2011 bulldog awards hall of fame magazine

2011 BULLDOG AWARDS

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BEST ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT CAMPAIGN

GOLDMajor League Baseball 2K10 Perfect Game CompetitionAccess Communications

Every year, 2K Sports comes out with a new licensed Major League Baseball video game, but 2009’s video game suffered from a shorter than normal develop-ment cycle, which ultimately led to lackluster sales and less than favorable critical response. In 2010, 2K Sports knew they needed to return their game to respectability and profitability, saving their once proud baseball franchise.

Access Communications and 2K Sports’ market-ing department came up with a gutsy and creative promotion to draw attention to the new game. For the first person to pitch a verified perfect game in Major League Baseball 2K10, a cash prize of $1 million would be awarded.

Through the PR team’s research, it was concluded that the cash prize would be the largest prize ever awarded for a playing a video game. They then contacted the Guinness Book of World Records to confirm the find-ings, informing 2K Sports that nothing of this size or scope had ever been conducted in the industry. It would be a one-of-a-kind campaign.

To announce the competition, Tampa Bay Rays player and video game cover athlete Evan Longoria an-nounced the competition during a satellite media tour that resulted in 32 back-to-back broadcast interviews. An exclusive was negotiated with CBS’ “Early Show” to reveal the winner, who would also be interviewed live on the air. A press release was issued announcing both the grand unveiling of the winner on “The Early Show,” as well as the name of the winner after the show aired. This was followed by a media tour through New York City with stops at Howard Stern’s show and ESPN, culminating with a special award ceremony at Citi Field during a New York Mets game.

Media impressions totaled over 150 million, while 62 outlets covered the initial announcement. Highlights included national broadcast segments on ABC News, three stories on ESPN.com, placement on the front page of Yahoo! and coverage on nearly every major enthusiast gaming and consumer tech website. The winner, Wade McGilberry, appeared on CBS’ “The Early Show” as well as the “Howard Stern Show,” ESPN’s “First Take” and Bloomberg TV’s “Street Smart.” Major League Baseball 2K10 saw a 22 percent in-crease in sales, the largest jump in the 10-year history of the franchise.

SILVERMilk-Bone Shows the World “Through a Dog’s Eyes”Coyne PR

Milk-Bone has been the dog biscuit category leader for more than 100 years. The brand has been around so long that it entered into dangerous territory—com-moditization. Every dog biscuit is now called a “Milk-Bone” by consumers and, in some cases, the media. In order to differentiate itself from all the other products in the market, the brand turned to its long-time chari-table partner, Canine Assistants, recognizing that the work already being done for the charity could help set them apart in the eyes of consumers.

In fiscal year 2010, all Milk-Bone marketing efforts were aimed at raising the profile of Canine Assis-tants, an organization that provides assistance dogs to people with disabilities. But, knowing it would take a bold move to create widespread awareness of the charity, Coyne PR convinced the brand to venture into uncharted territory by agreeing to be the exclu-sive sponsor of a primetime PBS documentary, which highlighted Canine Assistants.

The “It’s Good to Give” campaign would raise the profile of the charity, the brand’s commitment to the cause and most importantly, drive viewers to the doc-umentary, “Through a Dog’s Eyes.” The documentary

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would be on an accelerated timeline, making PR the sole initiative with the time and capacity to support it.

To convince marketing leadership that the special would garner national media attention, the PR team had to look into the coverage other PBS documenta-ries had gained prior to their debut, determining the media potential of “Through a Dog’s Eyes.”

The documentary campaign began at the “Winter Tele-vision Critics Association Press Tour,” an annual event where critics preview the spring television shows and specials. Even though “Through a Dog’s Eyes” wasn’t slated to have a presence at the event, Coyne convinced PBS that the documentary concept was powerful enough to capture critics’ attention. The PR team secured one-on-one interviews with critics at top media outlets such as USA Today, New York Post and Tribune Media Services.

To pique national media interest, Coyne brokered a narrator deal with actor Neil Patrick Harris. Because documentary screeners were unavailable until a month before air date, which didn’t allow many critics to write reviews, feature stories would be critical to driving viewers and making the premiere a success. Coyne offered interviews with Jennifer Arnold, the founder of Canine Assistants, documentary partici-pants and local Canine Assistants recipients. The team also secured national broadcast opportunities for Har-ris with “The View” and CBS’ “The Early Show.”

The documentary received nationwide coverage, which included two AP stories, and coverage in seven of the nation’s top 10 newspapers, including USA To-day, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and three separate stories in The Washington Post. Four national broadcast segments ran on “The View,” “The Early Show,” “EXTRA” and “The Bonnie Hunt Show.” View-ership for “Through a Dog’s Eyes” was 30% higher than the national average for a PBS primetime special and, due to the high initial viewership, the documen-tary was selected for a rare national primetime repeat

five months later.

BRONZEHard Rock International Celebrates Ringo Starr’s 70th BirthdayCoyne PR

On July 7, 1940, Richard Starkey was born in Liv-erpool, England. He later emerged as The Beatles’ drummer “Ringo Starr.” From its birth in London in 1971, The Beatles have been fans of the Hard Rock brand, maintaining a relationship for nearly 40 years via philanthropic partnerships, and numerous concert performances and appearances at Hard Rock locations worldwide.

To honor Ringo’s 70th birthday in 2010, Hard Rock In-ternational offered to host a birthday celebration at its flagship café location in Times Square, inviting friends worldwide to continue the tradition of wishing Ringo “Peace & Love” on his birthday at noon. The Peace & Love celebrations began in 2008 when Ringo was asked during a television interview, “What would you like for your coming birthday?” and he replied, “More Peace & Love.”

Coyne PR worked with Starr’s team from Beauti-ful Day Media to reinforce the message of “Peace & Love” throughout the world, call attention to Hard Rock’s collection of iconic Beatles memorabilia and demonstrate Hard Rock’s commitment to philanthropy.

Various celebrations and special moments were scheduled to occur worldwide on July 7th in Ringo’s honor, so Hard Rock aimed to best the competition by hosting the “birthday boy” in person with one of The Beatles’ most iconic and priceless memorabilia items on hand—the Magical Mystery Tour Bus. Starr’s atten-dance and support allowed the team to garner maxi-mum media exposure for the event and the message of “Peace & Love.”

But Coyne PR did face one big challenge—an unyield-


ing Times Square crowd restriction law prohibiting pre-publicity of any outdoor events. So, the PR team executed a targeted and confidential pre-event media outreach campaign. Tactics involved a press advisory for select media, a one-on-one interview block and human “placeholders” for media at Times Square. The Magical Mystery Bus appeared, and was parked on Broadway.

At noon, Hard Rock locations around the globe joined the wave of “Peace & Love” by hosting spontaneous celebrations with guests. At the event’s conclusion, Coyne issued a press release to all national and local market publications and broadcast outlets, as well as pertinent reporters and producers covering celebrities, music, philanthropy, features and pop culture. Post-event, photos of Ringo blowing out the candles on his cake were distributed.

The campaign generated more than 760 million con-sumer print, online and broadcast impressions. Media placements were secured in more than 1,000 outlets, including national coverage by Associated Press, Reu-ters, Yahoo!, The New York Times, USA Today online and Pollstar Magazine. The campaign also received broadcast coverage on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC affili-ates across the country. The campaign was highlighted on both the NBC and CBS national nightly news and national entertainment shows “Access Hollywood” and “Entertainment Tonight.”


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GOLDSapphire Energy: Making Green Crude a RealityZebra Partners

During the summer of 2009, oil prices had escalated, climate change was a top issue and national security concerns were at an all-time high. The country needed a domestically produced, low-carbon fuel source to ease the country’s addiction on foreign crude oil. The focus was on ethanol, bio-diesel, electrification and other established alternatives. Fuel derived from algae was still just a footnote, yet it stood as the most scien-tifically viable source for a low-carbon, domestically produced drop-in replacement liquid transportation fuel.

A relatively new player in the green energy space, Sapphire Energy entered with highly advanced technology that had the potential to profoundly change America’s energy and petrochemical land-scape for the better. Sapphire had built a revolutionary platform using sunlight, CO2, algae and non-arable land to produce low-carbon alternatives to traditional crude oil, called “Green Crude.” The result was renew-able gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

But key influencers in Washington were skeptical of green energy solutions. In order to bring their vision to life, Sapphire Energy needed a powerful education campaign that would change the opinion of policy makers and direct attention toward future investment in algal biofuels.

Sapphire Energy teamed with Zebra Partners LLC to build an influencer-based education campaign. The goal would be to elevate the algal biofuel category overall and to demonstrate that algae would be a vi-able, low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels among key influencers.

Zebra knew Sapphire needed additional voices cham-pioning the cause and needed “proof points” to gener-

ate awareness. The team brought in independent film director and green-energy advocate Josh Tickel for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Sapphire lab. Tickel was preparing for the national theatrical release of his film “FUEL,” an award-winning documentary about the country’s addition to oil and the need for an alterna-tive.

Sapphire signed on as a sponsor of a cross-country tour to promote the film and alternative fuel. For 10 days and 3,700 miles, the “Algaeus,” a Prius using a blend of algae-based fuel, was introduced to countless elected officials, media, local communities and those watching online as it crossed the country from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.

Now looked upon favorably by the White House, U.S. Agencies, U.S. Congressional leaders, energy and transportation industry executives and top-tier global media, algae is considered one of the few third-generation feedstocks with the potential to be a game changer.

The campaign garnered support from key legislators and established a thought-leadership presence on Capitol Hill as Sapphire was invited to speak at two separate sessions of Congress. They received $104.5 million in Federal funding to drive Sapphire Energy toward commercialization, making scalable green en-ergy a reality for our generation. At the close of 2010, algal biofuel was recognized by Time magazine as one of the Top 20 Green Technology ideas for 2010.

SILVERIberdrola Renewables REScuing the RESThe Glover Park Group

Moving renewable energy policy ahead in the 111th Congress was an exhausting uphill battle. Oppo-nents pushed back hard at every turn. In the end, the widely-discussed “cap and trade” bill was relegated to the legislative scrap heap for the foreseeable future. However, an effective communications campaign led

BEST GREEN CAMPAIGN


by Iberdrola Renewables and The Glover Park Group (GPG), the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES)—a less-discussed but important policy, initially abandoned alongside cap and trade—was moved from the scrap heap to the lead position in the energy policy discussion.

After only two months of work, Iberdrola Renewables, the second-largest wind energy installer in the U.S., and its allies affected a remarkable turnaround for the RES, a policy that would keep America’s clean energy industry competitive and protect Iberdrola Renewables’ billions in U.S. investments. By secur-ing and shaping near-daily coverage in The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Greenwire, Roll Call, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, National Journal, Reuters, The Hill, Grist and the AP, the campaign drove the debate in coordination with—and often as a driver of—the political circumstances.

At the end of September, the RES was back with one-third of the Senate co-sponsoring a bill that reporters, analysts and stakeholders agreed was at the center of the debate on America’s energy future. While the midterm elections practically ensured that no ac-tion would be taken on energy in the remainder of the 111th Congress, the RES campaign established an unprecedented level of awareness and support that the industry and its advocates plan to tap in the 112th.

BRONZEKaplow and Avon: Launching the Hello Green Tomorrow Environmental InitiativeKaplow Communications

Already a global leader in corporate philanthropy — its key issues being breast cancer and domestic violence — Avon added environmental stewardship in 2010. The personal care and cosmetics giant part-nered with Kaplow Communications to launch the “Hello Green Tomorrow” program to empower a global women’s environmental movement to nurture and help restore the Atlantic Rainforest. The campaign

would raise donations to replant the Atlantic Rainfor-est, with each dollar planting a tree.

Kaplow supplemented Avon’s sales representatives’ grassroots movement with a targeted national pitching strategy, which leveraged April’s Earth Month, May’s Mother’s Day and June’s UN World Environment Day. They primarily targeted online media that could drive click-throughs to the donation page. Kaplow also gained credibility and recognition for “Hello Green Tomorrow” by applying for a Ladies’ Home Journal “Do Good” Stamp award.

The campaign culminated in the application and presentation of the Ladies’ Home Journal “Do Good” Stamp. To further leverage the achievement, Kaplow and Avon organized a luncheon with editor-in-chief Sally Lee, Andrea Jung, and 25 handpicked media players, influencers and industry stakeholders. To-gether, they further publicized Avon’s environmental stewardship and the success of the “Hello Green Tomorrow” initiative. Additionally, Ladies’ Home Jour-nal featured the program with the “Do Good” seal of approval in the July issue and online.

The efforts surpassed Avon’s 2010 goal in under three months, doubling the company’s initial pledge of $1 million for a total of $2.1 million, with every dol-lar going to tree planting and restoration. Due to the fundraising efforts, The Nature Conservancy will plant more than two million trees in the critical Atlan-tic Rainforest in South America. The program was awarded the Ladies’ Home Journal “Do Good” Stamp, which honors companies that contribute to making the world a better place. The campaign secured 79 place-ments in top-tier outlets, such as Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Woman’s Day, Women’s Wear Daily, More Magazine online, Parade magazine online, AOL Stylist and StyleList.com.

BEST GREEN CAMPAIGN

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GOLDSNAK-ing SuccessLambert, Edwards, & Associates

Phoenix-based Inventure Foods, Inc. is a growing $130 million snack food marketer and manufacturer that makes indulgent and better-for-you snack foods under a variety of company-owned or licensed brand names, including T.G.I. Friday’s, Burger King, Jamba, Radar Farms, Boulder Canyon Natural Foods, Poore Brothers, Tato Skins and Bob’s Texas Style. In an ef-fort to launch a number of new snack food products planned for the upcoming 2010 year, Inventure Foods contacted Lambert, Edwards & Associates.

During the 12-month span of 2010, Lambert, Edwards & Associates supported 19 new snack food products. The PR team also included IR efforts, such as quar-terly earnings announcements, outreach to stimulate investor and analyst interest in new products and the coordination of over 80 unique meetings throughout the year between key financial community partici-pants and Inventure Foods executives.

All media efforts for Inventure focused first on reach-ing grocery and C-store buyers to pave the way for new distribution that would allow coverage in con-sumer media outlets down the road. The strategy would be to develop a compelling case for media coverage by tying new product introductions to exist-ing trends. They announced several news pegs for each new product, including licensing agreements, trade product releases, consumer product releases and national distribution updates.

Lambert, Edwards & Associates regularly mailed in-vestor kits to meeting participants, which included a combination of Jamba At-Home Smoothie and Boul-der Canyon chips samples along with investor-related material to assist them in their due diligence efforts.

PR efforts produced 50 million media impressions, including broadcast features on NBC’s “Today Show,” Food Network, ABC News Now and CNBC.com, ABC News, AOL.com and Fast Company online. National print features included Real Simple, Health, Redbook and American Baby. Regional print features included Detroit Free Press, L.A. Daily News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

BEST INTEGRATION OF PR AND IR IN A BUSINESS CAMPAIGN


GOLDThe Pop Heard ‘Round the World: Bubble Wrap’s 50th BirthdayCoyne PR

The maker of Bubble Wrap, Sealed Air Corpora-tion, was looking to celebrate the 50th birthday of the product with a widespread pop of national consumer media exposure. But, with no “new” news other than the commemorative milestone, Coyne PR would have to be creative in developing a strategy to cel-ebrate the golden anniversary.

Because many consumers see all cellular cushion-ing material as bubble wrap, Coyne set out to raise awareness by reinforcing that Bubble Wrap is a brand trademarked by Sealed Air Corporation. They devel-oped a limited run of special gold Bubble Wrap for the birthday, which created a great visual and compelling story to tell.

To celebrate during the day of the birthday, Coyne sent out a mailer to top media outlets, which consisted of a two-tiered Bubble Wrap cake and gold Bubble Wrap with a birthday card that highlighted 50 different popular uses.

Print stories appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, Star-Leger and Detroit News and online at The USA Today online, Pop Candy, Huffington Post and The New York Times online. “Bubble Wrap” became a top-five search term on Yahoo!

B-roll generated more than 400 broadcast stories on top-tier, national shows such as “NBC Nightly News,” “Good Morning America,” “Early Today,” “Fox & Friends” and “ABC World News.”

SILVERSimple Steps Save Lives: Profiles of Family Experiences on Behalf of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety CommissionWidmeyer Communications

Drowning is the leading cause of death and injury among children in the United States. The U.S. Con-sumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that each year nearly 300 children younger than five drown in swimming pools and spas and another 3,200 are hospitalized due to submersion in-juries. These tragedies, including the death of Virginia Graeme Baker, the granddaughter of former Secretary of State James Baker, led the U.S. Congress to pass the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act—fed-eral legislation requiring CPSC to create a new drain safety standard for public pools and spas.

To execute the national effort, Widmeyer Commu-nications build a PR campaign that included a series of television, radio and print public service announce-ments, highlighting the central message of adopting and practicing safety steps in and around pools and spas.

In partnership with the American Red Cross and the YMCA of the USA, the campaign produced and re-leased a series of public service announcements that depicted scenarios in which a child’s life was saved by using one of the safety steps promoted in the cam-paign. The public service announcements highlighted four families’ experiences with the water safety steps highlighted in the campaign—door alarm installation, the ability to perform CPR, fencing around pools and spas, and installation of safety drain covers in pools and spas.

In addition to the more than four million Americans estimated to have seen the English broadcast debut on NBC’s “Today Show,” the announcements have gener-ated more than 143,270,00 impressions from 6,126 reported broadcasts on 171 television stations in 39

BEST USE OF BROADCAST VIDEO/INTERNET—BUSINESS/CONSUMER

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states and the District of Columbia. The service an-nouncements ran in 14 of the top 20 markets across the country, including New York, Los Angeles, Phila-delphia, San Francisco, Boston, D.C., Atlanta, Houston and Seattle.

BRONZEJockey Signs Pro Football Quarterback Tim TebowCone PR and Jockey International, Inc.

Seeking to reinvigorate its brand through a strategic partnership with a celebrity athlete to increase brand relevance and attract new consumers, Jockey Inter-national, Inc. enlisted pro football quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow, to be the new face of its brand.

Jockey hadn’t had an athlete pitchman in nearly two decades since its sponsorship with baseball player Jim Palmer. The company needed a new athlete and found one in Tebow, regarded by many to be the greatest collegiate quarterback in history and ranked as the third most influential athlete in the nation.

Due to strict confidentiality surrounding the contract negotiations, the partnership wasn’t shared with Cone PR until just before the contract was signed, while Tebow’s overtly Christian beliefs and links to pro-life groups had the potential to create controversy.

Jockey and Cone developed a campaign that engaged existing and new consumers, while raising national awareness around the Tebow announcement. Specifi-cally, Jockey sought to connect with younger and ac-tive-lifestyle consumers. To maximize media coverage and effectively reach the target audience, Cone con-ducted extensive research to identify specific sports news editors, reporters and columnist who cover football regularly, as well as those who had previously written about Tebow. Lastly, Cone leveraged the sports media’s speculation surrounding Tebow’s upcoming team contract signing to capitalize on existing media

interest. Putting the announcement into the hands of eager media right in the middle of pre-season football buzz propelled the story, causing it to gain tremen-dous traction and deliver extraordinary results.

Between July 27 and August 31, 2010, the campaign generated 3,300 placements, resulting in more than 540 million impressions. Print highlights included articles in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Senti-nel, while broadcast highlights included coverage on ABC Action News, ESPN News, HLN Morning Express and MSNBC. Online highlights included Sports Illus-trated online, Huffington Post and USA Today online.

Jockey’s website traffic increased by 178 percent above normal the day of the announcement and was up 86 percent the day following the announcement. In the first 12 hours of the announcement, Jockey’s Fa-cebook page received more than 600 consumer posts about the signing, which grew to more than 1,000 less than 12 hours later.

BEST USE OF BROADCAST VIDEO/INTERNET—BUSINESS/CONSUMER


GOLDLibby’s® 100% Pure Pumpkinfrom Nestlé USAPublicis Consultants USA

When the announcement was made that there would be an unexpected shortage of canned pumpkin on store shelves, it made national news. Within five days, everyone from CNN, The Weather Channel and MSNBC.com to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and USA Today were talking about it. They were talking about an anticipated canned pumpkin short-age, but more importantly, they were talking about and featuring images of Libby’s Pumpkin, making “pumpkin” synonymous with the Libby’s brand.

Just a week before Thanksgiving, Nestlé Baking an-nounced that it expected a shortage of Libby’s Pump-kin on store shelves as the country entered the biggest baking time of the year—the holiday season. With twice as much rain as normal, tractors were unable to harvest pumpkins. The effects of the shortage would be felt throughout the rest of the winter and into the spring and summer due to ever-increasing demand for canned pumpkin.

The MLS Group launched “The Great Pumpkin Shortage” campaign. In a matter of days, interviews were scheduled with three pumpkin experts, film scripts and a press release were drafted and a multi-media news release and b-roll were filmed and distrib-uted.

The outreach generated over 500 million print, televi-sion, radio and online impressions in only five days. The placements featured mentions and images of Libby’s Pumpkin, tying the brand and “pumpkin” together seamlessly. Placement highlights included front-page features on MSNBC.com and Forbes.com, continuous coverage on CNN throughout the week of the announcement, multiple mentions on The Weather Channel, as well as stories in USA Today, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times.

SILVERAmerican Airlines and the oneworld Alliance Win the Battle for Japan AirlinesWeber Shandwick

Between September 2009 and February 2010, American Airlines launched an aggressive com-munications campaign to save its partnership with strategically important, but financially struggling Japan Airlines (JAL), a fellow member of the oneworld global alliance.

American’s competitor Delta, a SkyTeam alliance member, proposed a financial offer to JAL in an at-tempt to lure the airline away from oneworld and American. JAL provides oneworld a significant pres-ence in the Asian travel market, the world’s fastest growing, and its defection would give the SkyTeam and rival Star alliances a hugely disproportionate market share in the region.

Upon learning that JAL executives were seriously considering Delta’s proposal, American and Weber Shandwick quickly highlighted the serious implica-tions of JAL’s potential switch. In addition to negative financial ramifications, American and Weber needed to convey that if the deal went through, it would be highly unlikely that the new partners would receive antitrust immunity from the United States and Japa-nese governments under a yet-to-be ratified Open Skies treaty.

American Airlines and Weber needed to establish that staying with the oneworld alliance would be in JAL’s best financial interests in both the short and long term. To create positive support for American and oneworld, the PR team launched a campaign in Japan, the U.S. and other key airline markets. They also worked to ensure that JAL would not accept Delta’s offer, which was based on misinformation about financial and con-sumer benefits and antitrust immunity approval that would result from a move to SkyTeam.

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The communications campaign included penetrating traditional Delta media with American’s viewpoint, distributing pro-American Airlines-JAL facts and key messages to U.S.-based Japanese and Asian media and correspondents as well as Japanese-language media in select U.S. markets with high concentrations of Japa-nese residents. They also presented facts explaining that a win for Delta would allow them to have Asian gateways in both Japan and Korea, which would un-dermine competition and negatively impact SkyTeam partner Korean Air and customers in the region.

The first news conference generated nearly 80 ar-ticles in print and online, and on broadcast outlets. The second news conference generated more than 90 articles, while the final conference received 109 news hits. After the final press conference, coverage analysis showed approximately 85 percent of cover-age featured a key message from American Airlines. This trend eventually led to a final decision by JAL to remain with oneworld, concluding a major battle between the world’s two largest airlines.

