offering easy entry points to brand-approved assets, templates, and guidelines. These ensure that each unit or department has access to materials specific to their needs, including logos, templates, and photography maintaining consistency. 

MediaValet Templating, powered by Marq: Templating allows for quick and controlled customization  of branded materials while locking down critical elements like logos, colors, and fonts. This ensures consistency across all outputs while enabling select staff members, known as “brand champions,” to independently produce high-quality materials. 

Amanda emphasized the benefits, stating, “The thing I love about this when we’re talking about brand integrity is that you’re able to lock down each asset, each layer here individually.” 

Face Recognition: MediaValet’s Face Recognition technology has transformed asset retrieval for UTulsa. This feature enables DAM admin to assign names to faces once, making it simple to locate photos of faculty, staff, or students across vast collections within the entire library. This functionality has been particularly impactful for projects involving alumni  or long-term campaigns, saving countless hours. 

In fact, the 2025 DAM Trends Report found that 83% of organizations that implement Face Recognition save money.

AI-Driven Tagging: Automated tagging powered by MediaValet’s AI ensures that assets are consistently and accurately labeled. This significantly improves search capabilities, helping teams find what they need quickly and efficiently. 

By shifting “pebble” tasks to the self-service portal, UTulsa’s partners across campus now have the tools to advance their own projects without compromising brand standards. “They feel empowered to move their own projects forward,” said Amanda. 

The self-service model significantly cut down ticket requests, allowing the creative team to focus on strategic initiatives. Amanda noted, “It feels amazing to stop feeding the ticket machine.” 

The integration of MediaValet and Marq has not only simplified workflows but also maintained the university’s commitment to brand consistency.  

The team has measured a 100% reduction in review cycles on their templated content without ever compromising on their branding – previously, they were facing 3-day review cycles, wasting time on low impact tasks.  

The University of Tulsa’s Success in Numbers:  

With the successful rollout and adoption of MediaValet and Marq, UTulsa is now exploring further opportunities, including leveraging Marq’s presentation features and refining their DAM taxonomy. We’re excited to help the team oversee these evolving processes, ensuring continuous improvement and scalability!