NEWS & EVENTS

Julia Zhu, a 2021 graduate of the Advertising stream in the Department of Communication Studies, has received three honors at the 2025–2026 edition of the IAI Awards (IAI传鉴国际广告奖), one of China's most established competitions for advertising and brand marketing. Founded in 2000, the awards are hosted by the Executive Committee of the IAI International Advertising Awards, with academic support from the IAI International Advertising Institute at the School of Advertising and Branding, Communication University of China.

All three winning campaigns were produced at CCTV.com, the official new media platform of China Media Group (CMG), where Ms. Zhu works as a Media Business Planner. Each project paired a consumer brand with the platform's video production and integrated communication capabilities.

The top honor of the three, a Silver Award in the Public Service category of the 26th IAI International Advertising Awards, recognized "Better for Her" (美好予她), a campaign developed with PurCotton's Nice Princess brand to combat period poverty and period shame among adolescent girls in rural China. The initiative delivered more than 2.2 million RMB in care packages and health education classes in rural Shaanxi, and a documentary film about the effort generated over 3 million impressions online, elevating a localized charitable action into a mainstream public conversation.

Two further honors came from the 7th IAI Maternal & Child Marketing Awards, a specialized vertical of the competition, both in the Brand Marketing category. A Bronze Award recognized a campaign for infant food brand Enoulite (英氏), which opened the company's Hunan factory to consumers through CCTV.com's "Super Factory" format, culminating in a livestream across CCTV.com, Douyin, Weibo and WeChat. An Excellent Award went to "Super Parents' Expedition" (超级爸妈考察团), an immersive factory-tour program for PurCotton (全棉时代) led by a CCTV host, which achieved 21.46 million impressions across CCTV.com's media matrix and more than 120 million views on its dedicated Weibo topic.

Across the three projects, Ms. Zhu was responsible for commercial strategy and end-to-end coordination, from matching clients with media formats to leading business negotiations. She has served Winner Medical (稳健集团), the parent group of PurCotton and Nice Princess, as a key account since 2023.

"These awards are a meaningful recognition and a great motivation for my career," Ms. Zhu said. "I also want to thank the School of Communication, as the motto 'Truth is Virtue' continues to inspire me." She added special thanks to Professor Regina Chen "for her invaluable encouragement last summer; she reminded me that in this rapidly advancing AI era, keeping a genuine 'human touch' at the core of my campaigns is what truly matters.