BRONZEHow a 90-minute PR campaign changed a nation’s opinion and a sporting superstar’s public image overnightLCO—Levine Communications Office

When legendary mixed martial arts (MMA) fighting champion Tito Ortiz was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence against his common-law wife—though later released from custody—the damage appeared to have been done. His public persona had suffered a serious and potentially career-ending blow.

Ortiz was in danger of losing his deal with the Ulti-mate Fighting Championship (UFC), for which he was under contract, as well as a number of potentially lu-crative sponsorships estimated at $15 million, includ-ing film and television deals. Based on his career as a fighter and public persona as “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy,” many in the public had already passed judg-

ment about the troubled superstar.

Sixteen days after his arrest, Ortiz contacted Levine Communications, finally ready to speak about the incident. With only 90 minutes of advance notice, Or-tiz called a press conference, leaving Levine little time to generate favorable press.

Because Ortiz had called the press conference at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time, most local media, especially broad-cast television crews, had already left for the day. It would also be too late for most East Coast media to assign West Coast reporters to cover the press confer-ence. But the PR team relied on personal contacts and cell phone numbers of journalists, contacting key producers at CNN, FOX, TMZ and “Entertainment To-night.” Attending media included the Associated Press, CNN, TMZ, “Entertainment Tonight,” “Inside Edition” and all the local Los Angeles television broadcast af-filiates.

In only 90 minutes, Levine Communications secured so much highly favorable press coverage that by the next morning, a new poll revealed that following the press conference, 75 percent of the American public believed Ortiz’s side of the story that he didn’t inflict domestic violence on his common-law wife.

Ortiz also regained his deal with the UFC, which scheduled a fight for him later in the year. Media coverage of the press conference included ABC News, Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, “Entertainment Tonight,” FOX News, FOX Television, “Inside Edition,” NBC News and TMZ.

BEST CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS


GOLDShare the Table: The Barilla Family Dinner ProjectBarilla

Having dinner as a family used to be the norm for households across the country. Dinnertime together represented a moment during the day for families to connect—for children and parents to share details about their day. But, with our over-scheduled and busy lives of today, with parents logging longer hours at work and children participating in various sports and after school activities, it’s harder than ever to corral everyone’s schedule to share dinner together. Now, in-stead of a meal as one, family members end up eating dinner separately at different times during the evening.

The Italian food company, Barilla America Inc., be-lieves sharing a meal can help people connect. While many food companies talk about getting people back to the dinner table, Barilla, with its roots in Parma, Italy, truly lives this culture—understanding that the simple moments from shared meals with family and friends are what enrich lives and relationships.

When the results from a proprietary study conducted by Edelman’s research arm Strategy One revealed that 93% of people ranked sharing meals as the most important activity in helping them connect with their families, Barilla saw an opportunity to communicate the importance of Americans sharing meaningful meals together. To raise awareness of the benefits of creating and sharing meals, Barilla launched “Share the Table: The Barilla Family Dinner Project” cam-paign.

“The goal of this campaign for Barilla was to build brand equity, to create a presence for us with consum-ers when they went to the shelf,” explains Prita Wad-hwani, marketing manager, integrated marketing at Barilla. “We wanted them to have a connection with the brand so that they thought about Barilla. Once we had the results of the study, it seemed like a natural fit

for us and really influenced and formulated what the campaign would be about.”

The Challenge: Create a Simple Yet Compelling Message for Consumers: “The challenge was to make sure to keep the message simple for consumers,” says Wadhwani. “During our trial launch, we learned from experience to not overly complicate the message. At first, we asked consumers to make a ‘promise,’ but changed that message to be less daunting, asking them to ‘join us for a meal,’ instead.” The Strategy: Build Brand Loyalty Through a Strong Emotional Consumer Connection: Utiliz-ing research that said Americans viewed dinnertime as the leading way to reconnect, desired to eat together more often and wanted quality dinnertime interac-tions with greater conversation and fewer distractions, Barilla set out to establish itself as the brand consum-ers should lean on in their efforts to reengage in family dinnertime.

“We wanted to help people live better lives and to bring the love of eating into their everyday lives,” Wadhwani offers. “We’re also Italian—the art, culture and passion are part of us. We don’t believe that food is just functional, but that food is about togetherness.”

Barilla highlighted women between 25-54 years of age with children living at home, who value eating dinner with their families as the campaign’s target audience. But, to build campaign credibility, they needed a few influential spokespeople. They selected Italian chef Mario Batali to speak about the food-specific mes-sages and celebrity moms—Oscar-nominated actress Julianne Moore and country singer Martina McBride—to speak about the value that family dinner play in their personal lives.

“Mario was the right fit for us,” she says. “He had the believability and relevance for our consumers and re-flected our values. Consumers could see that, believe him and want to participate.”

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In addition, to Batali, McBride and Moore, the Barilla PR team launched www.sharethetable.com, which contained more than 700 recipes and 100 expert tips to improve the dinnertime experience. Visitors could customize weekly dinner plans, share dinnertime stories and receive customized tips to make meal-times even better. Participants could also download an exclusive, free celebrity pasta lovers’ cookbook with recipes from actresses Moore and Meryl Streep, tennis player Andy Roddick and more.

With these “Share the Table” campaign efforts leading the way, Barilla positioned itself as the leader in pro-moting family dinner togetherness—offering the tactics and tips for consumers to do so.

The Results: “Share the Table” Campaign Receives Coverage in Top-Tier Print, TV and Radio: Barilla’s “Share the Table” campaign landed over 1,000 placements and 187 media impressions. National television and radio coverage included “The Rachael Ray Show,” “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” “Parents TV,” “Better TV,” “The Today Show” and NPR. The campaign secured print coverage in Family Circle Magazine and Country Weekly, while online and blog coverage included Huffington Post, NYDailyNews.com and CountryWeekly.com. Three of the top 20 food blogs—iVillage.com, Slashfood.com and CNN.com “Eatocracy”—publicized the campaign, in ad-dition to top ranked celebrity weekly publication, People Magazine, and top ranked daily newspaper the Wall Street Journal. Over 105 blog posts discussed the importance of family dinner, while a roundtable with 20 influencers in June 2009 sparked new research re-garding parents and children’s dinnertime viewpoints.

Secrets of Success: Read on as Wadhwani offers more tips and explains why this campaign won the Grand Prize Award at the 2011 Bulldog Awards for Excellence in Media Relations & Publicity.

Utilize every tool available, not just public re-lations: “What worked for us was the 360 approach,” she says. “It wasn’t just public relations, but all the other marketing tools and levers in the toolbox to get consumers to engage with the campaign.”

Team with a partner to forge greater credibil-ity and relevance: “We also engaged a media part-ner in Family Circle,” she offers. “That worked well for us and helped us to build credibility.” In partnership with Family Circle, Barilla conducted a new research survey to expand upon their initial findings, centering around parents’ versus children’s views on dinnertime.

Promote messaging to engage with consumers and expand the dialogue: “We used cause-related messages to open up the dialogue,” she explains. Mes-sages relayed included educating consumers about the benefits of family meals, engaging the campaign’s target audience in discussion about food and culture and empowering them to have more meaningful din-ners together by providing them with the tools and opportunities to do so.

Winner’s Profile: Based in Parma, Italy and original-ly established in 1877, Barilla America Inc. is one of today’s top Italian food companies. The company has been managed for over 130 years by one fam-ily and is now run by the fourth generation. Barilla’s U.S.-based headquarters are located in Bannockburn, Illinois.

SILVERDunkin’ Donuts: Brewing a Winner in the Coffee and Breakfast WarsRF Binder Partners

Regarded as a regional chain, Dunkin’ Donuts has battled the myth that the brand is only a Northeast favorite when it fact, it is the world’s largest coffee and donut retailer. As the company has continued to expand south and west, perceptions have started to change. Dunkin’ Donuts looked to 2010, the com-



pany’s 60th birthday, as the year to decidedly and definitively establish the company’s national leader-ship position. They wanted to claim the spotlight from all other leading coffee and breakfast competitors, winning the nation’s breakfast wars by establishing Dunkin’ Donuts as a powerful food and beverage brand that meet’s the needs of busy, on-the-go people.

RF Binder, Dunkin’ Donuts’ national agency of re-cord, launched “Dunkin’ Donuts: Brewing a Winner in the Breakfast Wars” campaign to brand the company as the place for busy people who want great products served fast, fresh and at an affordable price.

To build excitement ahead of Dunkin’s Donuts 60th birthday in 2010, the brand generated awareness and excitement during the 2009 holiday season. They conducted an online survey to determine how many Americans intended to nap on Thanksgiving Day, and then distributed special, coffee-themed recipes guaranteed to help keep everyone awake. They also partnered with Oprah Winfrey to announce a special delivery of free coffee for all U.S. Postal Service letter carriers.

Finally, to spread “Glee” throughout New York City, Dunkin’ Donuts treated the Big Apple to a holiday celebration at Herald Square, complete with a musi-cal performance by “Glee” star Jayma Mays, while Dunkin’ Donuts representatives distributed $100,000 in free coffee cards to local residents.

RF Binder also offered national media a greater level of access to Dunkin’ Donuts leaders than in years past, with the aim of creating a fuller understanding of what makes the brand so unique and different from competitors. Fortune Magazine was provided a be-hind-the-scenes visit to the kitchens at Dunkin’ Brand Corporate Headquarters, to see how the culinary team develops new menu items.

In previous years, Dunkin’ Donuts hadn’t offered any National Coffee Day programs or promotions, but

in 2010, they aimed to dominate the day with two ambitious programs. First, they partnered with Career-Builder, to create and field a national survey of Ameri-can workers to determine the latest coffee drinking trends in the workplace. The survey explored topics such as the professions that rely on coffee the most, when and where workers get their coffee, younger workers’ coffee drinking habits and how many cups the average worker drinks. The results were released two days before National Coffee Day to gain a jump on any competitor tactics later in the week. Then, on National Coffee Day, Dunkin’ Donuts launched the “Ultimate Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee Fan Video Contest” on Facebook. To reward the ultimate coffee drinker, Dunkin’ Donuts awarded the winner with 60 months of free coffee and a five-day trip for two to tropical Costa Rica.

National media coverage included 650 million me-dia impressions, including a New York Times “Media Decoder” column and a Fast Company story. Dunkin’ Donuts menu of better-for-you choices was featured in USA Today, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Fitness, Cooking Light, Us Weekly, Prevention and on CNN. The “Ultimate Dunkin’ Coffee Fan” contest was announced via an exclusive story on Mashable.com. Additional coverage included the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Washington Post and Christian Sci-ence Monitor.

BRONZEDictionary.com: From Respected Reference Site to Mobile and Online InnovatorMSR Communications

The world’s largest and most authoritative online and mobile dictionary, Dictionary.com has more than 50 million unique users worldwide. With the introduction of mobile applications for Dictionary.com in 2009, the company quickly discovered the consumer demand for dictionary-related content in the exact context us-ers needed it in. They tasked MSR Communications with launching a public relations campaign that would


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solidify Dictionary.com as the most trusted source for word discovery “in the moment.” The campaign would position Dictionary.com as the leader in the mobile industry, accessible across all platforms, including iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Android, while also driv-ing user awareness and downloads.

MSR Communications’ goal would be to establish Dictionary.com as the premier source for word discov-ery anytime, anywhere and on any electronic device for professional, academic, social and recreational needs. Already well known as the online source for word discovery, MSR would have to garner the same type of recognition for its mobile products.

To make a big splash, MSR issued a press release an-nouncing Dictionary.com’s 10 million mobile down-loads milestone and their new iPad app to key media. Next, the PR team played up the Dictionary.com app’s rapid adoption on the Android platform with two mil-lion downloads in five months.

Shortly after that, capitalizing on the media’s interest in comparing the different mobile platforms and to establish Dictionary.com as the expert on user behav-ior across all mobile devices, MSR created and distrib-uted a pitch on the user behavior patterns Dictionary.com saw across multiple platforms. With more than 50 million users on various mobile platforms, MSR un-derstood that Dictionary.com could provide reporters with an insider look at what users were doing on each device. In particular, they leveraged the notion that the words users seek to define provide a unique insight into thought and behavior.

With the launch of the API Developer Center, Dic-tionary.com provided access to its trusted content to developers across all channels. A partnership with Barnes & Noble’s NOOK also more clearly defined the significance of its API Developer Center in the minds of thought leaders, furthering its reputation as a com-pany at the forefront of mobile innovation.

The six-month campaign positioned Dictionary.com as the leading online and mobile dictionary across all platforms, its apps for the iPhone and iPad hailed as “Apple Staff Favorites” and listed as “#1 Apps for College Students” by U.S. News & World Report and ranked in the top five on CNET’s Top 100 iPhone Apps list.

MSR secured coverage in over 125 outlets with over 850 syndicated placements, including original articles in U.S. News & World Report, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Washington Post, as well as Mash-able.com, PCWorld, Macworld and many others.



GOLDCalifornia Academy of Sciences Best Education/Public Service Campaign: “More than a Museum: Revealing World-Class Scientific Leadership”Landis Communications

For more than 150 years, the California Academy of Sciences has been entertaining visitors from around the globe with its world-class exhibits and forward-thinking research. While many only think of the organization as just a museum, the Academy is also a leading-edge education and research institution, offering many of the scientific community’s greatest researchers, an education department that provides a wide range of student and teacher services as well as an extensive science library with over 26 million specimens and artifacts.

In an effort to bring light to the Academy’s research, its in-house PR team worked with Landis Communica-tions Inc. (LCI), to spotlight a new scientific dis-covery from Academy scientist Dr. Zeresenay (Zeray) Alemseged. Through the “Dikka Research Project,” the doctor had uncovered new fossilized evidence during an archeological dig in Ethiopia that proved human ancestors were using stone tools almost a million years earlier than previously believed.

The Academy and LCI collaborated to develop an in-novative media campaign, leveraging a planned story in Nature magazine, to drive press interest by show-casing the world-class research being conducted by Academy scientists. Working with the Nature publish-ing team, the Academy and LCI crafted a press release and accompanying pitch letter focused on the institu-tion as an active scientific leader, targeting science writers at print, wire service, broadcast and online outlets in the U.S. and beyond.

Offering up spokesperson Dr. Alemseged, the Acad-emy scientist leading the “Dikka Research Project” with an international group of top-notch peers, the

Academy and LCI showcased the institution’s expertise to secure media interest.

The campaign secured over 100 media stories in international, national and regional print, TV, radio and online outlets. Coverage appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Bloomberg Businessweek, Science Friday, TIME, Associated Press, Fox News, ABC, CBS and MSN.com, among others.

News of Dr. Alemseged’s discovery was also published in key science magazines including National Geo-graphic, Nature News, New Scientist, Science AAAS, Science News, Scientific American, Wired Science, Discover, Discovery News, Science 2.0, Science News Daily and Science Codex.

SILVERTime to Talk CARDIOPorter Novelli

The National Assessment of Adult Literacy indicates that 88% of Americans are below proficiency in health literacy—defined as the ability to apply reading, listen-ing and analytical and decision-making skills to health situations. As a result, our health outcomes suffer, and we too often fail to benefit from ongoing innovations in healthcare treatments, procedures and technologies.

Merck, working with Porter Novelli, saw the grow-ing health crisis as an opportunity improve commu-nication skills between healthcare professionals and patients during each visit and increase the treatment and overall health outcome for cardiovascular pa-tients, since cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States.

Titled “Time to Talk CARDIO,” Merck created an in-novative public health initiate based on evidence that shows improved communication leads to improved health outcomes. The campaign aimed to bridge the communication gap between patients and their

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healthcare professionals in order to advance patient understanding and improved health outcomes.

Tactics included an advisory board of communication and medical experts to lend credibility and guidance, a specially created website that contained communi-cation skill-building tools for patients and providers and a media relations campaign that targeted national broadcast media, local markets and major consumer and healthcare websites, as well as industry trade publications.

In addition, in September of 2009, Dr. Richard H. Carmona, president of CRI, 17th U.S. Surgeon General and chair of “Time to Talk CARDIO’s” advisory board, called a meeting in Washington, D.C. of top-tier medi-cal societies, government organizations and patient advocacy groups to introduce the program. Attendees included representatives from the American Heart Association, Institute of Medicine and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The meeting helped establish crucial third-party partnerships and endorse-ments from organizations such as the American Col-lege of Preventive Medicine and American Academy of Nursing.

The online tool was then tested in clinical practice set-tings, which included pilot testing the website’s new online skill-building tool among approximately 300 patients and 30 providers in five leading, regionally diverse private practices in Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina and Ohio. The testing included pre- and post-test questionnaires for providers and pa-tients to gauge satisfaction with the online program’s tools and materials, the in-office healthcare visit, the overall length of the visit and the overall use of skills emphasized by the program resources.

Lastly, Porter Novelli identified and recruited Dr. Carmona and award-winning actress and heart health advocate, Andie MacDowell, as program ambassadors and spokespeople for “Time to Talk CARDIO.” Dr. Car-mona and MacDowell embarked on a national and lo-

cal media tour, including satellite interviews, to high-light the initiative and its potentially significant impact on health outcomes for cardiovascular patients.

The program generated more than 36 million me-dia impressions, including “The Today Show,” “ABC News Now” and “Fox News Healthtalks” as well as placements in Ladies’ Home Journal, SheKnows.com, EverydayHealth.com, The Asheville Citizen-Times and The Associated Press.

BRONZEKnow Your Stats about Prostate CancerZeno Group

One in six men faces prostate cancer in his lifetime, yet stigmas about treatment-related incontinence and sexual side effects have created a lack of dialogue among men about the disease. The stigmas are often deadly, as men are reluctant to talk to their physicians about lifesaving tests that can lead to early detection of the disease. The future risk of prostate cancer is closely related to a man’s PSA score—men screened at 40 establish a baseline that can be tracked over time.

The American Urological Association Founda-tion (AUA) recently revised its guidelines to urge men 40 and over to talk to their doctors about risks and benefits of testing. But, the AUA Foundation was concerned that lowering the recommended baseline testing age from 50 to 40 would confuse already reluc-tant men about the value of this critical test.

The National Football League (NFL), which has provided free AUA Foundation prostate cancer screen-ings to its retired players, teamed up with the AUA to encourage men and their loved ones to “Know Their Stats” about prostate cancer.

The campaign instructed men to go to www.KnowY-ourStats.org to find free or low-cost PSA tests and information on how to talk about prostate cancer. To reach men, the campaign enlisted Pro Football Hall



of Fame player Mike Haynes to be its spokesperson. Haynes was critical to personalizing the risk and delivering the message that prostate cancer doesn’t discriminate against tough guys. Opening the conver-sation and promoting an idea that “real men” speak to their doctors was crucial to de-stigmatizing the disease and establishing a peer-to-peer dialogue, particularly among at-risk African American men.

Due to the newness of the revised recommendations, many insurance providers don’t yet cover regular PSA testing beginning at age 40. But once the campaign built awareness and personalized the statistics, atten-dance flocked to the campaign website that provided men with free and low-cost prostate cancer screening locations.

A team of 40 NFL legends, including Marcus Allen, Tony Dorsett and Deacon Jones signed on for the campaign, encouraging men 40 and over to be tested for prostate cancer. The PR team created a campaign around events including NFL Hall of Fame Weekend and Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Members of Congress also came on board in support of Senate Resolution 191 and House Resolution 346 in Sep-tember 2099, which highlighted the critical need for additional resources focused on promoting prostate cancer awareness.

Media impressions totaled over 130 million, while PSAs have aired more than 391 times nationally and in 108 markets. The PSA was also combined with a traditional news release, which generated nearly 10 million impressions. Haynes received the Roswell Park Cancer Institute Gilda Radner Courage Award for impact on cancer awareness. The campaign also renewed discussions with United States Preventative Task Force and the American Cancer Society on rec-ommendations for prostate cancer screening.

HONORABLE MENTIONPool Safely: Driving the National Conversation on Pool & Spa Safety On Behalf of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety CommissionWidmeyer Communications

Drowning is the leading cause of death and injury among children in the United States. The U.S. Con-sumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that each year nearly 300 children younger than five drown in swimming pools and spas, while another 3,200 are hospitalized due to submersion in-juries. These tragedies, including the death of Virginia Graeme Baker, the granddaughter of former Secretary of State James Baker, led the U.S. Congress to pass the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, fed-eral legislation requiring CPSC to create a new drain safety standard for public pools and spas.

To execute the national effort, Widmeyer Commu-nications build a PR campaign that included a series of television, radio and print public service announce-ments, highlighting the central message of adopting and practicing safety steps in and around pools and spas.

In partnership with the American Red Cross and the YMCA of the USA, the campaign produced and re-leased a series of public service announcements that depicted scenarios in which a child’s life was saved by using one of the safety steps promoted in the cam-paign. The public service announcements highlighted four families’ experiences with the water safety steps highlighted in the campaign—door alarm installation, the ability to perform CPR, fencing around pools and spas, and installation of safety drain covers in pools and spas.

In addition to the more than four million Americans estimated to have seen the English broadcast debut on NBC’s “Today Show,” the announcements have gener-ated more than 143,270,00 impressions from 6,126


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reported broadcasts on 171 television stations in 39 states and the District of Columbia. The service an-nouncements ran in 14 of the top 20 markets across the country, including New York, Los Angeles, Phila-delphia, San Francisco, Boston, D.C., Atlanta, Houston and Seattle.

GOLDBolthouse FarmsHL Group

Bolthouse Farms, North America’s largest producer of baby carrots and a top premium juice brand, em-barked on its first-ever marketing campaign and the first advertising campaign for the carrot industry. The campaign was designed to reinvigorate the billion-dollar baby carrot business, which had fallen off in recent years with the economic downturn. In addition, the campaign set out to change the way that Ameri-cans view eating their vegetables by re-branding baby carrots as a snack food rather than a health food.

To accomplish these goals, Bolthouse Farms worked with Crispin Porter + Bogusky to launch the “Eat ‘Em Like Junk Food” campaign that included packag-ing baby carrots in chip-like bags, placing them in vending machines and TV spots that were more typical of junk food brands than vegetables. The campaign also sought to revolutionize healthy eating in the U.S., while also elevating Bolthouse Farms as an innovator in health food marketing.

Because the television spots were one of the most visually stunning and unique aspects of the campaign, they were offered exclusively to the Associated Press. In addition, PR efforts included sending out samples of the redesigned baby carrots junk food packaging to top-tier media and influencers in conjunction with the AP story. Bolthouse Farms also met with celebrities including Lauren Bush, Jamie Oliver and Jessica Sein-feld, who became ambassadors for the healthy eating campaign.

BEST FOOD & BEVERAGES CAMPAIGN

In the test markets, PR tactics maximized local media attention by focusing on the school vending machines carrying baby carrots, as well as a rollout of Hallow-een-themed baby carrots.

An announcement of the baby carrots campaign in USA Today positioned Bolthouse Farms as the driver of the campaign and highlighted the potential impact on health food marketing. Additional coverage included Fast Company, MarketWatch.com, theAtlantic.com, TheWeek.com and AOL. The AP story appeared in over 300 media outlets, including TodayShow.com, Forbes.com, BusinessWeek.com, ABC News, Yahoo! News, FoxNews.com and numerous top regional newspapers and local news broadcasts.

