2012 bulldog digital/social pr awards hall of fame

2012 BULLDOG DIGITAL/SOCIAL PR AWARDS

Featuring Grand Prize Winner Cisco Systems for The NetworkSummaries of the Winners for the 2012 Digital/Social Awards

Best Use of Digital/Social in a CommunicationsCampaignGrand PrizeAwarded to

Cisco SystemsForCisco’s the Network

Cisco’s “The Network” was launched in June 2011 to

fully embrace the communication strategy of brand

journalism. Cisco shed the traditional corporate

newsroom model, which only promoted news about a

brand, to become a true newsroom of the future. By

embracing the brand journalism communication

strategy, The Network became a news portal that not

only focuses on news about Cisco, but also reports on

topics that interest a wider audience.

The Network’s redesigned content was to be engaging,

share-worthy and viral. Further, The Network was to

become a standard for brand journalism for other

corporations that hoped to revamp their newsrooms.

The message behind The Network was for the re-

launched newsroom to become a great online

destination for the latest technology news and Cisco

insights. Multimedia content, such as articles,

infographics and videos posted under the topics of “Data

Center,” “Core Networks,” “Video,” “Collaboration,”

“Cisco Culture” and “Social Media,” to appeal to both an

audience seeking Cisco information and to readers

looking for more general technology or social media

information.

Cisco used multimedia content, including articles written

by a team of media veterans for Forbes, Bloomberg and

Business Insider, demo videos featuring Cisco solutions

and infographics on cloud computing and other modern

technology trends. Cisco spread awareness about The

Network to its employees by promoting it on the internal

Cisco employee homepage and on digital signage placed

in the common area of the Cisco office buildings.

To reach an external audience, Cisco ran ad campaigns

on Mashable.com and social advertisements across

Cisco’s 200 Twitter and Facebook pages. The newsroom

also had an HTML widget box that enabled readers to

grab the HTML code and place content from The

Network directly onto their page. To further increase the

sharing of the content, the “Take, Share, Engage”

campaign was created to encourage people to literally

take the content from The Network for reposting—the

only ask was to credit Cisco in the post.

Within the first week of its launch, The Network’s landing

page received 90K visits from 189 different countries.

The Network currently receives more than 250K page

views per month with each unique piece of content

getting approximately 1,100 views. In addition, each

piece of content averages over 200 Facebook “likes”

and 1,000 tweets. The Network also received press

mentions and accolades from renowned publications,

such as Social Media Today, Ragan.com, PRWeek, Zdnet,

Brian Solis and Splash Media.

Best Use of Digital/Social in anArts/Culture/Entertainment CampaignGold Awarded to

Deveney CommunicationForDeveney Quinceañero

The year 2011 marked the 15th Anniversary of Deveney

Communications. The transformation and growth

experienced since the founding in 1996 has been

significant, so the agency wanted to both celebrate its

maturity as well as communicate to past, present and

future clients its successes.

In Latin American cultures, a Quinceañero or fifteenth

birthday is celebrated differently than other years, as it

marks the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Deveney decided to play with this theme and host a

Deveney Quinceañero to both have fun and leverage the

celebration to raise awareness of the firm, its abilities

and accomplishments.

The guest list was diverse and included international,

national and local government, nonprofit, corporate and

web leaders. They ranged from traditional and

conservative to progressive and liberal. Partners,

colleagues and past employees made up the target

audience as well.

Deveney sought to create a promotion to capture

attention and communicate the firm turning 15-years-

old. To get the word out, Deveney designed an HTML

email invitation and web-based landing page that linked

to an online RSVP system and orchestrated a Latin-

inspired birthday party on the day of the anniversary. In

order to stand out among the audience’s volumes of

2012 Bulldog Digital/Social Hall of Fame Awards1

2012 Bulldog Digital/Social Hall of Fame Awards

mail, Deveney created an HTML email that would lead

guests to a humorous Flash-based landing page hosted

by the Deveney Communications website. The landing

page opened with an illustration of the Faubourg

Marigney neighborhood where the firm’s office resides

and incorporated Latin themes and culture.

Following a comical interlude featuring President John

Deveney, the page directed viewers to an RSVP system

and allowed them to update their contact information in

the agency’s database. The invitation format showcased

the firm’s creativity and skill at communicating core

capabilities and generating name awareness.

More than 120 people attended the event despite

inclement weather. The HTML email invitation gained

positive awareness and recognition from the agency’s

desired audience. The HTML email went to 3,318

invitees and garnered 2,840 HTML opens (85%), 1,000

clicks and 1,029 views.

