With more than 5,000 staff, 22,000 students and annual turnover of £300 million, the recent merger of Cardiff University and the University of Wales College of Medicine has created Wales' largest university. The University was keen to promote their new stature with a Christmas e-marketing campaign, focused at increasing the profile of the University though a lighthearted medium such as themed eCards.

The eCards consist of a selection of Flash multimedia cards, specially commissioned and seasonally themed depicting Santa and his reindeer flying over a snowy Millennium stadium, a snowman graduate and a variety of other warming festive messages. Now that the festive period is over, Cardiff have prepared a selection of photography depicting familiar scenes from Cardiff and the University campus, which site visitors can elect to send to their colleagues, friends, and family.

The eCard system allows individuals to select a card, personalise it with a message, and then send that card to their intended recipient. The recipient will receive an email from which them simply follows the link from their email, and they are then instantly taken to a webpage showing the chosen card and message. The sender can also request to receive an email notifying them when the recipient has viewed their card.

Cardiff University elected to run the eCards program to maximise exposure of their chosen charity partner, Tenovus (www.tenovus.com) a Cardiff based cancer charity, to the worldwide audience of Cardiff University website visitors.

Phil Murphy, Systems Development Director at Sequence, commented, "It's always exciting when a client elects to embrace the latest technology as part of a communications strategy, and Cardiff really set their targets high with this campaign". Phil continues, "It's been really great to see the success of the project and monitor how the cards have been sent across the globe – communications activity which can only help increase the University's exposure".

The Cardiff University website is available here, and the eCards development here.