SILVERFineman PR Cooks Up a Winner with Foster Farms’ First-Ever West Coast Fresh Chicken Cooking ContestFineman PR

Foster Farms, the West Coast’s leading poultry producer, is a household name throughout the west-ern U.S. Consumers have long considered its locally grown poultry products mealtime staples. The culinary media favor niche, organic brands for feature food news coverage, which presented both a challenge and opportunity for Foster Farms to engage new, gourmet-focused audiences with its credible and compelling quality and locally grown messages.

With the cancellation of the National Chicken Cook-ing (NCC) Contest, Foster Farms found itself in a posi-tion to have its own chicken cooking contest, which would have a decidedly West Coast twist—winning recipes were to emphasize fresh and local ingredients.

The brand’s PR firm, Fineman PR, was tabbed to as-semble a campaign that would generate brand aware-ness, while promoting the brand’s culinary credentials among media and consumers through its inaugural chicken cooking contest.


Given that it was the first year of the contest, Fineman knew establishing credibility in the culinary world would be crucial to the “Foster Farms First-Ever West Coast Chicken Cooking Contest.” The PR team secured event venues that would reflect Foster Farms’ pre-mium positioning. In Washington, they selected Kathy Casey Food Studios as the venue, while in Oregon and California, the brand partnered with Le Cordon Bleu, the world’s largest hospitality education institution. For the Grand Final Event, Fineman arranged a partner-ship with the Culinary Institute of America at Grey-stone (CIA) in California’s Napa Valley. Fineman also selected recognized food media to serve as judges at each event, choosing food editors at major local news-papers, food reporters from local broadcast news and food bloggers with large audiences.

The contest secured sought-after media impressions at each phase in highly relevant markets, including coverage in San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times, San Francisco Examiner, Fresno Bee, San Diego Union Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, Oregonian and Register Guard. On-air cook-ing segments featuring Foster Farms spokespersons were secured in major West Coast broadcast markets including KTXL (FOX Sacramento), KOIN (CBS Port-land), San Diego Living (CW), KCRA (NBC Sacramen-to), KPTV (FOX Portland), KQCA (My 58 Sacramento) and KCPQ (FOX Seattle).

BRONZEDunkin’ Donuts: Brewing a Winner in the Coffee and Breakfast WarsRF Binder Partners and Dunkin’ Donuts

Regarded as a regional chain, Dunkin’ Donuts has battled the myth that the brand is only a Northeast favorite when it fact, it is the world’s largest coffee and donut retailer. As the company has continued to expand south and west, perceptions have started to change. Dunkin’ Donuts looked to 2010, the com-pany’s 60th birthday, as the year to decidedly and definitively establish the company’s national leader-

ship position. They wanted to claim the spotlight from all other leading coffee and breakfast competitors, winning the nation’s breakfast wars by establishing Dunkin’ Donuts as a powerful food and beverage brand that meet’s the needs of busy, on-the-go people.

RF Binder, Dunkin’ Donuts’ national agency of re-cord, launched “Dunkin’ Donuts: Brewing a Winner in the Breakfast Wars” campaign to brand the company as the place for busy people who want to go for great products served fast, fresh and at an affordable price.

To build excitement ahead of Dunkin’s Donuts 60th birthday in 2010, the brand generated awareness and excitement during the 2009 holiday season. They conducted an online survey to determine how many Americans intended to nap on Thanksgiving Day, and then distributed special coffee-themed recipes guaranteed to help keep everyone awake. They also partnered with Oprah Winfrey to announce a special delivery of free coffee for all U.S. Postal Service letter carriers.

Finally, to spread “Glee” throughout New York City, Dunkin’ Donuts treated the Big Apple to a holiday celebration at Herald Square, complete with a musi-cal performance by “Glee” star Jayma Mays, while Dunkin’ Donuts representatives distributed $100,000 in free coffee cards to local residents.

RF Binder also offered national media a greater level of access to Dunkin’ Donuts leaders than in years past, with the aim of creating a fuller understanding of what makes the brand so unique and different from competitors. Fortune Magazine was provided a be-hind-the-scenes visit to the kitchens at Dunkin’ Brand Corporate Headquarters, to see how the culinary team develops new menu items.

In previous years, Dunkin’ Donuts didn’t offer any National Coffee Day programs or promotions, but in 2010, they aimed to dominate the day with two ambitious programs. First, they partnered with Career-


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Builder, to create and field a national survey of Ameri-can workers to determine the latest coffee drinking trends in the workplace. The survey explored topics such as the professions that rely on coffee the most, when and where workers get their coffee, younger workers’ coffee drinking habits and how many cups the average worker drinks. The results were released two days before National Coffee Day to gain a jump on any competitor tactics later in the week. Then, on National Coffee Day, Dunkin’ Donuts launched the “Ultimate Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee Fan Video Contest” on Facebook. To reward the ultimate coffee drinker, Dunkin’ Donuts awarded the winner with 60 months of free coffee and a five-day trip for two to tropical Costa Rica.

National media coverage included 650 million media impressions, including a New York Times “Media De-coder” column and a story in Fast Company. Dunkin’ Donuts menu of better-for-you choices was featured in USA Today, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Fitness, Cooking Light, Us Weekly, Prevention and CNN. The “Ultimate Dunkin’ Coffee Fan” contest was announced via an exclusive story on Mashable.com. Additional coverage included Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Washington Post and Christian Sci-ence Monitor.

HONORABLE MENTIONJell-O ‘Give it a Giggle’ Tour Spreads Happiness Across AmericaHunter Public Relations

Whether it’s wiggling or jiggling, Jell-O has brought happiness to consumers for more than 100 year. Despite being found in 2 out of 3 homes, sales were unstable due to a lack of “top of mind” consume awareness and competition from other snacking op-tions. With the launch of the “Hello Jell-O” campaign, consumers were reminded about the simple joys of Jell-O pudding and gelatin and encouraged to reintro-duce it to their snacking and dessert rotation.

To reenergize the brand, Hunter Public Relations (HRP) reunited the longest running spokesperson in Jell-O history, Bill Cosby, and embarked on a 23-day mobile marketing “Give it a Giggle” tour, searching for America’s best giggle to be featured in a national Jell-O TV spot.

The best giggle, narrowed down by public voting and finally determined by Cosby, would be featured in a national Jell-O advertising spot in late 2010.

The tour garnered more than 455 million media im-pressions and 1,482 placements, including AP, “Ac-cess Hollywood,” Brandweek, Boston Herald, Crain’s Chicago Business, “Good Day LA” and New York Daily News.

HONORABLE MENTIONProject Cheddar Explosion—The Launch of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Cheddar ExplosionHunter Public Relations

A family favorite and the ultimate comfort food for more than 70 years, KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese Din-ner had become the standby. With the launch of its newest variety, KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese Cheddar Explosion, the brand wanted to be “explosive” in its marketing, positioning itself as a cool alternative for family meals.

To deliver on this explosive directive, Hunter Pub-lic Relations (HPR) aligned the product with an equally explosive event—the implosion of the Dallas Cowboys’ former home, the legendary Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas. The campaign also included an essay contest for one kid to win the right to push the detona-tion button on April 11, 2010.

Soon after the contest kicked off, the search began for a kid who made a positive and explosive difference in their community to push the button detonating Texas Stadium. Casey Rogers, an 11-year old former foster



child from Terrill, Texas won as a result of his story about his organization, Casey’s Heart, which collects food, clothing and toiletries and delivers them to the homeless in Dallas. On April 11, thousands gathered in pre-dawn for a music and fireworks show and prod-uct samples, while in a VIP tent, emcee Chris Berman interviewed Casey and acknowledged the product’s sponsorship to the media.

With the push of a button, Casey brought down Texas Stadium, setting off the new product launch announcement and free coupon offer, launching the KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese Facebook Page.

KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese Cheddar Explosion achieved 50% brand awareness in the days following the implosion. The campaign generated 1,430 place-ments, resulting in 914 million media impressions. Top placements included USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, NPR, Yahoo! News, AOL News and the Dallas Morning News.

HONORABLE MENTIONEat|Drink|Explore Malaysia KitchenRF Binder

Malaysia Kitchen for the World is a global initiative for the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE), Malaysia’s national trade promotion agency. RF Binder was tasked with the development of a campaign to boost awareness of and interest in Malaysian cuisine and restaurants in the New York City metropolitan area. The “Malaysia Kitchen for the World” campaign encouraged chefs and restaurants to open new Malaysian-inspired restaurants and increase understanding of Malaysia’s cuisine and rich culinary heritage among consumers.

The PR team announced the “Malaysia Kitchen for the World 2010” campaign among a highly influen-tial audience of food trade and media as the initiator of the next culinary trend. They identified renowned

chefs and restaurants as culinary ambassadors to serve at campaign events, held large-scale culinary events with the opportunity to purchase or sample Malaysian dishes and modern dishes featuring Malaysian flavors from local restaurants and sent influential media and chefs to Malaysia for a first-hand experience of Ma-laysian cuisine and the country’s growing and diverse culinary appeal.

A first-ever Malaysian Restaurant Week was held in New York City with 33 restaurants offering a $20.10 Malaysian dining special, while a Malaysia Kitchen Night Market was erected in the city’s Meatpacking District coinciding with Fashion Week. Malaysian dishes were sold, while performances were held by an authentic Malaysian dance troupe. In addition, a Malaysian food truck served dishes from over 10 New York City area restaurants, while a two-day long mar-ket was build inside Grand Central Terminal and lastly, a Malaysian market was erected at Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade in Los Angeles.

The campaign served as a catalyst for a growing overall cultural awareness of Malaysia, including its geographical location, cuisine, culture and its popu-lation’s ethnic background. Top media placements included Food & Wine Magazine, Fine Cooking, Food Arts, Saveur, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, New York Post, New York Daily News, Zagat, Time Out: New York, Grub Street: New York Maga-zine, AM New York.


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GOLDKLA-TencorFormula

In 2009, KLA-Tencor, like many corporations in the world and within the semiconductor industry, suf-fered a significant downturn followed by cost-cutting measures and reductions in workforce. In addition, the company was still haunted by a stock option-backdat-ing scandal that occurred more than three years prior by former executives. The company tasked Formula with revamping its perception among key stakehold-ers, including employees, investors, potential inves-tors, industry partners and peers.

Formula sought to illustrate that the company had turned the corner and returned to profitability after the economic downturn, further demonstrate the strength of the company to stakeholders, proactively show that the company had moved on since the stock option-backdating scandal and adopted internal auditing methodology to safeguard the company and help boost employee morale and attract talent.

Pitching tactics focused on how the increasing de-mand for consumer electronics was positively impact-ing capital equipment semiconductor companies like KLA-Tencor. All pitches also offered direct access to CEO Rick Wallace.

Formula pre-pitched earnings briefings using consum-er electronics spending and other economic indicators to drive interest in the semiconductor industry overall and KLA-Tencor specifically. Additionally, pitches included image-boosting information about the com-pany’s CEO that would spark the media’s interest, such as his 20-year tenure with the company. The day prior to earnings, Formula pitched media briefings in order to lock-in significant broadcast opportunities, while also accommodating satellite broadcast opportunities with major networks like CNBC and Bloomberg.

Media highlights included interviews with CEO Rick

Wallace on CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” KCBS-AM Morning Drive, CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” Bloomberg’s “Morning Call,” and KNTV-TV (NBC Bay Area). The San Jose Mercury News also developed a feature on Wallace.

BEST GENERAL BUSINESS CAMPAIGN




Because many consumers refer to all cellular cush-ioning material colloquially as bubble wrap, Coyne set out to raise awareness by reinforcing that Bubble Wrap is a brand trademarked by Sealed Air Corpora-tion. They developed a limited run of special gold Bubble Wrap for the birthday, which created a great visual and compelling story to tell.


Print stories appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, Star-Leger and Detroit News and at the USA To-day online, Pop Candy, Huffington Post and The New York Times online. “Bubble Wrap” became a top-five search term on Yahoo!


SILVERCND Shellac LaunchRED PR

The leading brand among nail professionals, CND has been less recognized among general consumers. But, with the introduction of its new manicure system, Shellac, CND wanted to reach some of the 85% of American women who don’t currently go to salons for professional manicures.

To launch Shellac in a way that would appeal to the professional nail industry, attract new clientele into salons and increase brand recognition, CND retained RED PR. The allure of the product would be its dura-bility and ease of removal. Shellac nail color lasts for two weeks, while continuing to look freshly polished, yet comes off easily without damaging the natural nail.

Shellac would be launched as the first professional hy-brid nail color—going on like polish, durable like gel, but comes off in minutes. To do this, RED positioned Shellac as a breakthrough that had been in develop-ment for five years—like the first hybrid car aimed at eco-conscious drivers. But first they needed to drive home Shellac as a fret-free, 14-day manicure with no damaging application or removal.

RED provided top trade and consumer press and key industry influencers advance introductions to Shellac before launching on a larger scale, while also inviting select trade editors to participate in a two-day training in San Diego for an exclusive look at Shellac. Three-months before the product’s official launch, influential New York City-based journalists from publications in-cluding Vogue, Town & Country, The New York Times, Style.com, Yahoo.com and NBC’s “The Today Show” received private Shellac services.

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Two product launches were held, one in New York and another in Los Angeles, while global launches were held in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Italy and Ireland.

Within six weeks of its introduction, a one-year global supply of Shellac was sold out. Shellac has received 1,053 editorial placements, including 81 print, 261 television and 711 websites and blogs. The New York Times featured Shellac prominently, while the product was also featured twice on NBC’s “The Today Show.” Consumer coverage included placements in Better Homes & Gardens, Brides, People, Redbook, Woman’s Day, Women’s Health, Glamour, Ladies’ Home Jour-nal, People StyleWatch, Star and InTouch. VIP nail professionals introduced Shellac to their A-list clients including Katy Perry, Rihanna, Salma Hayek, Janet Jackson and Lady Gaga.

BRONZEGillette Fusion ProGlide Launch: Turning Skeptics into BelieversPorter Novelli

Men were unsatisfied with their current shaving system; even worse, they were skeptical of the ever-growing numbers of blades in a razor. That was the challenge facing Porter Novelli (PN) when Gillette wanted to launch their new Gillette Fusion ProGlide razor (GFPG). They needed to solve the consumer perception that there was no problem to be solved because Gillette depended on a continuous stream of innovation to help men see the advantage of trading up to their premium shaving system.

Porter Novelli targeted 18-34 year olds, the toughest group to convert and those who were either skeptical of the idea of trying a new razor or were already loyal to other shaving systems. PN knew that if they could win this group over, the rest would follow.

During their research, PN learned that while guys were unmoved by traditional advertising claims of

“superior performance,” they responded immediately and favorably when actually trying the Gillette Fusion ProGlide. So, Porter Novelli had to put GFPG in the hands of users and influencers quickly—especially since rival Schick was about to release a new product.

To turn skeptics into believers quickly, PN utilized an “Always On” social media strategy, continually moni-toring, measuring and creating response protocol to the ongoing consumer feedback and sentiment hap-pening online. They measured the success of their current messaging based upon the content of the re-sponses, and optimized their strategy and tactics with real-time data.

Tactics included using a social media announcement to preempt Schick’s launch, the creation of a “VIP Sampling” program to encourage bloggers to write about GFPG and to post a “widget” on their sites of-fering readers free samples, allowing a “multi-logue” where guys could share samples with friends through a digital widget and enlisting tech blogger Chris Pirillo and lifestyle blogger Will Harris from BullzEye.com to serve as “Gillette Pros” to create engaging and rel-evant content.

In only its second week of launch, GFPG became the number one razor in the category. In February, 57% of social media comments regarding the GFPG an-nouncement were positive. As of June, 86% of Face-book results were positive, while more than 11,000 samples were distributed to consumers via the social media site. Twitter followers increased by 176% and Facebook fans increased by 47%. Gillette Pros’ posts resulted in over 1.5 million impressions.

BEST GENERAL CONSUMER CAMPAIGN


GOLD4 Generations Overcoming AddictionMaccabee Group and Hazelden

For 60 years, Hazelden has been one of the world’s largest and most respected non-profit centers for alcohol and drug treatment, along with education, re-search, advocacy and publishing of books and DVDs related to recovery from the disease of addiction.

In late 2009, Hazelden sought to spark a dialogue among all generations of the American public—Millennials, Gen X’ers, Baby Boomers and The Great-est Generation—about addiction and treatment in language that made sense for each generation. In order to spur this conversation and raise awareness of Hazelden as an organization, Maccabee Group created the “Four Generations Overcoming Addiction” campaign.

The PR campaign focused on the results of an original “Four Generations” survey of hundreds of parents and teenagers nationwide. The survey gave the generations a chance to reveal their respective comfort levels in talking about addiction, question who really serves as role models when teens consider the use of drugs, and address the issue of whether parents should share with teenage children their own personal stories of alcohol and drug use.

The survey was accompanied by Hazelden’s launch of a new “Four Generations” website, a new “Recovery Resources” blog, sponsorship of local plays celebrat-ing the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, a social networking campaign, which included a dedicated Fa-cebook Page, Twitter feed and YouTube channel featur-ing video interviews of Hazelden experts and real-life examples of generational attitudes towards addiction.

The bulk of the content for the “Four Generations Overcoming Addition” pitch was garnered through the development and fielding of the multi-generational survey aimed at providing newsworthy statistics and

talking points for the campaign. Once armed with the survey results, Maccabee Group distributed them to a media list of over 1,000 health, wellness and mental health journalists from print, broadcast and online outlets. A first exclusive was successfully offered to ABC’s “Good Morning America” and an advance print exclusive was successfully offered to Parade magazine, leading to a syndicated article that appeared in dozens of Sunday newspapers.

The campaign generated 92 original news stories, the most prominent a broadcast story on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The Parade magazine story was distributed to over 500 Sunday daily newspapers, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morn-ing News, Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, New York Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and San Francisco Chronicle, among others. Locally for Hazelden, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a prominent feature story, which reached more than 300,000 Minnesotans. The “Good Morning America” TV story also resulted in a piece on popular mommy blogwww.momlogic.com, which received enough votes to make it to Y!Buzz, a Yahoo! Page dedicated to the most popular stories of the day.



Merck, working with Porter Novelli, saw the grow-ing health crisis as an opportunity improve commu-nication skills between healthcare professionals and

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patients during each visit and increase the treatment and overall health outcome for cardiovascular pa-tients, since cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States.

Titled “Time to Talk CARDIO,” Merck created an in-novative public health initiate based on evidence that shows improved communication leads to improved health outcomes. The campaign aimed to bridge the communication gap between patients and their healthcare professionals in order to advance patient understanding and improved health outcomes.



The online tool was then tested in clinical practice set-tings, which included pilot testing the website’s new online skill-building tool among approximately 300 patients and 30 providers in five leading, regionally diverse private practices in Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina and Ohio. The testing included pre- and post-test questionnaires for providers and pa-

tients to gauge satisfaction with the online program’s tools and materials, the in-office healthcare visit, the overall length of the visit and the overall use of skills emphasized by the program resources.

Lastly, Porter Novelli identified and recruited Dr. Carmona and award-winning actress and heart health advocate, Andie MacDowell, as program ambassadors and spokespeople for “Time to Talk CARDIO.” Dr. Car-mona and MacDowell embarked on a national and lo-cal media tour, including satellite interviews, to high-light the initiative and its potentially significant impact on health outcomes for cardiovascular patients.


BRONZEThink About Your Eyes Campaign LaunchWeber Shandwick

In March 2010, vision industry leaders Essilor Lux-ottica Group and VSP Global founded the “Think About Your Eyes (TAYE) Coalition” in partnership with the Foundation for Eye Health Awareness (FFEHA). The coalition planned to launch a public awareness initiative designed to remind Americans about the importance of annual comprehensive eye exams and the benefits they can provide to overall health and wellness.

The TAYE public awareness initiate aimed to provide insight on specific topics, such as eye disease, eye fit-ness and children’s vision, to illustrate that good vision care can ultimately improve a person’s ability to learn and live a healthier life.

The campaign targeted consumers in the two largest media markets, where they were also running televi-



sion and radio advertisements—New York and Chica-go. The PR team targeted national and local consumer print, online and broadcast media as well as vision industry trade media.

Additionally, the PR efforts planned to leverage several alarming statistics about vision health, including that more than 11 million Americans have an uncorrected vision problem that can impact their quality of life and in some cases, lead to more serious eye condi-tions, one in five people are at risk for vision loss and preventive care could address many of the problems, more than 3.4 million Americans are blind or visually impaired and many more are at risk of preventable vision loss and vision screenings alone may not detect major eye diseases including macular degeneration, diabetic eye disease and glaucoma.

To communicate the eye care message, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared May 24-30 “Think About Your Eyes Week.” The launch of the New York campaign also included a six-story eye chart and branded double-decker “sight-seeing” bus, and planned appearances on NBC’s “The Today Show” and CBS’ “The Early Show.”

The TAYE campaign generated more than 213.5 mil-lion impressions, which included appearances on “The NBC Today Show,” “The CBS Early Show” and PRWeek online. Eye exams increased by three percent with a 17 percent increase in new patient exams in the nine TAYE markets where the campaign was also running.


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GOLDAuto Circle™—From the day you see it ‘til the day you sell itUSAA and Fleishman-Hillard

In August 2010, USAA, a member-owned financial services provider focused on the military community, launched the first phase of its new Auto Circle service designed to help its members save time and money by easily finding, financing and insuring a vehicle online and for the first time—on an iPhone.

Together with Fleishman-Hillard (FH), the goal of the USAA campaign was to position Auto Circle as a trusted source for the full circle of auto ownership, including future phases of the program on maintain-ing and selling a vehicle. The launch of this service marked the biggest product launch in USAA’s history.

During research efforts, the PR team came across a 2003 University of Wisconsin research report entitled “Does Gender Influence the Vehicle Purchasing Pro-cess,” which stated that women make 50 percent of the auto purchases and influence 80 percent of them, yet pay more on average for identical vehicles than men do. The report helped better define a potential target audience that would be receptive to tools that would help make it easier to buy a car, including Auto Circle’s “no-haggle price” feature. They also delved into how the car-buying habits of men and women may differ, both from a civilian and military member perspective.

FH interviewed female military spouses to determine car-buying issues, finding one was the stress felt by military spouses who purchase a new car while the other spouse is deployed. FH saw an opportunity to dig deeper into these areas to gain more insight and potentially generate newsworthy findings.

To create buzz, the PR team created, developed and participated in USAA’s first-ever military bloggers con-ference to preview the service and spark pre-launch

online conversations. Seventeen military and military-spouse bloggers with a reach of 1.5 million readers participated in the event. Briefings were also con-ducted with automotive, customer service and mobile technology analysts Edmunds.com, Forrester, Javelin, ABI Research and IDC.

The campaign generated significant media coverage and played a key role in driving members and pros-pects to use the new service. The program created more than 300 positive broadcast, print, online and blog placements and more than 68 million impres-sions. National media coverage included CNNMoney.com, USA Today, The New York Times “Wheels” blog, Automotive News and the CW’s “The Daily Buzz.” Regional coverage in key local markets totaled 25 placements, including the San Antonio Express-News, Colorado Springs Gazette, CW 6 San Diego, WUSA-TV Washington, D.C. and WXGM-FM Norfolk.

While the automotive industry endured the worst month for sales in August 2010, USAA saw a 77 percent increase in visitors to the car-buying site, a 15 percent increase in completed auto loans and a 23 percent increase in vehicles sold when compared to August 2009.