Best Use of Digital/Social in anArts/Culture/Entertainment CampaignSilverAwarded to

HISTORYForHatfields & McCoys Lynn Gardner, SVP Publicity,Chris Meador, VP Marketing and Susan Levoli Director of Publicity

HISTORY channel’s first foray into the scripted arena

resulted in the Hatfields & McCoys and represented the

latest stage in the network’s brand evolution. Since its

re-brand, HISTORY has made strides to become a leader

in all forms of programming, including scripted content.

Hatfields & McCoys tells the tale of Devil Anse Hatfield

(Kevin Costner) and Randall McCoy (Bill Paxton), close

friends during the Civil War, who return to their

neighboring homes in West Virginia and Kentucky to

increasing tensions, misunderstandings and

resentments that soon explode into all-out warfare. As

the hostilities grow, friend, neighbors and outside forces

join the fight, bringing the two states to the brink of

another Civil War.

With the arrival of the miniseries, HISTORY faced a brand

communications challenge. Over the past two years, the

channel had steadily increased in ratings with successful

launches within the nonfiction and documental genres.

However, Hatfields & McCoys stood as the first scripted

program to ever air on the network. HISTORY needed to

speak to their current audience, but also bring in new

viewers, while appealing to the entertainment

community as the show served as a launching pad for

future scripted fare.

Leveraging the big name stars and the miniseries’ high-

quality production value, HISTORY marketed the

miniseries like a cinematic event through unique, high

profile media placements. The idea was to create a

“can’t miss” level of expectations for consumers by

completely immersing them in Hatfields & McCoys

promotions. A month-long social media and buzz-building

campaign started in pre-production, utilizing the massive

social networks of HISTORY and key talent.

HISTORY decided to capitalize on the absence of the

miniseries as a format—a storytelling device most

networks had walked away from in recent years.

Breathing new life into this genre, Hatfields & McCoys

would distinctively position HISTORY as a new

destination for scripted programming while continuing to

broaden brand perceptions on a wider scale.

While still in production, HISTORY pitched a wide range

of electronic, print and online outlets to cover on-set in

Romania. In addition, targeting a select list of recipients,

HISTORY sent out one-of-a-kind teaser kits (Hatfields &

McCoys bullet-riddled hats) to begin piquing interest

about six weeks out from the premiere. Both iconic and

on-brand, the distressed felt hats embodied the grit and

bitter conflict notoriously associated with the legendary

American feud. A press kit followed in the form of a

family album of both Hatfields & McCoys, featuring rich

details of each family separately.

HISTORY secured cover placements on Parade, NY Post,Tribune and Hydrogen Magazine as well as coverage in

Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, People, TV Guide, TheHollywood Reporter and Maxim. Further, the network

tapped Rolling Stone’s audience with the music from the

miniseries by showcasing Kevin Costner & Modern West

(his rock/country band) through their RS Live Program,

streaming at RollingStone.com.

The HISTORY special was the most-watched, ad-

supported primetime television event and not just once,

but three times. A total of 14.3 million people watched

the third installment of the miniseries after the first two

parts had picked up 13.9 million and 13.1 million

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viewers, respectively. The day after the final installment,

four different Hatfield & McCoy-related titles listed

among the top “movers & shakers” on Amazon. Talent

from the miniseries appeared in success stories in

outlets such as “Extra,” “Access Hollywood,”

“Entertainment Tonight” and WSJ.com. Most importantly,

HISTORY successfully established itself as a reliable

destination for premium-scripted programming, a

trendsetter and leader among cable networks.

Best Use of Digital/Social in anArts/Culture/Entertainment CampaignBronzeAwarded to

Weber Shandwick“Degree Men – Masters of Movement”

The “Masters of Movement” campaign introduced and

launched Motionsense and also sought to sustain

growth across Degree Men’s other initiatives and

programs. Weber Shandwick boarded to build

awareness for the brand’s Degree Men Adrenaline

Series with Motionsense technology. The technology

becomes triggered by even the most sudden and

slightest of body movements releasing extra protection

throughout the day to fight sweat and odor before they

start. However, the campaign needed to reinforce a

“motion” message to convince users that Degree offers

top protection.

Weber Shandwick sought out digitally savvy men, 25-35,

which have always been the target audience of Degree

Men and its lifestyle outlet, The Adrenalist. The

campaign’s strategy included inspiring and challenging

guys to move like never before. Weber Shandwick set to

reinforce the “motion” message and reach men through

engaging content that brought to life the target’s favorite

activities through extreme movement.

To do this, Weber Shandwick developed a creative

campaign idea, “The Masters of Movement,” a four-part

video series that followed four athletes—“Masters” in

their own sport and their journey to attempt a singular

feat that truly highlighted their range of motion and the

dedication and love of their sport that allows them to

reach such heights.