SILVERFirst Command Financial Behaviors Index®First Command and The Harbinger Group

The financial crisis continues to dominate personal finance stories in the national media. The analysis of information on the breadth of the crisis and the impact on Middle America remain at a premium for media outlets and reporters assigned to personal finance.

In 2008, The Harbinger Group partnered with First Command Financial Services, a Registered Investment Adviser Firm headquartered in Fort Worth, TX, to announce the Financial Behaviors Index. This announcement came in the wake of a large SEC settle-ment in 2004 that resulted in negative media coverage

BEST INVESTMENT, BANKING & FINANCIAL SERVICES CAMPAIGN


for First Command. The Index was designed to dem-onstrate First Command’s deep knowledge and under-standing of the Middle America market.

The Harbinger Group determined the key goal for 2010 was to strengthen and expand the proactive public relations campaign to ensure First Command and the First Command Financial Behaviors Index was represented accurately in national publications, specifically USA Today.

The PR team targeted a select group of personal finance reporters to personally walk them through the Financial Behaviors Index with deskside briefings. During these meetings, The Harbinger Group dem-onstrated that, with advance notice, First Command could provide research to complement an upcoming story.

The Index assessed trends among the American public’s financial behaviors, intentions and attitudes through a monthly survey of approximately 1,000 U.S. consumers, ages 25-70, with annual household incomes of at least $50,000.

Deskside briefings were scheduled with national re-porters, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Dallas Morning News. After each reporter was walked through the research, they were told how the index could be used to help bring their stories to life. Then, the results of the survey were presented exclu-sively to each reporter for use in their upcoming story.

The Financial Behaviors Index resulted in 650 place-ments, including hits in USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, SmartMoney, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN Money, Reuters and Finan-cial Planning.

BRONZEWells Fargo African American Media TourFlowers Communications Group

To help client Wells Fargo reinforce itself as the bank of choice for African Americans, Flowers Com-munications Group (FCG) embarked on a national media outreach program. The campaign also sought to create a positive perception and opinion of Wells Fargo with its acquisition of Wachovia, generate favorable press coverage documenting the company’s commitment to the African American community us-ing financial education as a platform and finally, and promote the bank’s products, programs and services for this important audience.

The agency launched the national African American media tour and media outreach campaign in March during Black Press Week, with programming in Wash-ington, D.C., which included a satellite media tour co-hosted by Michelle Thornhill, senior vice president of diverse segments for Wells Fargo. They also hosted the first of a series of African American media luncheons, enabling Wells Fargo and Wachovia senior executives access to African American journalists, reporters and publishers.

After the campaign launch, FCG strategically devel-oped and placed national media “advertorials,” which focused on Wells Fargo’s initiatives separate from the city-to-city African American media tour. FCG also pitched relevant national print, broadcast and Inter-net media to secure maximum coverage and to drive awareness for Wells Fargo, while also coordinating the recording and pitching of radio news releases discuss-ing the financial tools offered by Wells Fargo, which were pitched and placed at many of the top urban radio outlets across the country. The campaign also included TV interviews with actor Hill Harper, who advised children and teens to get a head start on their financial education by employing tools available from Wells Fargo.

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Media coverage included a radio news release that to-taled 1.9 million listeners. Black Enterprise magazine’s “Biz Expert Q&A” featured Wells Fargo’s senior vice president of business banking Shaun Coard, while ad-ditional media hits included USAToday.com, The New York Times online and The Wall Street Journal online, which reached over 150 million readers. Total impres-sions accrued from all categories of media for 2010 was 606,676,858.

GOLDTrick or TweetDiamond Public Relations

The “Trick or Tweet” campaign was developed to gen-erate attention for the Marriott and Renaissance Caribbean & Mexico (MARCAM) cluster, a group of nine resorts in seven destinations. The campaign invited consumers to go trick or treating each day in October via Twitter for the chance to fill their “goody bag” with 27 exclusive offers from resorts, which ranged from room upgrades and food and beverage credits to free nights. A new link was tweeted each day from the Marriott Resorts’ Twitter account, tak-ing followers to the page where they could download that day’s treat voucher. Three of the days were tricks instead of treats, resulting in a “fail whale” to tie in the Twitter theme.

Tasked with executing the campaign, Diamond PR set out to increase the number of followers of the MARCAM Twitter handle, while also generating awareness of the cluster through media exposure sur-rounding the “Trick or Tweet” campaign.

To spread the word about the value of being a Marriott Resorts Twitter follower, a website (www.paradiseby-marriottrickortweet.com) was created. The site offered a landing page, sign-up page and updated daily links to download a PDF voucher of the day’s giveaway.

The “Trick or Tweet” campaign increased awareness of

MARCAM by the impressions generated via the media exposure. The Marriott Resorts’ Twitter handle grew in followers from 476 to 1,028 over the 30-day promo-tional period. Media coverage included Hotel Chatter, ABC News, Gadling, The Perrin Post and Hotels.com.






BEST USE OF INTERNET – BUSINESS



The online tool was then tested in clinical practice set-tings, which included pilot testing the website’s new online skill-building tool among approximately 300 patients and 30 providers in five leading, regionally diverse private practices in Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina and Ohio. The testing included pre- and post-test questionnaires for providers and pa-tients to gauge satisfaction with the online program’s tools and materials, the in-office healthcare visit, the overall length of the visit and the overall use of skills emphasized by the program resources.



BRONZEGillette Fusion ProGlide Launch: Turning Skeptics into BelieversPorter Novelli



During their research, PN learned that while guys were unmoved by traditional advertising claims of “superior performance,” they responded immediately and favorably when actually trying the Gillette Fusion ProGlide. So, Porter Novelli had to put GFPG in the hands of users and influencers quickly—especially since rival Schick was about to release a new product.

To turn skeptics into believers quickly, PN utilized an “Always On” social media strategy, continually moni-toring, measuring and creating response protocol to the ongoing consumer feedback and sentiment hap-pening online. They measured the success of their current messaging based upon the content of the re-sponses, and optimized their strategy and tactics with real-time data.

Tactics included using a social media announcement to preempt Schick’s launch, the creation of a “VIP Sampling” program to encourage bloggers to write

BEST USE OF INTERNET – BUSINESS

37

about GFPG and to post a “widget” on their sites of-fering readers free samples, allowing a “multi-logue” where guys could share samples with friends through a digital widget and enlisting tech blogger Chris Pirillo and lifestyle blogger Will Harris from BullzEye.com to serve as “Gillette Pros” to create engaging and rel-evant content.


GOLDA Business Plan for America’s Energy Future On Behalf of the American Energy Innovation CouncilWidmeyer Communications

Politicians on the left and the right have clamored for a national energy strategy to help America enhance its national security, protect the environment and lead the world in energy innovation for more than 30 years.

In the spring of 2010, seven of the most recognized and respected names in the business world set out to address this issue. The prestigious members of the group included: former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates; GE Chairman Jeff Immelt; former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine; Ursula Burns, chief executive of-ficer of Xerox; venture capitalist John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers; Bank of America Chairman Chad Holliday; and Tim Solso, chairman and chief executive officer of Cummins, Inc.

These leaders had a clear vision—to increase public investment in the development of clean energy tech-

nologies to foster strong economic growth, create jobs in new industries and reestablish America’s energy technology leadership. But what they needed was a brand, an identity, and a way to introduce themselves to policy leaders and the influential community of think tanks, advocates, business leaders and media focused on the issues of energy sustainability, environ-mental stewardship and technology innovation.

In addition to influencers within Washington, the group wanted to include messaging that would reso-nate with Republicans and Independent Americans to ensure their policies garnered broad support. They called upon Widmeyer Communications to intro-duce the high-profile group and its agenda inside the Beltway and beyond.

Research from focus groups indicated that voters were supportive of a major change in energy policy and wanted to see top innovators and business lead-ers advocating for an increase in energy innovation investment. Voters also wanted an organization name focused on “America,” “Energy” and “Innovation.” Utilizing the research, Widmeyer developed the logo, brand identity and name for the new organization—the American Energy Innovation Council. The group’s recommendations to Congress would be called “A Business Plan for America’s Energy Future.”

Managed by Widmeyer, the organization held an an-nouncement event in Washington, D.C., which includ-ed a simultaneous release of its energy business plan and unveiling of the organization’s website and CEO video. To showcase CEOs’ personal interest in the plan, the PR team produced individual videos of each CEO speaking on the urgency of the message, address-ing how it would impact Americans in their daily lives, and highlighting their backgrounds in innovation and business to provide additional credibility to the mes-sage and demonstrate their personal engagement. In additional, eye-catching advertisements were designed and placed in the Washington Post and Capital Hill newspapers with the phrase, “America spends more

BEST ISSUE/CAUSE ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN


on potato chips than it does on clean energy R&D.”

Extensive media coverage of the organization’s con-ference landed in top-tier media outlets and publi-cations. Coverage included USA Today, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Washington Post, As-sociated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, ABC News “This Week,” CNBC’s “Power Lunch” and CNBC’s “The Call,” Bloomberg, Bloomberg TV, PBS “NewsHour” and National Journal.

SILVERShare the Table: The Barilla Family Dinner ProjectBarilla

Having dinner as a family used to be the norm for households across the country. Dinnertime together represented a moment during the day for families to connect—for children and parents to share details about their day. But, with our over-scheduled and busy lives of today, with parents logging longer hours at work and children participating in various sports and after school activities, it’s harder than ever to corral everyone’s schedule to share dinner together. Now, in-stead of a meal as one, family members end up eating dinner separately at different times during the evening.


When the results from a proprietary study conducted by Edelman’s research arm Strategy One revealed that 93% of people ranked sharing meals as the most important activity in helping them connect with their families, Barilla saw an opportunity to communicate the importance of Americans sharing meaningful meals together. To raise awareness of the benefits of

creating and sharing meals, Barilla launched “Share the Table: The Barilla Family Dinner Project” cam-paign.

“The goal of this campaign for Barilla was to build brand equity, to create a presence for us with consum-ers when they went to the shelf,” explains Prita Wad-hwani, marketing manager, integrated marketing at Barilla. “We wanted them to have a connection with the brand so that they thought about Barilla. Once we had the results of the study, it seemed like a natural fit for us and really influenced and formulated what the campaign would be about.”



Barilla highlighted women between 25-54 years of age with children living at home, who value eating dinner with their families as the campaign’s target audience. But, to build campaign credibility, they needed a few


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influential spokespeople. They selected Italian chef Mario Batali to speak about the food-specific mes-sages and celebrity moms—Oscar-nominated actress Julianne Moore and country singer Martina McBride—to speak about the value that family dinner play in their personal lives.




The Results: “Share the Table” Campaign Receives Coverage in Top-Tier Print, TV and Radio: Barilla’s “Share the Table” campaign landed over 1,000 placements and 187 media impressions. National television and radio coverage included “The Rachael Ray Show,” “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” “Parents TV,” “Better TV,” “The Today Show” and NPR. The campaign secured print coverage in Family Circle Magazine and Country Weekly, while online and blog coverage included Huffington Post, NYDailyNews.com and CountryWeekly.com. Three of the top 20 food blogs—iVillage.com, Slashfood.com and CNN.com “Eatocracy”—publicized the campaign, in ad-dition to top ranked celebrity weekly publication, People Magazine, and top ranked daily newspaper the

Wall Street Journal. Over 105 blog posts discussed the importance of family dinner, while a roundtable with 20 influencers in June 2009 sparked new research re-garding parents and children’s dinnertime viewpoints.


Utilize every tool available, not just public re-lations: “What worked for us was the 360 approach,” she says. “It wasn’t just public relations, but all the other marketing tools and levers in the toolbox to get consumers to engage with the campaign.”






BRONZE“He’s in the Army now: Wife’s cancer prompts man to enlist”Aurora Health Care

The 2009 health reform debate had been in and out of the national spotlight. Aurora Health Care, a 15-hospital, $4 billion health system, supported several health reform measures, while also valuing public awareness of health reform. To capture local and national media attention and bring fresh momentum to the health reform debate, Aurora’s public relations team identified a compelling patient story.

The story surrounded Bill and Michelle Caudle, a couple who married after high school. Bill worked in a factory and Michelle stayed home with the kids. With Michelle fighting ovarian cancer, Bill lost his job. His job search turned up nothing as company after com-pany continued to lay off workers or close down. With his COBRA coverage about to end, Bill decided to join the Army and move out of state to make sure Michelle had insurance to continue her chemo treatment in Wisconsin.

A print reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was offered the story and given several months to follow the Caudles. The reporter attended Michelle’s medi-cal visits and Bill’s workouts with other recruits. He observed the family at their home and got to know the children, while also speaking to Michelle’s Aurora physicians, military officials, employers and friends.

The Journal Sentinel story, written by Mark Johnson, ran on Sunday, October 18, 2009, weaving together themes of family relationships, the healthcare crisis, the recession and joblessness. Almost every major on-line news site picked up the story, while the Milwau-kee Journal Sentinel’s Sunday edition had a circulation of 450,000 and its online hits reached 1.8 million, setting a new record for the paper. Activity on the pa-per’s website discussion forum was so heavy that the form had to be closed. The story made the front page

of Yahoo.com as well as the Huffington Post. Interview requests for the couple flooded in.

Michelle agreed to a local ABC interview, which was followed two months later when Bill came home for the holidays with an exclusive interview with David Muir of ABC’s “World News Tonight with Diane Saw-yer.”

A second story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran in late December when Bill graduated from boot camp, while another follow up story ran in early 2011.

Media coverage included the front page Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, which generated 1.8 million online views. Additional coverage included a 2009 Journal Sentinel article on ovarian cancer survivors that had 230,000 impressions, coverage on the front page of Yahoo.com, an interview with Journal Sentinel reporter Mark Johnson on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show,” a recap of the print story on Chicago’s FOX morning, coverage in the New York Daily News and pick-up of the story in the Chicago Tribune. CNN aired the local ABC interview with Michelle and posted the video and print article, while correspondent David Muir did a story of ABC’s “World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer.”


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GOLD“Skip the Stampede”AirTran Airways & Cramer-Krasselt

When Southwest Airlines began its national “Bags Fly Free” ad campaign during the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, one TV commercial in par-ticular drew the attention of AirTran Airways’ more than 8,000 crew members. Titled “Battle Cry,” the ad featured a number of Southwest employees flashing a competitor’s plane with the words “Bags Fly Free” written across their chests. Although pixilated, the competitor was clearly an AirTran Airways jet.

Seeing an opportunity to raise awareness for the air-line, while having some fun with its larger rival, Air-Tran and the airline’s PR agency, Cramer-Krasselt, decided to respond to the jab by utilizing social media to distribute a humorous online video.

As a low-cost carrier, AirTran Airways has broad ap-peal, but the airline’s target demographic includes both business and leisure travelers between the ages of 25 and 48. Since AirTrans’ target audience is the young to middle-aged traveler, the agency decided to reach this demographic where they already are—online.

Since AirTran Airways works with a fraction of the advertising and marketing budget that Southwest has, responding with a national television ad was not an option. In order to reach a wide audience, the AirTran Airways PR team created a video titled “Cattle Call” that would live online.

The online video would poke fun at Southwest’s “cattle call” boarding process. The video featured pas-sengers in cow costumes milling around a gate area with Southwest’s pixilated logo on the wall. With loud encouragement from a gate agent dressing as a cow-boy, the boarding “cows” stampede down the jetway to board the plane. The video then highlights AirTran’s points of differentiation, such as assigned seating,

business class and Wi-Fi on every flight.

Before posting the video on YouTube and AirTran’s Crew Member website, “Inside AirTran,” the PR team secured an exclusive with Bloomberg on the light-hearted airline rivalry and AirTran’s response to the Southwest commercial. Once the Bloomberg wire placement was issued, the team began seeding the video with airline industry and travel blogs, as well as online news outlets and television stations both nationally and in key AirTran markets.

The online video received widespread coverage on lo-cal TV stations across the country, along with blog and mainstream sites, including Bloomberg, CNN.com, CBSNews.com, BusinessWeek.com and USA Today’s “Today in the Sky” blog. Within one week, the video had more than 80,000 combined views between You-Tube and the Inside AirTran website. To date, the video has generated 100,435 views.

SILVERHowMuchFish.comBerman and Company

For decades, scientific experts have been telling us that the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids in fish make it an amazing health food. Recent evidence has emerged that these health benefits far outweigh any risks associated with consuming the trace amounts of mercury that have always been in seafood. Unfortu-nately, much of that advice has been drowned out by a handful of noisy activists who’ve exploited under-standable concerns about contamination in order to hijack a national debate about food safety.

As a result, Americans now eat far less seafood than the USDA’s dietary guidelines recommend. Now, hard-ly any of us are getting an adequate supply of omega-3s. These activists are driven by political ideologies and environmental goals, not human health. Some are interested in shutting down coal-fired power plants, while others want to promote vegetarianism. But there

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hasn’t been a single U.S. mercury poisoning case in the medical literature related to store-bought seafood. So, why was there so much worry?

In August 2010, the Berman and Company-man-aged Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) commis-sioned the Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) to survey American women about seafood. A full 50% of respondents believed that “even though fish is full of important nutrients, mercury and other contaminants make it risky to eat.” And 41% said that they “wish there was a simple Internet website to help me sort out the risks and benefits of eating more fish.”

To educate Americans about the nutritional benefits and the risks of seafood consumption, CCF launched www.HowMuchFish.com. The website hosts the only seafood calculator on the Internet that resolves the conflicting information about the health benefits and risks of eating fish. The easy-to-use calculator includes the 24 most popular seafood species, representing 98% of the commercial seafood Americans eat. By using the website, seafood consumers are learning just how much their risk-benefit equation tilts in the direc-tion of better health.

The “HowMuchFish.com” campaign secured top-tier coverage in Woman’s Day, and in important trade press such as Seafood Source, Fish Information & Services, AquaFeed.com, Food CEO, Perishable News and Alaska Journal of Commerce. The campaign also secured coverage in Newport News Daily Press, CBS Cincinnati and NBC Minot, North Dakota, while HowMuchFish.com has counted 238,281 page views.

BRONZEHumaneWatch.orgBerman and Company

The Berman and Company-managed Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) launched HumaneWatch.org with the belief that even the dog-watchers at the Humane Society of United States (HSUS) needed

their own watchdog. The campaign focused on the launch of the “HumaneWatch” blog and its accom-panying document library, which are dedicated to analyzing the activities of HSUS and the dozens of nonprofit organizations that make up HSUS’s sprawl-ing financial empire.

After tracking the Humane Society of United States for several years, the Center for Consumer Freedom had grown increasingly troubled by that organization’s failure to adequately fund local humane societies.

HSUS raises $100 million every year from Americans who largely believe their donations filter down to local pet shelters and improve the lives of orphaned dogs and cats. But, in 2008, HSUS shared less than one-half of one percent of its budget with real hands-on humane societies. Instead, most of its money supports lobbyists, political campaigns, lavish execu-tive pensions, massive fundraising costs, and a payroll larger than that of the current White House staff.

To educate Americans about the differences between HSUS and real pet-sheltering charities that care for animals and find them adoptive homes, CCF created the HumaneWatch blog and website. Pre-loaded with content, ads have since been placed in several top newspapers, including The New York Times, highlight-ing the failures of the HSUS to allocate a significant amount of its members’ contributions to American’s under-funded dog and cat shelters.

Top papers covered the blog launch, including the New York Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times and San Francisco Chronicle, while top agriculture publications included Drovers, PORK magazine, Feedstuffs, the High Plains Journal and Beef maga-zine. HumaneWatch’s Facebook group attracted more than 170,000 fans by September 2010 and more than 900,000 unique visitors have seen HumaneWatch.org.

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GOLDCalifornia Association of Marriage and Family Therapists for Good Health = Healthy CaliforniansPorter Novelli

Each year, nearly one in five U.S. adults—more than 45 million people—will experience some form of mental illness, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In California alone, this means that 7.4 million adults are suffering from mental illness. Due to the stigma and embarrass-ment often associated with mental health problems, many of these millions of people don’t get the profes-sional help they need.

Complicating matters for Californians with mental ill-ness, research shows that happiness in general might be harder to come by for residents of the Golden State. According to a study by the University of Warwick and Hamilton College, California was ranked at the bottom of the list of the happiest states in the U.S.

These stats represented an opportunity for California’s marriage and family therapists, who can play a signifi-cant role in helping treat mental illness. To define and raise awareness of their expertise in treating mental illness and to help Californians find marriage and family therapists in their area, the California As-sociation of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) retained Porter Novelli to lead a media relations campaign to raise the profile of its member marriage and family therapists, increase awareness of the mental health issues marriage and family therapists treat and increase awareness of CAMFT’s free online therapist-finding tool, TherapistFinder.com.

Porter Novelli took a targeted approach, placing an increased focus on California’s largest media markets, in addition to those where previous success already existed. In particular, the Bay Area/San Francisco and Los Angeles were the campaign’s top targets, provid-ing the ability to reach a broader audience with each

placement earned.

But, given the challenges of securing media place-ments in such large markets, the PR team would need to increasingly capitalize on news-of-the-day oppor-tunities and develop fresh pitches that these media hadn’t seen before. Additionally, based on Porter Novelli research, their target audience of prospec-tive therapy clients would be women over 40 with a household income of $75,000.

Porter Novelli leveraged and localized timely, relevant news and national events to earn media attention, highlighting TherapistFinder.com as a leading resource for mental health information.

In order to drive interest in the campaign, PN pro-posed a new feature in the association’s newsletter, The Therapist. A new “Members in the Media” article would promote media placements secured by the team, while encouraging other members to submit their own placements. This would also serve as a recruitment tool to help “build the bench” of media representatives for future media opportunities.

The campaign earned 171 media placements, includ-ing 52 media placements in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. The highlight of the campaign was a story in the Bay Area News Group, the owner of multiple Bay Area newspapers and media outlets. The PN team pitched a story on teens taking risks and how parents can determine what’s appropriate risk-taking and what is dangerous, which resulted in the story being published in 19 outlets, including the San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Alameda Times Star, Tri-Valley Herald, San Mateo Country Times, In-sideBayArea.com and The Oakland Tribune, as well as coverage on USAToday.com.

BEST NOT-FOR-PROFIT/ASSOCIATION/GOVERNMENT CAMPAIGN


SILVER4 Generations Overcoming AddictionMaccabee Group and Hazelden

For 60 years, Hazelden has been one of the world’s largest and most respected non-profit centers for alcohol and drug treatment, along with education, re-search, advocacy and publishing of books and DVDs related to recovery from the disease of addiction.

In late 2009, Hazelden sought to spark a dialogue among all generations of the American public—Millennials, Gen X’ers, Baby Boomers and The Great-est Generation—about addiction and treatment in language that made sense for each generation. In order to spur this conversation and raise awareness of Hazelden as an organization, Maccabee Group created the “Four Generations Overcoming Addiction” campaign.

The PR campaign focused on the results of an original “Four Generations” survey of hundreds of parents and teenagers nationwide. The survey gave the generations a chance to reveal their respective comfort levels in talking about addiction, question who really serves as role models when teens consider the use of drugs, and address the issue of whether parents should share with teenage children their own personal stories of alcohol and drug use.

The survey was accompanied by Hazelden’s launch of a new “Four Generations” website, a new “Recovery Resources” blog, sponsorship of local plays celebrat-ing the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, a social networking campaign, which included a dedicated Fa-cebook Page, Twitter feed and YouTube channel featur-ing video interviews of Hazelden experts and real-life examples of generational attitudes towards addiction.

The bulk of the content for the “Four Generations Overcoming Addition” pitch was garnered through the development and fielding of the multi-generational survey aimed at providing newsworthy statistics and

talking points for the campaign. Once armed with the survey results, Maccabee Group distributed them to a media list of over 1,000 health, wellness and mental health journalists from print, broadcast and online outlets. A first exclusive was successfully offered to ABC’s “Good Morning America” and an advance print exclusive was successfully offered to Parade magazine, leading to a syndicated article that appeared in dozens of Sunday newspapers.

The campaign generated 92 original news stories, the most prominent a broadcast story on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The Parade magazine story was distributed to over 500 Sunday daily newspapers, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morn-ing News, Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, New York Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and San Francisco Chronicle, among others. Locally for Hazelden, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a prominent feature story, which reached more than 300,000 Minnesotans. The “Good Morning America” TV story also resulted in a piece on popular mommy blogwww.momlogic.com, which received enough votes to make it to Y!Buzz, a Yahoo! Page dedicated to the most popular stories of the day.

BRONZEHot Quark Soup Stirs Up Massive News CoverageBrookhaven National Laboratory with Tarta-glia Communications

Some of the challenges facing the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laborato-ry—and Tartaglia Communications when they sought to publicize research at BNL’s Heavy Ion Col-lider (RHIC), a particle accelerator exploring condi-tions of the early universe—included securing media coverage of a complicated science story some thought they’d already reported on, plan the release of news about research when it takes place at a facility with


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over 1,000 international collaborators who take years to analyze, reach consensus on findings and change media perceptions that the facility is no longer a major player in its field, and that U.S. leadership in physics is declining.

Since 2005’s news of creating a “perfect liquid,” RHIC scientists had not made major announcements. Many 2005 media reports wrongly described the perfect liquid as quark-gluon plasma (QGP), the primordial Holy Grail of nuclear physics. Since then, Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) prepared to come on-line, siphoning off physicists and capturing the atten-tion of physics reporters. Some key reporters, such as The New York Times’ Dennis Overbye, were focused strictly on the LHC and ignored the fact that RHIC was still conducting top-tier scientific research.

The campaign sought to secure top-tier consumer and science media, communicate scientific success and showcase U.S. leadership in science with both Ameri-can and global audiences. The PR team also learned about two major findings to be submitted to physics journals, which were that collisions at RHIC had cre-ated the hottest temperature ever seen in a lab—hotter than the temperature required to create QGP and that “quark soup” showed evidence of forming “bubbles” in which two of the universe’s fundamental “laws” of symmetry are violated.

The PR team targeted the APS February 2010 meeting in Washington, D.C. for the announcements of the findings. They knew physics reporters from the target media would be in attendance and could properly interpret RHIC results. Also, by partnering with Sci-ence Writers in New York for a February 2010 tour of RHIC/virtual tour of the LHC, they leveraged interest in the LHC startup to cultivate key science journalists, including The New York Times’ Overbye, who had not covered RHIC. In addition, personalized pitches were sent to the most strategically important journalists, including the Times’ Overybe, Sharon Begley from Newsweek, Dan Vergano from USA Today, Maggie

Fox from Reuters, and reporters and editors at Science, Nature and other top-tier science publications.

Coverage included over 500 stories in over 40 coun-tries from Reuters and Agence France-Presse, as well as many original stories. Nearly all stories, including Reuters and USA Today, mentioned the U.S. Depart-ment of Energy. Many major online stories ran as well, including The New York Times, Newsweek, MSNBC and Fox News.



GOLDAdobe CS5 LaunchEdelman and Adobe

Adobe’s Creative Suite represents a significant rev-enue driver for the company, so expectations for the launch of Create Suite 5 (CS5) were aggressive. The brand looked to dramatically increase broadcast and business coverage and land “First Look” reviews on launch day. After months of planning product “sneak peeks,” VIP media events, press tours and social media campaigns, the stage was set for success. But, three days before the launch, Apple grabbed the spotlight, announcing it would be banning applications devel-oped in Adobe’s ubiquitous Flash technology.

Blindsided by Apple’s announcement, Adobe leaned on public relations to contain the damage and reas-sert the value of Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 and Flash technologies. Together with Edelman, Adobe turned the launch into a rallying cry for Adobe enthusiasts around the issue of choice, launching the “We Heart Choice” campaign just weeks after CS5 launched to overwhelmingly positive industry support.

To transform perceptions and overcome the Apple hurdle, the launch needed to go beyond highlighting product refinements and telling customers that CS5 was worth the investment and instead focus on creat-ing engaging experiences to show them the product’s value. So, PR relied on the early groundwork laid pre-launch of heavy early-stage engagement with media, such as sneak peeks, reviewer’s workshops and press dinners, to tell the story of CS5 as a vital step in Adobe’s ability to arm customers with the tools they need to innovate for emerging technologies. They also confronted Apple for attempting to quell excitement for CS5/Flash by emphasizing the industry’s growing number of devices and Adobe’s commitment to open standards.

The “We Heart Choice” campaign also took a leader-ship stance against Apple on behalf of the creative

industry. The campaign led with a website promoting freedom of choice, an open letter from Adobe’s co-founders, Chuck Geschke and John Warnock, and full-page print ads in major publications touting the “We Heart Choice” mantra.

The “We Heart Choice” campaign was covered in all major national, financial and trade outlets across print, online and broadcast, including over 800 launch news stories and feature articles, 16 magazine cover teasers and 450 product reviews publishing in outlets such as CNBC, Fox Business News, NPR, The Motley Fool, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNN, Wired, PC Mag.com and CNET. Additionally, Apple surrendered to industry pressure, officially reversing its policy and opening the door for customers to continue using Adobe tools to create applications for iPhone and iPad.

SILVERProDigitsinmedia Public Relations, Inc.

For the product launch of ProDigits, the world’s first powered bionic finger prosthetic for partial-hand am-putees, Scotland-based Touch Bionics again teamed with inmedia Public Relations Inc. The company had previously worked with the PR agency in 2007 for the launch of its first product, the I-LIMB Hand, the world’s first commercially available bionic hand.

In the case of ProDigits, the campaign would be a business-to-business effort because Touch Bionics sells to clinics that, in turn, service patients. Critical to the success of the campaign would be reaching potential users so they would generate demand for the product.

Far more compelling than the technology—a bionic finger system that offered two control strategies, one that built upon the principles of myoelectric prosthet-ics that control the device by picking up the muscle signal in the residual limb, and another that responded to force exerted by remnant finger bones—were the

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individual stories of several ProDigits users. These stories added a dramatic and deeply personal human-interest angle to the breakthrough technology story.

In order to promote the product, PR efforts included a news release in five different languages, background-ers covering the technology, the company and clinical aspects, profiles of six early users of ProDigits reflect-ing a spectrum of age, circumstance, gender, language and nationally, photos of the six users and broadcast-quality B-roll, plus a YouTube video.

During the first 24 hours after the distribution of the release, 158 major news hits were secured in the U.S., the UK and Canada. Coverage in leading online media and blog sites in the U.S. included Huffington Post and Gizmodo. Google News hits for Touch Bionics went from 0 to over 250, while there were more than 250 Twitter mentions of Touch Bionics and ProDigits. Additional high-profile hits included The New York Times, Wired, Popular Science, Engadget, Fast Com-pany, New York Post, Paris Match, “Fox & Friends,” CNET, The Daily Telegraph, Canadian Press and The Globe and Mail.

BRONZERoundarch’s WizardLane PR

As the New York Jets and the New York Giants pre-pared to unveil the new $1.7 billion New Meadow-lands Stadium, LANE PR developed a strategy to gain attention for one of the smallest pieces of this massive, state-of-the-art sports venue—a revolutionary touch-screen application built by digital consultancy Roun-darch for Jets chairman and CEO Woody Johnson.

The “Wizard” provides Johnson with real-time stadium and game data that allows the New York Jets owner to monitor fan experience and make important opera-tional decisions during game time. Johnson can evalu-ate live data on updated ticket, merchandise, parking and concession sales information and observe live

feeds from cameras throughout the stadium.

With large, well-known technology vendors provid-ing in-stadium flat screens and the ability to order food digitally from a fan’s seat, LANE PR saw an op-portunity to position Roundarch’s behind-the-scenes work in a highly creative way. The command center was introduced to media as the “Wizard” behind Oz, acting as the catalyst for major changes happening behind-the-scenes and at the behest of the organiza-tion’s leader—changes that enhanced the consumer experience without them even realizing it.

The puppeteer behind the ultimate fan experience, LANE PR positioned Roundarch as the digital innova-tor allowing the Jets owner to ensure no one got a cold hot dog and NY Jets jerseys never sold out. LANE PR believed that the touch-screen application would ap-peal to digital followers and provide a fresh example of how digital advances were touching yet another industry—professional sports.

LANE PR provided exclusive “Peek Behind the Screen” invitations to targeted media through an online demo of the command center, populating it with sample data to give an indication of what Jets owner Johnson would track on game day. Additionally, they provided top-tier tech media and sports business media near Meadowlands Stadium an opportunity they couldn’t refuse—attendance at the Jets season opener in a suite that mirrored the suite of owner Johnson. Game-day data was simulated, providing insight into how John-son would be interacting with the command center at that moment.

A range of technology, sports and business media picked up the Roundarch command center story. The PR efforts generated more than 608,000 media im-pressions in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Star-Ledger, Tech News Daily and SD Times.



HONORABLE MENTIONThe Relaunch of MooBella, the ATM of Ice CreamRasky Baerlein

MooBella is the company responsible for the revolu-tionary ATM of ice cream machinery, one that makes ice cream by the cup. After years of glowing reviews and media prominence, the company turned inward to focus on building technology, a better product, a solid team and brand and business model.

After a lengthy, self-imposed hiatus, it was time for MooBella to shine once again. To help reintroduce the company and its concept to media, prospective inves-tors, food service executives and consumers, the brand called upon Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communi-cations (RBSC).

Rasky Baerlein designed and implemented a strategic communications plan that would increase awareness of MooBella, its new generation of machines, innova-tive technology, strategic partners, and award-winning ice cream among local, regional and national media, past and prospective clients, consumers and inves-tors. The PR efforts sought to position MooBella’s Ice Creamery as an essential component in the foodser-vice mix that can increase foot traffic and generate sales with a minor investment of budget, time and staff.

The PR team worked with MooBella to generate a regular stream of press releases and advisories, which were essential to re-establishing the brand’s presence, demonstrating its innovative technology, highlighting milestones, and promoting other timely news during this phase. Rasky Baerlein also monitored the media, including mainstream press, websites and blogs, in order to take advantage of opportunities for MooBella to be incorporated into story lines as they arose.

The “Relaunch of MooBella, the ATM of Ice Cream” campaign garnered coverage in key national, regional

and trade media, including 20 stories across print and broadcast, totaling 48,273,919 impressions. Highlights included being named one of ten breakout business ideas of 2009 by Forbes, as well as national coverage in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Regional coverage included placements in the Boston Globe, Boston Business Journal, Providence Business News, Mass High Tech and coverage in the food and food service trades and blogs such as The Consumer-ist, Slashfood, Foodservice East and Vending Machine Market Watch.

HONORABLE MENTIONGoing to New Heights: Coyne PR Launches Record-breaking Thrill Ride for Stratosphere Hotel & Casino Las VegasCoyne PR

With several thrill rides already on the Las Vegas Strip, Stratosphere Hotel & Casino’s new attraction would bring a “controlled free fall”—a heart-pounding thrill ride unlike anything America has ever seen. SkyJumpers would leap off of a platform at the top of the Stratosphere Tower, overlooking the world-famous Las Vegas Strip, and descend 829 feet to the landing pad below.

Known for its extreme rides, Stratosphere wanted to generate buzz surrounding the opening of this new attraction, targeting adrenaline junkies who wouldn’t be able to pass up this opportunity. The key would be to convey the excitement of the thrill ride, providing an understanding that the ride would be the tallest in the world.

To support the launch of SkyJump Las Vegas, Coyne PR came onboard, just 51 days prior to the grand opening.

The team secured a pre-taped segment with NBC’s “The Today Show” daredevil correspondent Jenna Wolfe taking the plunge. Additional exclusives were


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given to USA Today and Associated Press. All Las Vegas network affiliates held live broadcasts from Stratosphere on launch day with talent from FOX, ABC and NBC conducting live on-air jumps. Prior to launch day, celebrity “Flight Times” of the Harlem Globetrot-ters and NASCAR’s Kurt Busch took the plunge. Their jumps were leveraged for the B-roll package and pho-tos to sports media.

The launch of SkyJump Las Vegas generated local, na-tional and international consumer and media atten-tion—more than 700 million television segments and more than 500 online stories, resulting in more than 443 million impressions in just two weeks. Television segments ran on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” “Ameri-can Morning,” “Fox and Friends” and “America This Morning.” More than 20,000 thrill-seekers have taken the plunge off SkyJump Las Vegas since April 2010, averaging approximately 150 jumpers per day.

GOLDProject Cheddar Explosion—The Launch of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Cheddar ExplosionHunter Public Relations

A family favorite and the ultimate comfort food for more than 70 years, KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese Din-ner had become the standby. With the launch of its newest variety, KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese Cheddar Explosion, the brand wanted to be “explosive” in its marketing, positioning itself as a cool alternative for family meals.

To deliver on this explosive directive, Hunter Pub-lic Relations (HPR) aligned the product with an equally explosive event—the implosion of the Dallas Cowboys’ former home, the legendary Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas. The campaign also included an essay contest for one kid to win the right to push the detona-tion button on April 11, 2010.

Soon after the contest kicked off, the search began for a kid who made a positive and explosive difference in their community to push the button detonating Texas Stadium. Casey Rogers, an 11-year old former foster child from Terrill, Texas won as a result of his story about his organization, Casey’s Heart, which collects food, clothing and toiletries and delivers them to the homeless in Dallas. On April 11, thousands gathered in pre-dawn for a music and fireworks show and prod-uct samples, while in a VIP tent, emcee Chris Berman interviewed Casey and acknowledged the product’s sponsorship to the media.

With the push of a button, Casey brought down Texas Stadium, setting off the new product launch announcement and free coupon offer, launching the KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese Facebook Page.

KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese Cheddar Explosion achieved 50% brand awareness in the days following the implosion. The campaign generated 1,430 place-ments, resulting in 914 million media impressions. Top placements included USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, NPR, Yahoo! News, AOL News and the Dallas Morning News.

SILVERSealegs North American LaunchCerconeBrownCompany

After four years of success in the Australian boating world, amphibious boat manufacturer Sealegs was set to launch its innovative product in North America. They chose to launch the first consumer-ready am-phibious boat in the U.S. in the Northeast region, targeting coastal communities in the area. Originally developed for military clients ranging from India’s Anti-Terrorism Unit to the Malaysian Commando Unit, Sealegs boats were built with technology designed for rapid response from beach to water, under the harsh-est conditions, in the most remote locations.

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However, Sealegs faced imminent challenges before embarking on its U.S. launch, including steep price points, its boats viewed as a novelty, no brand recog-nition and a limited marketing and PR budget. In an effort to clear these hurdles, CerconeBrownCom-pany (CBC) worked with the brand to support its U.S. launch.

To officially launch Sealegs in the U.S., CBC drafted and distributed a press release targeting national life-style, marine trade and online media. The press release focused on introducing the first-ever amphibious boat to the U.S. market and positioning Sealegs as an excit-ing new technology launch that embodies the future of coastal living. CBC also conducted direct outreach via phone to carefully selected national, marine, and online media, detailing the technical abilities and benefits of the boats.

After a cool response to the release and outreach ef-forts, the PR team arranged additional on-water expe-riences, traveling to key editors in Rhode Island, New York and Florida, because when editors experienced the boat in person, they enjoyed it so much that they found it a fit for coverage.

As a result of the personalized, experiential-based press outreach, the campaign delivered 26 media stories in top-tier publications for the brand, with a circulation exceeding 79 million. Due to the coverage, the Sealegs boat was recognized on the cover of Popu-lar Science as the recreation grand award winner in the magazine’s 100 Best Innovations of the Year issue. Additional coverage included Bloomberg.com, Forbes.com, USA Today online, Huffington Post, Power & Mo-toryacht, Yachting and Yachts International Magazine.

BRONZEWhere the Chefs Eat: Houston Culinary ToursGreater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau

Houston has all the culinary components to be a major destination for food enthusiasts. Its credentials include the fourth largest city in the U.S., no ethnic majority and one of the largest ports in the world. According to two destination studies, Houston is the preferred Texas destination for urban activities, while Houstonians eat out more than residents of any other city, according to Zagat.

Even with all of this research and individual recogni-tion, Houston wasn’t featured prominently as a des-tination in the national media as a culinary destina-tion. Zagat canceled its Houston guide in 2002 and launched a statewide Texas guide in 2006, while only seven percent of media coverage about Houston in 2009 was focused on the culinary scene.

To position Houston as a culinary destination, The Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bu-reau (GHCVB) selected four chefs that not only gar-nered national recognition for their own restaurants, but were also strong supporters of Houston. The chefs were in full agreement about one point—the small, ethnic, mom-and-pop restaurants made Houston stand out and not the high-end restaurants. They proposed creating culinary tours of the places they eat on their days off. The “Where the Chefs Eat Houston Culinary Tour” was born.

The chefs paired up, based on their interests, to de-velop eight tours. The tours ranged from Taste of Asia to Grocery Stores and Ethnic Markets to Southern Comfort and barbecue. The GHCVB partnered with Texas-based Whole Foods Market for in-store promo-tion and location information. The GHCVB also cre-ated the website www.HoustonCulinaryTours.com that listed all the details for the culinary tours, such as tour


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schedule and descriptions, chef bios, frequently asked questions and new tour announcements. Personalized pitches were sent to travel and culinary media, inviting them to attend the first public tour.

The campaign launched with a Houston Chronicle story, followed by stories in every major local publica-tion. Additional media placements included inclusion in a round-up of food adventures in The New York Post as well as a 1,600-word story on Houston’s food scene on nypost.com, a two-page spread in the Chicago Sun-Times and a five-page story in Go magazine. Martha Steward Living Radio interviewed two of the chefs, while feature stories ran in the Washington Post, Food Arts, Dallas Morning News, Austin American-States-man and San Antonio Express-News.

HONORABLE MENTIONCND Shellac LaunchRED PR

The leading brand among nail professionals, CND has been less recognized among general consumers. But, with the introduction of its new manicure system, Shellac, CND wanted to reach some of the 85% of American women who don’t currently go to salons for professional manicures.

To launch Shellac in a way that would appeal to the professional nail industry, attract new clientele into salons and increase brand recognition, CND retained RED PR. The allure of the product would be its dura-bility and ease of removal. Shellac nail color lasts for two weeks, while continuing to look freshly polished, yet comes off easily without damaging the natural nail.

Shellac would be launched as the first professional hy-brid nail color—going on like polish, durable like gel, but comes off in minutes. To do this, RED positioned Shellac as a breakthrough that had been in develop-ment for five years—like the first hybrid car aimed at eco-conscious drivers. But first they needed to drive home Shellac as a fret-free, 14-day manicure with no

damaging application or removal.

RED provided top trade and consumer press and key industry influencers advance introductions to Shellac before launching on a larger scale, while also inviting select trade editors to participate in a two-day training in San Diego for an exclusive look at Shellac. Three-months before the product’s official launch, influential New York City-based journalists from publications in-cluding Vogue, Town & Country, The New York Times, Style.com, Yahoo.com and NBC’s “The Today Show” received private Shellac services.

Two product launches were held, one in New York and another in Los Angeles, while global launches were held in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Italy and Ireland.

Within six weeks of its introduction, a one-year global supply of Shellac was sold out. Shellac has received 1,053 editorial placements, including 81 print, 261 television and 711 websites and blogs. The New York Times featured Shellac prominently, while the product was also featured twice on NBC’s “The Today Show.” Consumer coverage included placements in Better Homes & Gardens, Brides, People, Redbook, Woman’s Day, Women’s Health, Glamour, Ladies’ Home Jour-nal, People StyleWatch, Star and InTouch. VIP nail professionals introduced Shellac to their A-list clients including Katy Perry, Rihanna, Salma Hayek, Janet Jackson and Lady Gaga.



GOLDHilton Global Media CenterHilton Hotels & Resorts with Covalent Logic

With the recent reunion of Hilton International and Hilton Hotels Corporation, a new identity for the par-ent company of the Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand was established through Hilton Worldwide, creating an opportunity for the world’s most recognized hotel brand to reconnect with media around the world. Hil-ton did so by embracing a progressive and constantly evolving media landscape in order to expand strategic outreach beyond the United States to 75 additional countries where it operates. But, the properties around the world needed the means and flexibility to develop their own media relationships, as well as their mes-sages from the brand’s voice.

Hilton created the concept for the Hilton Global Media Center—a comprehensive online media tool designed to act globally, but “speak locally.” The Hilton Global Media Center (HGMC) represented the hotel industry’s first comprehensive online resource created exclusively for the media and sought to be a one-stop-shop by accomplishing three objectives. These included extending “PR hospitality” to media professionals seeking information about any of the more than 540 Hilton Hotels & Resorts properties worldwide in a timely, efficient and accommodat-ing manner, improving speed to market and media response times by leveraging new media in speaking to and communicating with the media and rejuvenat-ing the brand’s languishing reputation as an industry maverick and give the global network of properties the ability and autonomy to promote their hotels, while supporting the brand.

Research established the need for a media center for journalists to easily access property news and photo-graphs from Hilton Hotels & Resorts. Working with Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based Covalent Logic, who also designed and produced the site, the teams con-veyed the message of innovation. The brand is known

for its unmatched expertise and experience in global travel—from being the first to install televisions in guest rooms, develop the concept of franchising hotels and launch the airport hotel to the first hotel in the world with both LEED and Green Seal environment certifications.

Recognizing the need to serve both traditional journal-ists as well as a new category of media professionals, Hilton Global Brand Public Relations created a site that blends three distinct aspects of the Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand—innovation, style and reach.

Hilton Hotels & Resorts saw a 10 percent increase in coverage after only two and a half months. Users representing 85 different native languages, including English, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Turkish have accessed the HGMC. The HGMC has attracted 244,967 page views and more than 2,600 photo-downloads, with e-newsletter sub-scriptions topping 3,300. The site’s global reach is evi-dent by more than 85,402 visits from 172 countries.

SILVERMediaCentreSynaptic Digital

In the digital world where everyone is empowered to publish—whether that’s writing for an online media outlet, keeping a blog or sharing links and media as-sets with contacts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr—brands must work harder than ever to engage with audiences on their corporate websites.

Brands must now think like media companies and embrace the opportunity to participate in an ongoing and open conversation with all stakeholder audiences. And by creatively providing accessible, relevant, dynamic and shareable news and multimedia, brands can ensure that publishers find what they need, stay engaged and keep coming back for more.

adidas, the international sports brand, recognized

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this opportunity and sought to completely rebuild their online newsroom presence. They reached out to Syn-aptic Digital to devise a plan. And as a key sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, adidas saw a prime oc-casion to leverage a next-generation interactive media center to reposition the brand, share exciting and newsworthy stories and leapfrog competitors.

They would create a website that would make adi-das content as easy as possible to access for anyone interested in publishing news and stories about the company, its products and campaigns. The adidas NEWS STREAM was created to meet the demands of this new, web-savvy audience.

With the World Cup deadline looming large, the Syn-aptic Digital team went to work on the new website, breaking it down into four large projects—a media panel, pressroom, download manager and social media integration. The media panel would handle video, images and audio, the press room would be a section for traditional press releases and articles, the download manager allowed direct download capabil-ity for consumers and social media integration is the site’s deep integration with YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook that aggregates content from all adidas sites across the web.

The new adidas website incorporates multimedia and social media so that press releases are no longer static text pages, but take on one of three multimedia layouts and are always accompanied by related video, audio, stills and documents. Users can share content on their websites and over 150 social sites. The site provides a fast and convenient tool for the global media to learn about, access and download the latest news and multimedia from adidas all in usable for-mats. Journalists can also easily contact press contacts at adidas with queries and requests, while embargoed content is available in a dedicated section for journal-ists.

The adidas NEWS STREAM site went live just before

the 2010 FIFA World Cup and was updated during the tournament and is refreshed on an ongoing basis. During the course of the tournament, the site had 270 published stories, received 211,429 unique page views, 6,600 searches, 6,600 downloads of pictures, video and audio and over 620 shares on social media.

BRONZEIntel Reinvents Its Online NewsroomOgilvy PR

Corporate pressrooms have evolved over the years. They now incorporate new features, such as blogs, video, ratings and Widgets for sharing. Practices such as search engine optimization (SEO) are also being utilized more frequently. Those companies that haven’t transformed their pressroom from the typical press re-lease and media contact information into social media hubs have found themselves behind the curve.

As a pioneering company itself, Intel began incorpo-rating portability, shareability and SEO, but with an “a-la-carte” approach, developing customized compo-nents for the pressroom by implementing one socially engaging feature at a time, such as comments, rating, embedded video or a custom RSS feed. This enabled Intel to experiment with new features and determine their usefulness or whether they were just trendy gimmicks. Employees worked to add more features to the pressroom for two years, but eventually decided they wanted to overhaul the pressroom to become a cutting-edge newsroom.

Intel realized it needed to make news about the com-pany easier for people, such as consumers, bloggers, reporters, analysts and search engines to find, use and share. Instead of focusing on the front end of a news portal, they needed to make the content easy to find, consume and re-use. They set out to turn their press-room into a social-based online newsroom.

To revamp their pressroom, Intel spent several years researching and experimenting with best practices in



social media, multimedia, search engine optimiza-tion and interactive tools to extend the effectiveness and reach of Intel online corporate PR activities. They looked into not only how to build a quality site to attract hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors, but also how to construct a site that would work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days of the year to enable search engines and Intel’s audience to extend and amplify news content across the Internet and its ever-expanding abundance of search social tools and networks.

The end result was a community-based site with doz-ens of new features in place. During the first month, the site amassed more than 100 pieces of content, in-cluding photos, social media releases, videos, keynote speeches and presentations. Since its August 2010 debut, the newsroom has been well received by em-ployees, partners and press. In the end, the revitalized Intel newsroom offers the best online tools available for extending its content as far and wide as the web can reach.


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Having dinner as a family used to be the norm for households across the country. Dinnertime together represented a moment during the day for families to connect—for children and parents to share details about their day. But, with our over-scheduled and busy lives of today, with parents logging longer hours at work and children participating in various sports and after school activities, it’s harder than ever to line-up everyone’s schedule to share dinner together. Now, in-stead of a meal as one, family members end up eating dinner separately at different times during the evening.


When the results from a proprietary study conducted by Edelman’s research arm Strategy One revealed that 93% of people ranked sharing meals as the most important activity in helping them connect with their family, Barilla saw an opportunity to communicate the importance of Americans sharing meaningful meals together. To raise awareness of the benefits of creating and sharing meals, Barilla launched “Share the Table: The Barilla Family Dinner Project” campaign.

“The goal of this campaign for Barilla was to build brand equity, to create a presence for us with consum-ers when they went to the shelf,” explains Prita Wad-hwani, marketing manager, integrated marketing at Barilla. “We wanted them to have a connection with the brand so that they thought about Barilla. Once we had the results of the study, it seemed like a natural fit for us and really influenced and formulated what the

campaign would be about.”





BEST USE OF PERSONALITY/CELEBRITY






Utilize every tool available, not just public re-lations: “What worked for us was the 360 approach,”

she says. “It wasn’t just public relations, but all the other marketing tools and levers in the toolbox to get consumers to engage with the campaign.”




SILVERKraft’s Real Women of Philadelphia with Paula DeenRogers & Cowan

When Kraft, Paula Deen, EQAL and Digitas teamed up to create Paula Deen’s Real Women of Philadelphia (RWOP), it marked one of the first indus-try-branded online communities targeted to women nationwide. The program called upon the best home cooks in the country to submit videos and their most delicious recipes in the categories of side dish, ap-petizer, entrée and dessert using Kraft Philadelphia


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Cream Cheese.

More than 5,000 submissions poured in with 16 final-ists chosen and flown to Savannah, Georgia for a live ceremony to meet Paula Deen. One woman from each of the four categories was selected as a winner. Each received a talent contract worth $25,000, a chance to contribute to the RWOP cookbook and the opportu-nity to host a weekly online cooking show.

Hired by Kraft, Rogers & Cowan came aboard to promote the partnership and generate awareness and publicity surrounding the cooking competition. The team also promoted the final event in Savannah, Georgia.

Rogers & Cowan launched a series of how-to videos hosted by Paula Deen online, teaching Kraft’s target consumers how to participate in the online commu-nity and upload videos to the Internet. Women across the country embraced Paula’s Southern charm, know-ing if Paula could interact with technology success-fully, they could too. Rogers & Cowan positioned the campaign as a fun, simple and exciting new way to communicate, share recipes and create relationships with people of similar interests through an exciting new medium.

The firm drafted a press release and pitch calling all cooking enthusiasts across the country to join Paula Deen’s Real Women of Philadelphia community, reaching out to relevant cooking, contest, food and mommy bloggers to target their primary demographic of women who love to cook at home.

A smaller-scale competition gave existing and new community members another chance to win. Through the website, users could submit new recipes for a specific category to win $500 and the chance to be in-cluded in the RWOP community cookbook. Winners were announced each week and local outreach was conducted to recognize these women in front of their hometown audiences.

Finally, to keep community members engaged and media interested in the campaign, the team worked with Kraft to organize a media luncheon in New York City with Paula Deen where the four finalists could share their stories, experiences and successes from the campaign. Top-tier print and online media attended, including Good Housekeeping, The Wall Street Jour-nal, The New York Times, Mashable.com and Food Network Magazine.

Since its launch, more than 690,000 unique visitors have visited the site. The Real Women of Philadelphia created their own site profiles, uploading pictures, writing articles and self-producing more than 5,000 entertaining, emotional and creative short videos showcasing how they use Philadelphia Cream Cheese in their favorite dishes. The videos received more than 19 million online views. Additionally, more than 32,000 registered on the site.

The campaign received placements in nearly 20 mar-kets, including Los Angeles, Orlando, Oklahoma City, Denver, CO and Savannah, GA. Paula Deen appeared on both “The View” and “The Rachael Ray Show” touting her involvement and the successes of the com-munity. Placements were also secured across top-tier online and print outlets, such as The New York Times, USA Today, Ad Age, Los Angeles Times, Mashable.com and ClickZ.com. Total media impressions secured for the campaign through the end of August 2010 was 234,079,377.

BRONZEThe Launch of the Cooking ChannelRogers & Cowan

The Cooking Channel aimed to offer another help-ing of 24 hour a day, 7 days a week all food program-ming. The new channel for viewers with an appetite for more classic and original culinary shows would take over for the Fine Living Network on Memorial Day of 2010. With Cooking Channel’s sister network



Food Network achieving a top 10 cable status and other networks with some of their highest rated shows being food themed, the time was right.

Once the network was up and running, original programming produced specifically for the channel would premiere and include up and coming talent, while favorite faces from Food Network would create shows that would make a perfect fit for Cooking Chan-nel.

With Rogers & Cowan at the helm of “The Launch of the Cooking Channel” campaign, PR efforts con-centrated on driving excitement for the May 31st Me-morial Day launch, encouraging fans of Food Network to compliment their viewing time with Cooking Chan-nel shows, while winning over media outlets dubious and critical of Food Network.

To build buzz around the Cooking Channel’s launch, the firm offered an exclusive to The New York Times to announce the launch of Cooking Channel, and invited the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz and USA Today’s Olivia Baker for an all-access tour. National broadcast, print and online interviews were secured with Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay and Rachael Ray to promote their new channel shows, while the channel kicked off the national ice cream tour on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” with the truck on set, conducting an ice cream demo with Chef Chuck Hughes.

The Cooking Channel campaign secured coverage in the Washington Post, USA Today and The New York Times, O Magazine and the covers of the NY Daily News Eats section and USA Weekend. The channel’s launch party attracted over 120 attendees, including “Good Morning America,” Fox News Channel, CNN, Reuters, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, SELF, Esquire, People and Radar.


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GOLDCBC Green HouseCerconeBrownCompany

In an effort to provide 20 of the nation’s top editors the latest practical and planet-friendly products, services and technology—up close and hands on—Cercone-BrownCompany (CBC) created “The Green House.” For two weeks, the editors would be fully immersed in the best of sustainable living today. From the cars they drove to the applications they used to the very materials used in the home, the entire experience was designed to transform the media’s view of sustainabil-ity and, in turn, how they report to the millions they reach.

With top national press members inundated with green pitches, and most of those pitches landing in the trash, the challenge for companies with real products offering real benefits to share became how to get cov-ered in a meaningful way.

CBC started by gauging the media’s attitudes in the green space. Are press members still listening, or are they burned out with “green fatigue”? After conduct-ing key interviews, CBC found that the appetite for stories with legitimate green angles were still much in demand. But, according to the journalists interviewed, they wanted green info that’s harder hitting and hits closer to home in the lives of their readers and view-ers. CBC launched a far-reaching ethnography study that shadowed 10 families for one month—from how they ate, shopped, related to each other and lived. The result was “Smart Living: Better for Your Health, Your Wallet and the Environment,” a report that conveyed detailed results from the qualitative and quantitative studies. Editors received top-line research results to help them craft stories about the sponsor products with the support of data.

The strategy of the program was to change from pitch to experience—by creating a three-day living experi-ence, fully immersing press into a green home, which

CBC hoped would drive home the real benefits and messages of its clients. Thus, the “Green House” was born.

In order to attract the country’s best press, CBC need-ed to attract the leading green companies in the na-tion. Companies at the heart of the program included Ford, LG, Tupperware, Earthbound Farms, 3M, Quaker Oats, Green Mountain Coffee, Hi-Tec boots, Silk Soy Milk and EnergyHub. Located near downtown Boul-der, the “Green House” is a net-zero, LEED-Platinum certified home that uses both solar power and geother-mal energy. The house was comprised of seven Smart Zones, each its own hub of activity where products come to life. CBC customized a press experience to not only get ink, but to ensure the right message reached the right consumer. From relaxing on organic, recycled couches watching the latest blu-ray DVDs on LG energy efficient flat screens, to actually cleaning the house with Seventh Generation cleaning products, journalists lived the life in each zone fully.

The “Green House” welcomed more than 20 editors and the feedback was positive. In the weeks follow-ing the program, “Green House” coverage reached 45 million people through top outlets, including “Good Morning America,” CNN and Huffington Post. Print coverage included hits in Fitness magazine, Women’s Health magazine and Whole Living.

SILVERSisterhoodEuro RSCG Worldwide PR

Teenagers in the U.S. spend more than $200 billion annually. Though the teen-girl demographic is an especially powerful one for marketers, statistical and anecdotal evidence has been elusive given that no one has successfully tapped into the secrets of their behav-iors and preferences.

In launching “The Sisterhood,” Euro RSCG World-wide PR set out to create a vehicle for teen girls to

PR INNOVATION OF THE YEAR


come together and create content via the site, forsist-ersbysisters.com. They sought to create an ongoing real-world social media lab to give an up-close-and-personal view of the behaviors and thoughts of teen girls, text messaging styles that tracks how fads and trends move through this most impressionable group, which has the power to shape culture and future trends. The PR efforts also attempted to define the spending and communication habits of teen girls and illustrate those habits for marketers.

Euro RSCG commissioned a nationwide study of girls between the ages 13-18. The resulting research and white paper, “The Teenage Girl as Consumer and Communicator,” revealed that not only does this group defy stereotypes as to their spending and communica-tions, but they’re an awesome buying, trend-spotting and trendsetting force. The survey and white paper proved that there is much left to learn about this mar-ket and that it is important to understand it, given that these girls will be powerful consumer agents now and in the future.

“The Sisterhood” provided a forum for teens to chat about everything from shopping and products to people and media, affording Euro RSCG a fishbowl where they could observe and study the intimate com-munications and connectivity of communities of this demographic. Since the website launch, 35 million impressions were generated, while media placements included The New York Times, The Orange County Register and The Stamford Advocate as well as sev-eral online stories and blogs. “The Sisterhood” gave marketing and PR professionals help in reaching this important, but complex teenage group.

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SILVERFirst on the Scene: American Airlines Provides Relief to HaitiWeber Shandwick

When the catastrophic January 12, 2011 earthquake struck Haiti, American Eagle Airlines was the first commercial carrier on the scene, providing 400,000 pounds of humanitarian aid to the island nation. Just days after the quake hit, the airline began flying relief missions from its hub in Miami, transporting evacuees and ferrying military personnel and government of-ficials into Haiti.

American invited customers to get involved, imple-menting an AAdvantage mileage program that re-warded members’ donations to the American Red Cross with AAdvantage miles. To generate awareness of American’s relief efforts in Haiti, the airlines turned to Weber Shandwick, which launched “First on the Scene: American, American Eagle Airlines Provide Relief to Haiti” campaign.

The campaign had three main objectives: Lever-age American’s AAdvantage program, which offered members a one-time award of 250 or 500 AAdvantage miles for minimum donations of $50 and $100 or more to the American Red Cross, to reinforce Ameri-can’s commitment to the people of Haiti, a “global hometown” for the airline, which has served Port-au-Prince for nearly 20 years and communication to the public that American flew relief missions into Haiti, delivering 400,000 pounds of humanitarian supplies and evacuating people.

Weber Shandwick distributed three news releases via PR Newswire, making it known that American Air-lines, American Eagle and its employees supported relief efforts with relief flights and fundraising pro-grams. The PR team worked with Spanish-speaking colleagues to translate media materials for Hispanic outlets, while also posting Facebook and Twitter mes-sages updating customers on relief efforts.

BEST RESPONSE TO BREAKING NEWS


Relief efforts included 30 missions, transporting more than 400,000 pounds of aid, including water, medi-cal supplies, food and shoes to the people of Haiti. The airlines also evacuated more than 700 people, as determined by the U.S. State Department, while more than $200,000 was donated to the American Red Cross fund and American’s AAdvantage members donated more than $1.5 million to benefit Haiti.

The campaign resulted in 299,818,602 million media placements, while key coverage included placements in Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, Agence Free Presse (AFP), USA Today, NBC Nightly News, FOX Busi-ness News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dallas Morning News, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald and WSJ.com.

BRONZEWyclef/YeleEuro RSCG Worldwide PR

At the six-month anniversary of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, who’d already been working with Wyclef Jean’s NGO, Yele Haiti, which he co-founded to aid in relief efforts, set out to remind the world that there was still much re-building to do. And when Jean decided he could make a bigger difference as president of the Caribbean na-tion, he enlisted the PR firm to aid in his political bid.

At the half-year mark, the group’s public perception needed to be taken up a notch with Jean at center stage, especially when he decided on his presidential run, which would be positioned as a global game-changer—shifting him from musician to credible candidate.

Though ensuing crises had pulled the world’s attention away from Haiti, it needed to be brought back to the nation as well as vital aid. Once Jean was a candidate, his worldwide status was leveraged through media placements. But research showed that the diminished

press coverage was a result of a loss of interest in the country’s plight. So, the team launched an op-ed driven campaign, allowing Jean to share his stories and his love and devotion for his country.

To combat the media’s malaise, Euro RSCG learned which major outlets would be in Haiti for the six-month anniversary and made sure Jean would be available to them. Jean was pitched to celebrity media outlets as a socially conscious star that wasn’t just another public face, but a legitimate philanthropist with a strong message. Featured interviews with Jean followed in top outlets such as NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Observer and Rolling Stone.

Media placements for Yele Haiti and Jean’s presidential run were abundant. For Yele Haiti, coverage included CNN’s “American Morning” and “Larry King Live,” as well as op-ed pieces with Jean’s byline appeared in USAToday.com, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Times of London, CNN.com and The Miami Herald.

After Jean announced his candidacy, more than 500 media requests came in per day. During the first week, coverage included Caribbean papers, U.S. outlets such as Rolling Stone, The Christian Science Moni-tor, People and The New York Times. In the end, Jean was ruled ineligible due to residency issues, but was established as a passionate statesman prepared to lead his people.

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GOLDFormula PR

SILVERMinimum Wage Anniversary StudyBerman and Company

The Berman and Company managed Employ-ment Policies Institute (EPI) is a non-profit research organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth. In particular, EPI focuses on issues that affect entry-level employ-ment by sponsoring nonpartisan research conducted by independent economists at major universities around the country.

In 2007, Congress passed a 40 percent increase in the federal minimum wage. The increase occurred in three stages starting in July 2007 and ending in July 2009. On July 21, 2009 the federal minimum wage rose to $7.25 an hour, completing the final stage of the increase.

For the anniversary of the full implementation of the 40-percent increase, EPI commissioned research from known labor economists to quantify teen job loss as a direct result of the federal wage hike. The research findings were used by EPI to demonstrate that em-ployer mandates—such as a higher minimum wage—do in fact cause job loss for America’s most vulnerable workers.

Because policy makers and the general public lack knowledge about the unintended consequences of minimum wage hikes, this new research served as an educational tool for those groups.

On behalf of EPI, Berman and Company commis-sioned economists William E. Even of Miami Univer-sity and David A. Macpherson of Trinity University to provide a comprehensive examination of teen employment loss as a direct result of the 40-percent increase in the federal minimum wage. They found

that 114,400 fewer teens were employed as a direct result of the federal wage increase. The authors also noted that the estimates were conservative. If employ-ers react to the higher wages over time with longer-term hiring changes, more automation or an increased reliance on consumer self-service, the losses may be considerably greater.

PR tactics included developing a national press release on the study’s findings for the one-year anniversary of the wage hike’s full implementation, sending state-spe-cific pitches and press releases to media in states that suffered the greatest impact, and writing two different op-ed pieces that highlighted the research findings.

The campaign secured top-tier coverage in major dailies with a Wall Street Journal editorial highlighting the study and EPI-written op-ed pieces in the Houston Chronicle, Indianapolis Star and Investor’s Business Daily. Print coverage in major business publications included Forbes, National Review and Marketplace Magazine. Additional coverage of the study in regional business journals and local dailies across the country included the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, San Antonio Business Journal, Charleston Regional Business Journal, Journal News and the News Herald. An EPI spokes-person was featured on MSNBC and Bloomberg News discussing the study. Feature coverage on major news blogs included The Fiscal Times, Forbes, GlobalFinan-cialRadio.com and Bullfax.com.

BRONZEThe Hartford Removes the Biggest Obstacle to a Smooth Daily CommuteMM2 Public Relations and The Hartford

Preparing to roll out a new direct-to-consumer insur-ance product on a state-by-state basis, The Hartford wanted to increase its awareness in a category where competitors had been outspending the company for share of voice. Along with MM2 Public Relations, The Hartford created the “Commute Uninterrupted” program, leveraging the company’s brand positions

BEST USE OF RESEARCH – BUSINESS/CONSUMER


of “Your Life, Uninterrupted” to demonstrate to driv-ers in key markets that the company understands their needs.

The centerpiece of the campaign would be a research study to determine the factors that make a city drive-friendly. Once armed with the results of the study, The Hartford launched the “Pothole Patrol” to contribute to a smooth, safe and uninterrupted commute, while providing a highly visual local angle as a platform for media outreach in identified markets.

The research focused on the drivability of cities and towns, going beyond official statistics about traffic congestion and commute times, empowering respon-dents to define “drivability” for themselves and to tell stories of the road from a human perspective. A key finding that stood out from the results was that drivers believe fixing potholes or repaving streets is the most effective way to make their communities more driver-friendly.

After reviewing the preliminary results of the study at the end of the summer, the team developed the concept for the “Pothole Patrol” program. The PR team approached city governments in key metro areas with a proposal to fund the cost of their pothole repair trucks and brand the trucks with The Hartford signage. A website was also developed as a platform for the program, www.PotholePatrol.TheHartford.com, to showcase offending potholes, collect stories from driv-ers and solicit interaction from local residents.

Media coverage was secured in the major daily newspapers in 9 out of 10 markets where the “Pothole Patrol” program was implements, including the major daily in Tucson. Additional coverage included USA Today’s Snapshots section, the Chicago Sun-Times, Las Vegas Review-Journal and Oregonian, while coverage in business journals included Phoenix, Tucson, Mem-phis, Nashville and Minneapolis/St. Paul and Dallas. As a result of the campaign, the website received more than 2,500 visits.

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GOLDVince & Larry Dummies Crash into the SmithsonianOffice of Public Affairs, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

To create a media event that would raise awareness about the National Museum of American His-tory’s work in collecting objects related to auto safety, the museum decided to tie an event to the 25th anniversary of the Vince and Larry Public Service Announcements, which used dummies and humor to demonstrate the importance of safety-belt and child-safety-seat use.

The only problem: Where were the original Vince and Larry costumes used by the actors portraying the dum-mies? It took museum transportation curator, Roger White, two years to track down the costumes.

The museum decided to combine the auto safety col-lecting into one Donation Ceremony that would gar-ner more media attention than a single press release about individual objects coming to the Smithsonian. They would also stage an event centered on Vince and Larry, and provide a visual with Vince and Larry crashing into the Smithsonian with the original actors reprising their roles and filming the skit for posting on YouTube and the museum’s website.

Coverage included an Associated Press story picked up by more than 150 television, newspaper, radio and Internet news outlets, while other top hits included The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Detroit News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and San Francisco Chronicle. The campaign also aired on NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams” and on MSNBC.com.

SILVERThe Wampler FoundationSchwartz Communications

In September 2010, Stephen Wampler became the first person with cerebral palsy to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan Mountain—a mountain twice as high as the Empire State Building. His accomplishment was part of a year-long fundraising campaign to raise $2 million for his foundation that provides summer camp options for kids with physical disabilities.

Approached by ESET, a San Diego-based Internet security company, which was the corporate sponsor of the climb, Schwartz Communications was tabbed to craft a PR strategy to support Wampler’s climb and fundraising campaign.

Schwartz knew that the media had limited resources to send reporters, photographers, producers and cam-era crews to remote areas like Yosemite to cover the event. They also knew such stories are routinely fed to the media, so they would have to find an angle to set Steve’s climb apart. Schwartz decided to focus on Steve’s fundraising and personal tie to the foundation and summer camp as the hook for the story.

To spread Steve’s story throughout the country and world, Schwartz arranged for a satellite truck and crew to conduct a media tour out of Yosemite National Park 36 hours after his descent from the mountain. Steve also recorded and uploaded daily video diaries to engage with his Facebook and Twitter followers. A documentary film crew chronicling Steve’s climb sent 5-7 second sound bites a few days into the climb to be fed out on various social media platforms.

Schwartz secured stories on Fox News Online, CNN Sports, Outside Magazine, the Associated Press, as well as more than 110 other local broadcast stories around the country, with 17 stories appearing in top 10 markets. ABC “World News with Diane Sawyer” also did several in-depth features on Steve’s climb, in-

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cluding a profile during their “American Heart” series. The seven videos uploaded to YouTube and Facebook have been watched more than 20,000 times.

BRONZEHonest Tea’s Honest CityFormula and SS+K

Knowing that sampling is the ultimate tried-and-true tactic for marketing beverages, but one not likely to generate wide interest, SS+K devised a novel twist. To promote their client, Honest Tea, they launched the “Most Honest City in America” campaign, sampling something more than their client’s organic, lightly sweetened tea—the ideal of honesty.

To do that, they erected pop-up stands called “Honest Stores” in seven major U.S. cities over the hot summer months. Part sampling vehicle and part social experi-ment, the stores were stocked with racks of product for sale for $1.00. All purchases would be made on the honor system with the stores being completely unmanned.

Hidden cameras captured unsuspecting consumers’ reactions. Some stole their tea, while many more paid for it. SS+K issued local reports on each city’s results as well as national coverage of the campaign as a whole.

The campaign garnered 159 media placements, equat-ing to more than 280 million impressions and nearly $1.5 million in advertising sales. Media coverage of the campaign as well as the final results were covered by USAToday.com, MSNBC, AdAge.com, Huffington-Post.com, Bostonist.com, LAWeekly.com, and numer-ous regional TV news affiliates and websites in the seven participating cities.

Overall, the bulk of Americans proved to be upright citizens with the minority of participants taking prod-uct without paying. And the most honest city was? It

turned out to be Boston, scoring a 93.3 percent hon-esty rating, while Los Angeles was the least honest city with a 75 percent score.

HONORABLE MENTIONSnausages Man Sled RaceCoyne PR

Each March, the media turns its attention to Alaska, where more than 50 dog sled teams compete against one another in the Last Great Race on Earth, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. To keep Snausages top-of-mind with consumers and prove to retailers that Del Monte was dedicated to the brand, Coyne PR leveraged the media’s interest in the annual race in Alaska, creating the first “Snausages Man Sled Race,” a stand-alone dog sled event.

The Snausages brand was up against diminishing dis-tribution over the past several years as retailers threat-ened to remove product from shelves. The competition had also launched a national broadcast advertising campaign, so support of Snausages was critical to demonstrating that Del Monte remained committed to the brand.

To maximize media interest in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the Snausages Man Sled Race was planned and executed in just three weeks. The race allowed dogs to take a backseat, while humans pulled the sleds and raced across a frozen lake to the finish line. But, weather forecasters predicted rain for the next day, while local media couldn’t confirm attention at the event’s location. So, less than 24 hours before start time, Coyne relocated the event 40 miles north, from Girdwood to Anchorage.

PR activity surrounding the race created a 30-percent increase in traffic to the Snausages website, while the brand captured a 91-percent increase of the share-of-voice from its competitor and the race was mentioned in more than 1,400 stories in broadcast, print and on-line, garnering nearly 179 million media impressions.

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Top placements included multiple airings on ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” “Fox & Friends,” the Weather Channel, ESPN2, Versus Sports Network, Yahoo! News, AOL Paw Nation, USAToday.com, FoxSports.com, the Wall Street Journal Online and SportingNews.com.

GOLDGillette Fusion ProGlide Launch: Turning Skeptics into BelieversPorter Novelli



During their research, PN learned that while guys were unmoved by traditional advertising claims of “superior performance,” they responded immediately and favorably when actually trying the Gillette Fusion ProGlide. So, Porter Novelli had to put GFPG in the hands of users and influencers quickly—especially since rival Schick was about to release a new product.

To turn skeptics into believers quickly, PN utilized an “Always On” social media strategy, continually moni-toring, measuring and creating response protocol to the ongoing consumer feedback and sentiment hap-pening online. They measured the success of their current messaging based upon the content of the re-

sponses, and optimized their strategy and tactics with real-time data.

Tactics included using a social media announcement to preempt Schick’s launch, the creation of a “VIP Sampling” program to encourage bloggers to write about GFPG and to post a “widget” on their sites of-fering readers free samples, allowing a “multi-logue” where guys could share samples with friends through a digital widget and enlisting tech blogger Chris Pirillo and lifestyle blogger Will Harris from BullzEye.com to serve as “Gillette Pros” to create engaging and rel-evant content.


SILVERKraft’s Real Women of Philadelphia with Paula DeenRogers & Cowan

When Kraft, Paula Deen, EQAL and Digitas teamed up to create Paula Deen’s Real Women of Philadelphia (RWOP), it marked one of the first indus-try-branded online communities targeted to women nationwide. The program called upon the best home cooks in the country to submit videos and their most delicious recipes in the categories of side dish, ap-petizer, entrée and dessert using Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese.

More than 5,000 submissions poured in with 16 final-ists chosen and flown to Savannah, Georgia for a live ceremony to meet Paula Deen. One woman from each of the four categories was selected as a winner. Each

BEST USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS – BUSINESS/CONSUMER


received a talent contract worth $25,000, a chance to contribute to the RWOP cookbook and the opportu-nity to host a weekly online cooking show.

Hired by Kraft, Rogers & Cowan came aboard to promote the partnership and generate awareness and publicity surrounding the cooking competition. The team also promoted the final event in Savannah, Georgia.

Rogers & Cowan launched a series of how-to videos hosted by Paula Deen online, teaching Kraft’s target consumers how to participate in the online commu-nity and upload videos to the Internet. Women across the country embraced Paula’s Southern charm, know-ing if Paula could interact with technology success-fully, they could too. Rogers & Cowan positioned the campaign as a fun, simple and exciting new way to communicate, share recipes and create relationships with people of similar interests through an exciting new medium.

The firm drafted a press release and pitch calling all cooking enthusiasts across the country to join Paula Deen’s Real Women of Philadelphia community, reaching out to relevant cooking, contest, food and mommy bloggers to target their primary demographic of women who love to cook at home.

A smaller-scale competition gave existing and new community members another chance to win. Through the website, users could submit new recipes for a specific category to win $500 and the chance to be in-cluded in the RWOP community cookbook. Winners were announced each week and local outreach was conducted to recognize these women in front of their hometown audiences.

Finally, to keep community members engaged and media interested in the campaign, the team worked with Kraft to organize a media luncheon in New York City with Paula Deen where the four finalists could share their stories, experiences and successes from the

campaign. Top-tier print and online media attended, including Good Housekeeping, The Wall Street Jour-nal, The New York Times, Mashable.com and Food Network Magazine.

Since its launch, more than 690,000 unique visitors have visited the site. The Real Women of Philadelphia created their own site profiles, uploading pictures, writing articles and self-producing more than 5,000 entertaining, emotional and creative short videos showcasing how they use Philadelphia Cream Cheese in their favorite dishes. The videos received more than 19 million online views. Additionally, more than 32,000 registered on the site.

The campaign received placements in nearly 20 mar-kets, including Los Angeles, Orlando, Oklahoma City, Denver, CO and Savannah, GA. Paula Deen appeared on both “The View” and “The Rachael Ray Show” touting her involvement and the successes of the com-munity. Placements were also secured across top-tier online and print outlets, such as The New York Times, USA Today, Ad Age, Los Angeles Times, Mashable.com and ClickZ.com. Total media impressions secured for the campaign through the end of August 2010 was 234,079,377.

BRONZEAntivirus Comes Alive with Digital Birth CampaignMSR Communications

The world’s fourth largest security vendor, AVG Tech-nologies is known for its free products that target consumers. AVG enables people to browse and surf the web, shop, bank, download files and chat safely online. The company tasked MSR Communications with elevating its online presence in the U.S. con-sumer market to generate awareness for the company’s suite of security products with an emphasis on its free product.

To generate online buzz around AVG’s latest V2011


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product launch, MSR highlighted relatable user case scenarios, which helped the target audiences under-stand why Internet security is and should be important to them. The company’s “Digital Birth” campaign connected the product’s latest features to the “digital footprints” consumers create for themselves, their fam-ily members and friends by interacting online.

The “Digital Birth” campaign was developed to sup-port a survey the company conducted among moth-ers with children two years old or younger aimed at identifying at what point babies and toddlers have an online presence due to parents sharing information, including posting photographs, sonograms, and other personal information such as birth statistics on popular social networking sites.

Results revealed that by the time children are two years old, 92% of those in the U.S. have some type of online presence or “digital footprint.” Statistics showed that the average age at which a child acquires an online presence courtesy of their parents is at six months old.

MRS Communications used the results from the survey to target mommy, parenting, lifestyle and non-tradi-tional security and technology bloggers, asking them to think about what kind of digital life they’re creating for their kids from birth. The campaign’s purpose was to serve as a wake-up call for parents by demonstrat-ing the vulnerabilities of popular social networking sites coupled with risky online habits that can attract cybercriminals and other potential threats.

The survey raised awareness and sparked heated conversations across the Internet among bloggers and consumers as well as traditional media and broadcast outlets about the digital footprints users are creating for their children, families and friends.

Coverage included placements in CNET, PC Magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, AOL News, Fast Company and 95 additional blogs. Media placements in traditional

outlets included USA Today, NPR, BBC, Time Maga-zine, BusinessWeek and InformationWeek.



GOLDMicroStrategy: “Leave Your Laptop at Home: The iPad is Here”Schwartz Communications

When MicroStrategy, a global leader in business intelligence technology, hired Schwartz Commu-nications, they tasked the public relations firm with scoring coverage about their new mobile business intelligence technology in top trade and business press over the next three months.

To make the challenge even greater, MicroStrategy’s technology was so new that their customers had yet to deploy their MicroStrategy Mobile Apps on the iPad, which left Schwartz with no customers to offer the media.

But Schwartz quickly learned that MicroStrategy had deployed hundreds of the just-released iPads loaded with the Mobile App to their executives and sales force to allow them to make quick business decisions. Better yet, they loved it as a business tool, finding the iPad to be faster and easier to use than a laptop. Many even replaced their desktops and laptops with the iPad.

Now, Schwartz had a business story to tell to the me-dia. They would educate reporters about this surprising trend, while promoting MicroStrategy’s new mobile business intelligence technology. Schwartz launched the “Leave Your Laptop at Home: The iPad is Here” campaign.

After some convincing, reporters loved it. And the vast majority of articles secured by Schwartz referenced MicroStrategy’s new mobile business intelligence technology. The mobile application became one of the most popular business apps in the Apple App Store.

Schwartz had to move fast because time was tight to tell this trend story. Competitors had already an-nounced that they would also be developing business

intelligence apps for the iPad. With no customers, Schwartz convinced reporters to speak with Mi-croStrategy about their internal iPad deployment.

The results were impressive, with website traffic doubling from June to October, while the number of unique monthly visitors also doubled during that same time period. Press coverage contributed to three times more downloads of the MicroStrategy Mobile iPad app in the Apple App Store during the month of October. Schwartz secured positive articles in Forbes, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Investor’s Business Daily, Financial Times, Fox News, San Francisco Chronicle, Computerworld, InfoWorld, MacWorld, ZDNet, PC Magazine, PC World, IDG News, InformationWeek and hundreds of other publications and blogs.

SILVERIberdrola Renewables REScuing the RESThe Glover Park Group

Moving renewable energy policy ahead in the 111th Congress was an exhausting uphill battle. Oppo-nents pushed back hard at every turn. In the end, the widely-discussed “cap and trade” bill was relegated to the legislative scrap heap for the foreseeable future. However, an effective communications campaign led by Iberdrola Renewables and The Glover Park Group (GPG), the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES)—a less-discussed but important policy, initially abandoned alongside cap and trade—was moved from the scrap heap to the lead position in the energy policy discussion.

After only two months of work, Iberdrola Renewables, the second-largest wind energy installer in the U.S., and its allies affected a remarkable turnaround for the RES, a policy that would keep America’s clean energy industry competitive and protect Iberdrola Renewables’ billions in U.S. investments. By secur-ing and shaping near-daily coverage in The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Greenwire, Roll Call, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, National Journal, Reuters,

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The Hill, Grist and the AP, the campaign drove the debate in coordination with—and often as a driver of—the political circumstances.

At the end of September, the RES was back with one-third of the Senate co-sponsoring a bill that reporters, analysts and stakeholders agreed was at the center of the debate on America’s energy future. While the midterm elections practically ensured that no ac-tion would be taken on energy in the remainder of the 111th Congress, the RES campaign established an unprecedented level of awareness and support that the industry and its advocates plan to tap in the 112th.

BRONZEThe Future of Defense InkHouse & Raytheon

To position Raytheon ahead of the competition within the customer base and build awareness of the organization as a leader in technology innovation for prospective technical talent, public relations agency InkHouse launched the “Future of Defense” cam-paign.

The campaign highlighted the company’s most dynam-ic efforts as a leader in defense industry technology—from both historic and forward-looking perspectives. The aim would be to solidify Raytheon’s position as a thought leader and technology innovator fostering de-fense developments in air, land, sea, space and cyber.

The program focused on demonstrating to the compa-ny’s domestic customers that it had the capabilities to deliver the “Future of Defense,” build visibility within key media outlets that serve priority international mar-kets such as India and the Middle East, gain coverage in media outlets that focus on technology and innova-tion and ensure visibility in mainstream and business press in order to build more widespread awareness of the scope of technology innovation delivered by the company.

To support the efforts, Raytheon and InkHouse devel-oped an internal innovations catalogue, highlighting a handful of innovations that would differentiate the brand from the potential coverage of competitors.

The campaign solidified Raytheon’s leadership, en-abling the company to gain a 37% share of innovation coverage amongst its peer group over the past year and over 250 media placements. Coverage included CNET, CBSNews.com, Scientific American, CNN, blogs such as Wired, Engadget and Gizmodo and hits in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Washington Post and MSNBC.

HONORABLE MENTIONAntivirus Comes Alive with Digital Birth CampaignMSR Communications

The world’s fourth largest security vendor, AVG Tech-nologies is known for its free products that target consumers. AVG enables people to browse and surf the web, shop, bank, download files and chat safely online. The company tasked MSR Communications with elevating its online presence in the U.S. con-sumer market to generate awareness for the company’s suite of security products with an emphasis on its free product.

To generate online buzz around AVG’s latest V2011 product launch, MSR highlighted relatable user case scenarios, which helped the target audiences under-stand why Internet security is and should be important to them. The company’s “Digital Birth” campaign connected the product’s latest features to the “digital footprints” consumers create for themselves, their fam-ily members and friends by interacting online.

The “Digital Birth” campaign was developed to sup-port a survey the company conducted among moth-ers with children two years old or younger aimed at identifying at what point babies and toddlers have an online presence due to parents sharing information,



including posting photographs, sonograms, and other personal information such as birth statistics on popular social networking sites.

Results revealed that by the time children are two years old, 92% of those in the U.S. have some type of online presence or “digital footprint.” Statistics showed that the average age at which a child acquires an online presence courtesy of their parents is at six months old.

MRS Communications used the results from the survey to target mommy, parenting, lifestyle and non-tradi-tional security and technology bloggers, asking them to think about what kind of digital life they’re creating for their kids from birth. The campaign’s purpose was to serve as a wake-up call for parents by demonstrat-ing the vulnerabilities of popular social networking sites coupled with risky online habits that can attract cybercriminals and other potential threats.

The survey raised awareness and sparked heated conversations across the Internet among bloggers and consumers as well as traditional media and broadcast outlets about the digital footprints users are creating for their children, families and friends.

Coverage included placements in CNET, PC Magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, AOL News, Fast Company and 95 additional blogs. Media placements in traditional outlets included USA Today, NPR, BBC, Time Maga-zine, BusinessWeek and InformationWeek.


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GOLDSCVNGR Consumer LaunchLaunchSquad

After focusing exclusively on building a mobile gam-ing platform for enterprises, SCVNGR, a Google Ven-tures-backed location-based mobile gaming company, partnered with public relations firm LaunchSquad in May of 2010 to propel the company into the con-sumer technology space.

LaunchSquad would be responsible for building a story that would launch SCVNGR as a new and unique company in the crowded, location-based mobile space and drive users and downloads. With stiff competition such as Foursquare, which had over 1 million users at the time, Gowalla, Loopt, and others, LaunchSquad needed to position SCVNGR as a com-pelling new app for consumers. Taking on the account just three weeks prior to SCVNGR’s planned consumer launch at Google’s annual conference, they’d have only a few weeks to put their plan in motion.

The PR team highlighted how SCVNGR was different from competitors, while also developing messaging to reflect the enthusiasm and energy of its 21-year old CEO. A press release with a quirky tone was sent out over the wire on the morning the company officially announced that it had entered the general, consumer technology space.

Coverage of the launch included placements in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Mashable.com, TechCrunch, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, Financial Times, Fast Company and Ad Age. In total, launch coverage garnered 70 million impressions across vari-ous influential mainstream, technology, and advertis-ing publications.

LaunchSquad didn’t stop there, rolling out at least one game-changing announcement each week. During the 20 weeks following SCVNGR’s consumer launch, the PR team released 29 announcements, which resulted in 184 placements in media outlets, such as the Wall Street Journal and CNN, as well as the Sunday New York Times Business section.

SILVERNikon Festival Social Campaign Championing D-SLR VideoMWW Group and McCann-Erickson

Combining the popularity of HD video and user-gen-erated content creation within the social media space, Nikon and MWW Group redefined movie-making with the first-ever online film festival relying solely on social media. The Nikon Festival was designed to increase the digital imaging leader’s visibility as a social media innovator within the consumer electron-ics category and to garner positive editorial coverage for the brand.

With Nikon advertising star Ashton Kutcher having just defeated CNN in his race to a million Twitter fol-lowers, and sharing photos emerging as the primary activity of the more than 400 million Facebook users, Nikon and MWW Group decided on a social program that tapped into consumer sharing as a way to create active engagement with the brand.

Furthermore, the growth of video, including more than two billion video views daily, drove Nikon and MWW Group to create the Nikon Festival to add value to fan aspiration with a social video festival hosted entirely online.

The strategy was to leverage the theme “A Day in the Life” with noteworthy spokespeople/judges, prize content, interesting news angles and unique consumer engagement to create positive media coverage and sustain online visibility using Ashton Kutcher, actor Rainn Wilson, professional photographer Chase Jarvis

BEST TECHNOLOGY CAMPAIGN – CONSUMER


and Internet evangelist iJustine.

Results included over 121 million digital media im-pressions, over 62 million Twitter impressions, over 500,000 visits to NikonFestival.com, over 2,200 video submissions and over 7,000 social media followers.

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GOLDWhere the Chefs Eat: Houston Culinary ToursGreater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau







SILVERHomeAway Comes Up a Winner at the Super BowlMM2 Public Relations and HomeAway

Looking for a way to significantly raise awareness of its brand and its travel category, HomeAway.com, the world’ largest online marketplace for vacation rentals, decided that advertising in the 2010 Super Bowl repre-sented a platform for a year-long marketing program.

Because the advertising would be the centerpiece of the company’s marketing efforts and budget for the year, the plan had to maximize awareness before, dur-ing and after the Super Bowl.

Promoting the message to consumers that “You can rent a whole house for half the price of a hotel” through the company’s domestic and international websites, HomeAway.com along with MM2 Public Relations, reunited actors Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo in a reprise of their roles from the popular “National Lampoon’s Vacation” movie.

To ensure that the excitement generated by the ad

BEST TRAVEL, HOSPITALITY & DESTINATIONS CAMPAIGN


during the Super Bowl didn’t fade when the game ended, HomeAway and MM2 created a summer-long mobile tour with the iconic Family Truckster from the “Vacation” movie, using an exact replica designed to engage consumers with HomeAway in vacation spots around the country.

One challenge caused the plans to change early on. The celebrity actors in the commercial wouldn’t agree to participate in any media interviews or related activities. Thus conversations with media in exploring behind-the-scenes stories related to the filming were scuttled when celebrity participation couldn’t be ar-ranged.

After People magazine and The New York Times passed on the exclusive, Us Weekly jumped at the opportunity, running an online mention the evening before the scheduled distribution of the announce-ment news release. The story ignited interest from all media categories, including those that passed the first time. Over the next few days, 100 media outlets and websites reported on the reunion of Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo for the HomeAway ad.

The campaign generated more than 2,800 print, broadcast and online media placements. Print media coverage included placements in the Associated Press, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Entertain-ment Weekly and TV Guide. Broadcast media cover-age included ABC’s “Good Morning America,” CBS’ “The Early Show” and “Entertainment Tonight.”

BRONZENicaragua!Murphy O’Brien Public Relations and INTUR, the Nicaraguan Tourism Board

When Murphy O’Brien Public Relations began working with the Nicaraguan Institute of Tour-ism (INTUR), the challenges were numerous. The second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,

Nicaragua had a history of revolution and civil war, a President known for anti-American sentiments and very little or any visibility among North Americans as a tourist destination.

The PR team quickly learned that the country offered all the ecotourism opportunities of its neighbor Costa Rica and even more unspoiled natural beauty. But they would first have to dispel misperceptions that Nicaragua is dangerous and unstable, and entice top travel journalists who could write about the country’s scenery, hospitality, accommodations and culture. Also, by exposing Nicaragua on U.S. television by enticing TV shows such as “Survivor” and “The Bach-elor” to film there, the campaign intended to make the country a household name in the U.S.

The team’s big break occurred when they learned CBS’s “Survivor” was seeking host countries for the 2010 and 2011 seasons. They accompanied the show’s producers on a scouting trip to Nicaragua, coordinated visits to target hotels and meetings with important officials and persuaded government officials to provide a helicopter for scouting remote beaches.

The efforts paid off in a big way, the producers of “Survivor” deciding that not just one, but two seasons would be filmed back-to-back and called “Survivor-Nicaragua.”

Once CBS announced the news of “Survivor-Nica-ragua,” the PR team leveraged the news with group and individual press trips that resulted in destination stories in various outlets, including the Washington Post, Financial Times, Men’s Journal, Travel Weekly, Travel+Leisure.com, LATimes.com and HuffingtonPost.com. During filming of the show, dozens of articles were generated in print, broadcast and online outlets such as CBS TV, CBS.com, People.com, Us.com and TVGuide.com. Both the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times included Nicaragua in articles about the impact on host countries when filming U.S. reality shows.

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GOLDAnnals Tips and Clips ProgramAmerican College of Physicians

The American College of Physicians (ACP) is the largest medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician group in the United States. Members include internal medicine physicians and related subspecialists who focus on the prevention, detec-tion, and treatment of illness in adults. One of the key benefits of ACP membership is a subscription to its flagship journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, a twice-monthly peer-reviewed medical journal featuring research that informs the practice of internal medicine.

The journal faces fierce competition for media cover-age from other high-profile publications such as the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. These journals not only have high name recognition among consumers, but they also publish weekly, rather than semi-month-ly. The communications team at ACP recognized a need to revitalize its media relations efforts for Annals in such as way that the media would begin to look to the journal as “must cover” news.

The team found that the most widely read medical journals received several media hits per month in top-tier media outlets such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, USA Today and CNN. Re-search also showed that articles mentioned in top-tier media outlets get 70 percent more citations in future academic research than those not covered in the me-dia. So, instead of focusing on hard news or original research, the team decided to take a new and different approach by focusing on articles that shed light on unexpected and consumer-friendly news when reach-ing out to the media.

To better reach the media, the ACP communications team developed the “Annals of Internal Medicine Tips and Clips Program,” a media-friendly way to package

the scientific news and information that is published twice a month in the medical journal. The Tip Sheet showcased top news from the upcoming issues of Annals with an emphasis on consumer-friendly topics. Studies that focused on new, unique or surprising facts were highlighted. The information was distributed to a long list of top healthcare reporters under strict em-bargo, giving the writers time to interview authors and read the studies. The Tip Sheet’s list grew to nearly 600 reporters.

The program earned 900 million branded media impressions and changed the way Annals delivered its news to the media. Placements were secured in top outlets such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, ABC News, MSNBC.com, CNN, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe and Huffington Post.

SILVERThe Pop Heard ‘Round the World: Bubble Wrap’s 50th BirthdayCoyne PR



To celebrate during the day of the birthday, Coyne sent out a mailer to top media outlets, which consisted

BEST CAMPAIGN UNDER $100,000


of a two-tiered Bubble Wrap cake and gold Bubble Wrap with a birthday card that highlighted 50 different popular uses.



BRONZEHomeAway Comes Up a Winner at the Super BowlMM2 Public Relations and HomeAway

Looking for a way to significantly raise awareness of its brand and its travel category, HomeAway.com, the world’ largest online marketplace for vacation rentals, decided that advertising in the 2010 Super Bowl repre-sented a platform for a year-long marketing program.

Because the advertising would be the centerpiece of the company’s marketing efforts and budget for the year, the plan had to maximize awareness before, dur-ing and after the Super Bowl.

Promoting the message to consumers that “You can rent a whole house for half the price of a hotel” through the company’s domestic and international websites, HomeAway.com along with MM2 Public Relations, reunited actors Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo in a reprise of their roles from the popular “National Lampoon’s Vacation” movie.

To ensure that the excitement generated by the ad during the Super Bowl didn’t fade when the game ended, HomeAway and MM2 created a summer-long mobile tour with the iconic Family Truckster from the

“Vacation” movie, using an exact replica designed to engage consumers with HomeAway in vacation spots around the country.

One challenge caused the plans to change early on. The celebrity actors in the commercial wouldn’t agree to participate in any media interviews or related activities. Thus conversations with media in exploring behind-the-scenes stories related to the filming were scuttled when celebrity participation couldn’t be ar-ranged.

After People magazine and The New York Times passed on the exclusive, Us Weekly jumped at the opportunity, running an online mention the evening before the scheduled distribution of the announce-ment news release. The story ignited interest from all media categories, including those that passed the first time. Over the next few days, 100 media outlets and websites reported on the reunion of Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo for the HomeAway ad.

The campaign generated more than 2,800 print, broadcast and online media placements. Print media coverage included placements in the Associated Press, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Entertain-ment Weekly and TV Guide. Broadcast media cover-age included ABC’s “Good Morning America,” CBS’ “The Early Show” and “Entertainment Tonight.”


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GOLDVince & Larry Dummies Crash into the SmithsonianOffice of Public Affairs, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

To create a media event that would raise awareness about the National Museum of American His-tory’s work in collecting objects related to auto safety, the museum decided to tie an event to the 25th anniversary of the Vince and Larry Public Service Announcements, which used dummies and humor to demonstrate the importance of safety-belt and child-safety-seat use.

The only problem: Where were the original Vince and Larry costumes used by the actors portraying the dum-mies? It took museum transportation curator, Roger White, two years to track down the costumes.

The museum decided to combine the auto safety col-lecting into one Donation Ceremony that would gar-ner more media attention than a single press release about individual objects coming to the Smithsonian. They would also stage an event centered on Vince and Larry, and provide a visual with Vince and Larry crashing into the Smithsonian with the original actors reprising their roles and filming the skit for posting on YouTube and the museum’s website.

Coverage included an Associated Press story picked up by more than 150 television, newspaper, radio and Internet news outlets, while other top hits included The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Detroit News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and San Francisco Chronicle. The campaign also aired on NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams” and on MSNBC.com.

SILVERWhere the Chefs Eat: Houston Culinary ToursGreater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau









BRONZETurning the Tide: Securing a Strategic Foothold in Central AsiaAir Force

The public affairs and community relations landscapes couldn’t have been more fractured during the final efforts by the U.S. Government to maintain the loca-tion of the 376 Air Expeditionary Wing at Manas Air Base. Remnants of the three marquee incidents in 2006—namely, the shooting of a Kyrgyz national at a checkpoint, fuel dumping incidents with the KC-135 air refueling aircraft and the abduction of an officer—were still actively written about and exploited by those invested in the base’s removal.

The Kyrgyz citizens exposed to these stories found it very easy to accept the prevailing criticisms of a lack of respect from the U.S. during the base’s tenure both culturally and economically. The prospects of con-cluding a successful lease to maintain the operation in Kyrgyzstan looked tenuous at best. Also, research showed that the region had been under the influence of a well-funded and well-educated, half-century-old propaganda campaign against the U.S.

Following a successful campaign to maintain opera-tions in Kyrgyzstan as the Manas Air Base, renamed Transit Center at Manas as a result of a new lease and agreement between U.S. and Kyrgyz governments, the PR efforts needed to transition the mindset of the Kyrgyz population and government from thinking they were a landlord to that of a partner in Operation En-during Freedom, and that both countries were needed jointly to win the war in Afghanistan.

The 376th Public Affairs staff aggressively worked to counter false information by increasing transparency to the Kyrgyz people. They conducted Transit Center at Manas mission briefings abroad, gave base tours to military, Kyrgyz government officials, students, inter-national media, local business groups and leaders. Through websites, radio, local, regional and national media, the public affairs staff made sure the Kyrgyz people saw and heard the great things the U.S. was doing for their country as they partnered to support troops in Afghanistan through strong logistical accom-plishments. For example, Kyrgyzstan was notified of the military and U.S. accomplishments of training lo-cal doctors, immunizing children against tape worms, building and renovating local schools and furnish-ing them with furniture, computers and supplies and teaching military, state and government officials on how-to conduct public relations operations for their own organizations.

The media efforts culminated in a first for the Transit Center, a half-hour, live broadcast interview on Kyrgyz television with the commander of the Transit Center explaining the mission of the Transit Center and an-nouncing a major humanitarian assistance project to the national and across the entire former Soviet Union.

The U.S. Public Affairs Campaign in the former So-viet Republic yielded positive results, such as halting adversarial propaganda and its impact on the mission, while over 100 media representatives attended events hosted by the Transit Center. In the press, the number of negative articles decreased and the number of bal-


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anced to positive articles increased.

The Transit Center at Manas is still present, open and fully operational in Kyrgyzstan and continues to deliver millions of pounds of fuel to jets, cargo to the region, and Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines to the fight resulting in saved lives in large part due to the public affairs efforts to communication and inform the international community as well as its own personnel on the Air Forces’ missions and roles in Kyrgyzstan.

HONORABLE MENTIONGoodyear Border to Border on One Tank of FuelCoyne PR

In February of 2009, Goodyear led the fuel efficiency charge in the tire industry, introducing Assurance Fuel Max tires, which featured a proprietary trend com-pound, which offered 27 percent better rolling resis-tance than its predecessor, translating to substantially better fuel economy for consumers. With Goodyear continuing to look for ways to keep Assurance Fuel Max in front of U.S. motorists, the company turned to Coyne PR to help keep the tire in the spotlight.

To highlight the new tires, Goodyear and Coyne PR turned to inventor and engineer Craig Henderson, who had built the world’s first 100-MPG sports car, the Avion in 1985. The Avion runs solely on diesel fuel and set the Guinness World Record for fuel economy, averaging 103.7 MPG in 1986 on a trip from Mexico to Canada. Goodyear and Coyne would challenge Henderson to shatter his previous record, using the same classic car, a single tank of gas and Assurance Fuel Max tires.

Henderson would drive from the border of Canada to the border of Mexico on one tank of gas and do so averaging 100-MPG. Coyne would create news by leveraging Henderson’s innovative car, Goodyear’s innovative tires and activate the program prior to a key seasonal driving trigger—Labor Day.

Coyne PR reached out to local and top media markets between the Canadian and Mexican borders, offering interview opportunities with Henderson during the drive and at his stops in major markets along the way. Beginning in Seattle, Washington, Henderson headed down the West Coast making media stops in Portland, Oregon, Redding, California, Fresno, California, San Yesidro, California (Mexican border) and back up to San Diego for a finish line celebration at a local Good-year Dealer.

Henderson not only completed his border-to-border run on one tank of fuel, he smashed his previous Guinness World Record by averaging 119.1-MPG over the course of his journey.

The Avion, equipped with Assurance Fuel Max tires was featured in top media outlets, including Fast Com-pany.com, Wired.com, Gizmodo, The New York Times Auto Blog, Seattle Times, AOL Auto Blog, San Diego Union-Tribune and top automotive website Jalopnik.



GOLDHot Quark Soup Stirs Up Massive News CoverageBrookhaven National Laboratory with Tartaglia Communications

Some of the challenges facing the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laborato-ry—and Tartaglia Communications when they sought to publicize research at BNL’s Heavy Ion Col-lider (RHIC), a particle accelerator exploring condi-tions of the early universe—included securing media coverage of a complicated science story some thought they’d already reported on, plan the release of news about research when it takes place at a facility with over 1,000 international collaborators who take years to analyze, reach consensus on findings and change media perceptions that the facility is no longer a major player in its field, and that U.S. leadership in physics is declining.

Since 2005’s news of creating a “perfect liquid,” RHIC scientists had not made major announcements. Many 2005 media reports wrongly described the perfect liquid as quark-gluon plasma (QGP), the primordial Holy Grail of nuclear physics. Since then, Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) prepared to come on-line, siphoning off physicists and capturing the atten-tion of physics reporters. Some key reporters, such as The New York Times’ Dennis Overbye, were focused strictly on the LHC and ignored the fact that RHIC was still conducting top-tier scientific research.

The campaign sought to secure top-tier consumer and science media, communicate scientific success and showcase U.S. leadership in science with both Ameri-can and global audiences. The PR team also learned about two major findings to be submitted to physics journals, which were that collisions at RHIC had cre-ated the hottest temperature ever seen in a lab—hotter than the temperature required to create QGP and that “quark soup” showed evidence of forming “bubbles” in which two of the universe’s fundamental “laws” of

symmetry are violated.

The PR team targeted the APS February 2010 meeting in Washington, D.C. for the announcements of the findings. They knew physics reporters from the target media would be in attendance and could properly interpret RHIC results. Also, by partnering with Sci-ence Writers in New York for a February 2010 tour of RHIC/virtual tour of the LHC, they leveraged interest in the LHC startup to cultivate key science journalists, including The New York Times’ Overbye, who had not covered RHIC. In addition, personalized pitches were sent to the most strategically important journalists, including the Times’ Overybe, Sharon Begley from Newsweek, Dan Vergano from USA Today, Maggie Fox from Reuters, and reporters and editors at Science, Nature and other top-tier science publications.

Coverage included over 500 stories in over 40 coun-tries from Reuters and Agence France-Presse, as well as many original stories. Nearly all stories, including Reuters and USA Today, mentioned the U.S. Depart-ment of Energy. Many major online stories ran as well, including The New York Times, Newsweek, MSNBC and Fox News.

SILVERJumby Bay a Rosewood ResortHawkins International PR

When Jumby Bay, a Rosewood Resort representing the private-island destination off the coast of Antigua, decided to undergo a $28 million enhancement that would bring the island’s first spa, new and upgraded dining options, 28 new suites, as well as new estate homes to the existing pool of rentals, they retained longtime public relations firm Hawkins Interna-tional PR (HIPR) to keep the luxury resort front-of-mind until its reopening in December 2009.

The Hawkins team targeted Town & Country and De-partures as major consumer pubs to reach, but limited photography (only one model room was shot) made


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generating front-of-book coverage a challenge. Also, the resort’s reopening rates of $1,395 per night was a major challenge for most editors who’d been focusing coverage around value and deals due to the recession.

In order to keep the ongoing renovation story front-of-mind, HIPR coordinated an ongoing relationship be-tween Jumby Bay and a freelance journalist to launch and regularly update a blog and Twitter account that would share updates. This allowed the media to be looped in to the latest developments as they hap-pened. They also focused on the value of an inclusive luxury resort and the unique rental program available on the island.

HIPR continued to work closely with Town & Coun-try and Departures, creating unique angles for these competing publications: For Departures, a first-person perspective of the redesigned resort experience; while for Town & Country, a closer look at the homeowners’ lifestyle and rental resort program on the island.

Pre-opening coverage was secured in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Brides, Caribbean Travel +Life, Miami Herald and About.com. Additional feature coverage followed in the Wall Street Journal, Austin-American Statesman, while press trips following the re-opening produced coverage in ForbesLife, Boston Common, Time.com and Destinations Weddings & Honeymoons.

BRONZEDefeat The DebtBerman and Company

Following projections from the Office of Manage-ment and Budget (OMB) that estimated Congress would add $1.58 trillion to the national dept in 2009 and more than $9 trillion in new debt over the next decade, Berman and Company-managed Employ-ment Policies Institute (EPI), a non-profit organiza-tion that’s dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth and the economy,

launched the “Defeat the Dept” campaign.

Created to educate the public on the enormity of the national dept, the campaign also sought to communi-cate to unknowing Americans the size and immediate consequences of the unsustainable national debt.

The EPI put the concept of trillions into an understand-able context, explaining that one million seconds will pass in the next 12 days, one billion seconds takes 32 years and one trillion seconds will pass in 31,688 years. They also simplified statistics about the dept in order to drive home the fact that the national dept is on an unsustainable path, with trillions in additional dept to be added over the next decade.

To communicate the country’s poor shape, the EPI dispatched 17 actors and spokesmen playing dishev-eled versions of Uncle Sam throughout downtown Washington, D.C., Manhattan and Chicago begging for $12 trillion to garner public and media attention to the dept issue.

The efforts secured top media coverage with The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, CNBC, The Atlantic, Roll Call, Washington Times, CBS Washing-ton, Fox Washington and the Christian Science Moni-tor. In addition, Time magazine, Washington Post, Yahoo News, New York Post, Chicago Sun-Times and Politico picked up Reuters’ photos of “Uncle Sam.” Lastly, a Gallup poll indicated that for the first time, the public viewed the federal deficit as the single most important future problem facing the United States.



GOLDBobble LaunchHL Group

The Bobble is a patented, fashion-meets-function reusable water bottle made from recycled plastic. Similar to that of Brita or Pur, a carbon filter is built into the cap. In January of 2010, the makers of Bobble hired HL Group to manage the February 2010 U.S. launch of the product.

Bobble is intended to encourage consumers to drink more water, and also to wean consumers off of single-serve plastic water bottles, which line retail shelves and sidewalks, and fill landfill and the ocean. Though single-serve plastic water bottles are an environmen-tal menace, Americans spent $17 billion on them last year—despite the availability of free, healthy tap water in every home and office across the country.

To make things more difficult, few consumer segments are more tightly contested than the water market. Everyone sells the same product. The PR team had one opportunity to introduce Bobble to consumers who’d shown ambivalence toward the free tap water avail-able to them.

In an effort to combat consumers’ attachment to single-serving bottles of water, HL Group created a network of “bobblebassadors” of fans who would ad-vocate for the product and convert others by showing them that Bobble was the superior alternative to the current products available.

But, when the date finally arrived for the PR team to officially unveil the product, it wasn’t yet available in stores due to retail and shipping logistics. Since it could only be purchased on Bobble’s website, the campaign had to be entirely directed toward the media. HL Group quickly regrouped, issuing a press release to an array of media and seeding them all with the product. Bobble was also introduced at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, the Design Leadership Summit in

Venice, Italy and to fashion designers throughout New York. The designers frequently kept Bobbles in their showrooms and passed them along to other celebrities and influencers.

Before Bobble was even available on store shelves, the product had received placements in top pubs, creating a storm of word of mouth buzz.

The media placements continued to pour in even after the Bobble hit stores, including two different segments on “The Today Show” and articles in Men’s Health, The New York Times, The Oprah Magazine, Seventeen Magazine, Better Homes & Gardens, Popular Science, SHAPE, Lucky Magazine and InStyle.

SILVERDictionary.com: From Respected Reference Site to Mobile and Online InnovatorMSR Communications

The world’s largest and most authoritative online and mobile dictionary, Dictionary.com has more than 50 million unique users worldwide. With the introduction of mobile applications for Dictionary.com in 2009, the company quickly discovered the consumer demand for dictionary-related content in the exact context us-ers needed it in. They tasked MSR Communications with launching a public relations campaign that would solidify Dictionary.com as the most trusted source for word discovery “in the moment.” The campaign would position Dictionary.com as the leader in the mobile industry, accessible across all platforms, including iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Android, while also driv-ing user awareness and downloads.

MSR Communications’ goal would be to establish Dictionary.com as the premier source for word discov-ery anytime, anywhere and on any electronic device for professional, academic, social and recreational needs. Already well known as the online source for word discovery, MSR would have to garner the same type of recognition for its mobile products.


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To make a big splash, MSR issued a press release an-nouncing Dictionary.com’s 10 million mobile down-loads milestone and their new iPad app to key media. Next, the PR team played up the Dictionary.com app’s rapid adoption on the Android platform with two mil-lion downloads in five months.

Shortly after that, capitalizing on the media’s interest in comparing the different mobile platforms and to establish Dictionary.com as the expert on user behav-ior across all mobile devices, MSR created and distrib-uted a pitch on the user behavior patterns Dictionary.com saw across multiple platforms. With more than 50 million users on various mobile platforms, MSR un-derstood that Dictionary.com could provide reporters with an insider look at what users were doing on each device. In particular, they leveraged the notion that the words users seek to define provide a unique insight into thought and behavior.

With the launch of the API Developer Center, Dic-tionary.com provided access to its trusted content to developers across all channels. A partnership with Barnes & Noble’s NOOK also more clearly defined the significance of its API Developer Center in the minds of thought leaders, furthering its reputation as a com-pany at the forefront of mobile innovation.

The six-month campaign positioned Dictionary.com as the leading online and mobile dictionary across all platforms, its apps for the iPhone and iPad hailed as “Apple Staff Favorites” and listed as “#1 Apps for College Students” by U.S. News & World Report and ranked in the top five on CNET’s Top 100 iPhone Apps list.

MSR secured coverage in over 125 outlets with over 850 syndicated placements, including original articles in U.S. News & World Report, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Washington Post, as well as Mash-able.com, PCWorld, Macworld and many others.

BRONZEWyclef/YeleEuro RSCG Worldwide PR

At the six-month anniversary of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, who’d already been working with Wyclef Jean’s NGO, Yele Haiti, which he co-founded to aid in relief efforts, set out to remind the world that there was still much rebuilding to do. And when Jean decided he could make a bigger difference as president of the Caribbean nation, he enlisted the PR team to aid in his political bid.

At the half-year mark, the group’s public perception needed to be taken up a notch with Jean at center stage, especially when he decided on his presidential run, which would be positioned as a global game-changer—shifting him from musician to credible candidate.

Though ensuing crises had pulled the world’s atten-tion away from Haiti, it needed to be brought back to the nation, as well as vital aid. Once Jean was a candidate, his worldwide status was leveraged through media placements. But research showed that the diminished press coverage was due to a loss of interest in the country’s plight. So the team launched an op-ed-driven campaign, allowing Jean to share his stories and his love and devotion for his country.

To combat the media malaise, Euro RSCG learned which major outlets would be in Haiti for the six-month anniversary and make sure Jean would be available to them. Jean was pitched to celebrity media outlets as a socially conscious star that wasn’t just another public face, but a legitimate philanthropist with a strong message. Featured interviews with Jean followed in top outlets such as NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Observer and Rolling Stone.

Media placements for Yele Haiti and Jean’s presidential run were abundant. For Yele Haiti, coverage included



CNN’s “American Morning,” “Larry King Live,” and op-ed pieces with Jean’s byline appeared in USAToday.com, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Times of London, CNN.com and The Miami Herald.

After Jean announced his candidacy, more than 500 media requests came in per day. During the first week, coverage included Caribbean papers, U.S. outlets such as Rolling Stone, The Christian Science Moni-tor, People and The New York Times. In the end, Jean was ruled ineligible due to residency issues, but was established as a passionate statesman prepared to lead his people.


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Having dinner as a family used to be the norm for households across the country. Dinnertime together represented a moment during the day for families to connect—for children and parents to share details about their day. But, with our over-scheduled and busy lives of today, with parents logging longer hours at work and children participating in various sports and after school activities, it’s harder than ever to line-up everyone’s schedule to share dinner together. Now, in-stead of a meal as one, family members end up eating dinner separately at different times during the evening.


When the results from a proprietary study conducted by Edelman’s research arm Strategy One revealed that 93% of people ranked sharing meals as the most important activity in helping them connect with their family, Barilla saw an opportunity to communicate the importance of Americans sharing meaningful meals together. To raise awareness of the benefits of creating and sharing meals, Barilla launched “Share the Table: The Barilla Family Dinner Project” campaign.

“The goal of this campaign for Barilla was to build brand equity, to create a presence for us with consum-ers when they went to the shelf,” explains Prita Wad-hwani, marketing manager, integrated marketing at Barilla. “We wanted them to have a connection with the brand so that they thought about Barilla. Once we had the results of the study, it seemed like a natural fit for us and really influenced and formulated what the

campaign would be about.”





BEST WEBSITE – BUSINESS/CONSUMER






Utilize every tool available, not just public re-lations: “What worked for us was the 360 approach,”

she says. “It wasn’t just public relations, but all the other marketing tools and levers in the toolbox to get consumers to engage with the campaign.”




SILVERNo Performance TaxWinning Strategies and National Associa-tion of Broadcasters

Special-interest groups representing the recording industry had been lobbying Congress to pass legisla-tion forcing radio stations to pay a performance royalty fee to the recording industry for the right to play their copyrighted music on the radio.

After fending off a record industry attempt in 2009, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) pre-


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pared another defense in January 2010. They tapped Mercury Public Affairs to develop an online grassroots campaign, centered on a new campaign website and related social media sites.

The website was designed to provide a platform for members of the NAB and the public to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the legislation directly to their representatives in Congress. The campaign registered more than 26,000 supporters and generated more than 28,000 emails to members of Congress after only one month following the launch. While the legislation is still alive, the public awareness and action halted any immediate movement on the bill after the campaign launch.

The campaign’s Facebook page has more than 30,000 people that “like” it. In the 14 days after the launch, the Facebook page went from zero to 18,000 fans and has grown at a steady pace ever since. On Twitter, the campaign feed has 700 followers and as been listed 34 times.

For legislation such as this bill, members of Congress attempt to understand the personal impact on con-sumers. The stories shared about “Why I love radio” provided examples of that personal impact. Fifty per-cent of registrants (15,000) submitted a personal story. The campaign stopped any initial movement on the bill, mobilizing supporters ready to act should there be threats of additional movement.

BRONZETime to Talk CARDIOPorter Novelli







The online tool was then tested in clinical practice set-tings, which included pilot testing the website’s new online skill-building tool among approximately 300


patients and 30 providers in five leading, regionally diverse private practices in Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina and Ohio. The testing included pre- and post-test questionnaires for providers and pa-tients to gauge satisfaction with the online program’s tools and materials, the in-office healthcare visit, the overall length of the visit and the overall use of skills emphasized by the program resources.




2011 bulldog awards hall of fame magazine

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