From the beginning of the strategic planning among the

teams, Weber Shandwick advocated engagement and

video completion over impressions delivery. Degree Men

knew any true measure of success would be based on

how many people actually saw the films. Since each

athlete’s video was, on average, over two-and-a-half

minutes long, the team created a shorter, “super cut.”

This Super Cut, 60 seconds in length, allowed digital

media to ensure a high level of video view completions,

while still delivering campaign messaging and

simultaneously drawing attention to the other videos.

Best Use of Digital in a B2B Technology CampaignGoldAwarded to

Lois Paul and PartnersForFreescale Semiconductor-Smart Mobile DevicePundits

For several years, Lois Paul and Partners (LPP) had

helped long-standing client Freescale Semiconductor

break through the noise at the Consumer Electronics

Show (CES). The technology space is ever changing. For

example, personal technology has moved away from the

headphone and CD players that debuted decades ago

and even mobile phones that used to make up 61% of all

mobile device shipments have made way for growth in

smartphones and most recently, smartphones have

begun to make way for tablets and e-readers.

Through all of this change, Freescale has competed for

mindshare with major chipmakers, such as Intel and

NVIDIA, which provide the processors for many mobile

devices. Lois Paul and Partners devised the “Smart

Mobile Device Pundit” campaign to ensure original

equipment manufacturers and investor audiences saw

Freescale as an industry leader and help the company

stand out.

To build buzz around CES, the agency created a viral

company for Freescale called the “Smart Mobile Device

Pundits List,” which listed the most influential

informants, analysts and bloggers who report on the

latest in consumer device trends, reviews and news.

Containing a who’s who among writers reporting on

consumer electronics, the list provides the most

impactful consumer industry reporters and bloggers a

chance to receive the recognition they deserve. The

media and bloggers who receive the most votes during

the campaign receive the title of “Smart Mobile Device

Pundit.”

Freescale put a call out for nomination for the top 20

pundits. Once the nominations closed and more than



140 submissions had come in, Freescale and the top 20

pundits rallied their communities to vote for their favorite

pundits via Freescale’s Facebook page. In the end, the

campaign generated more than 7,000 votes and

Freescale announced the Top 5 pundits, who received

the “Top Smart Mobile Device Pundit” title, along with a

branded logo they could display on their site and bio.

For the past three years, the campaign occurred entirely

online during or after CES to draw attention to the vast

amount of coverage from the show and recognize the

efforts of the tech industry’s front-line informants.

The third consecutive year of the campaign happened in

2012 with a different structure from previous years and

the changes generated significantly higher levels of

engagement. Beginning with teaser social media posts

on Jan. 3 and through Jan. 24, 2012, Freescale’s “Smart

Mobile Device Pundit 2012” program created more than

140 nominations. From Jan. 24 to Feb. 8, engagement

escalated thanks to increased word-of-mouth coming

from the pundits who made the Top 20 List and

encouraged their readers to vote. During this period,

nearly 500 tweets about the program went out by users

on Twitter, reaching more than eight million of their

followers.

On Facebook and Google+ several of the Top 20 pundits

exchanged unique conversations and actively

encouraged readers to vote for their favorite pundit. This

increased overall awareness of the campaign and

visibility of the Freescale brand. Over the course of a

month (Jan. 3 to Feb. 8), Freescale gained more than

1,500 of the right followers across Twitter, Facebook,

LinkedIn and Google+ and also established new

relationships with the most influential consumer and

business press writers in the mobile space.

Best Use of Digital in a B2B Technology CampaignSilverAwarded to
























information.





























4

Best Use of Digital in a B2B Technology CampaignBronzeAwarded to

Kronos IncorporatedForTime Well Spent Cartoon Caption Contest

Kronoswanted to find a unique way to increase brand

awareness and affinity and connect with employees,

customers and prospects in an ongoing way. The

company thought a cartoon would make for a great

vehicle to embody their brand promise—workforce

management does not have to be so hard—since

cartoons often take complex ideas and make them

simple and funny. The cartoon highlights specific issues

and makes light of them, to show customers Kronos

understands the issues they face and offers solutions to

fix them.

In September of 2009, Kronos launched “Time Well

Spent.” In the last year, the cartoon received pick-up by

HR.com, HR Bartender, TLNT.com and various HR

publications in the United Kingdom and India. The

cartoon releases weekly and posts on the website

www.timewellspent.kronos.com.

To increase engagement with customers, Kronos

launched a caption contest in October 2011 at the

Human Resource Executive Technology conference,

which is an influential conference for vendors and

customers in the human capital technology space. The

contest announcement occurred on Monday, October 3,

2011 at the HR Tech Conference and ran for two weeks.

When the caption portion of the contest ended, Kronos

received 463 entries. During the month of October, the

“Time Well Spent” blog received an increase in view.

Before the contest, views to the blog averaged less than

1,000 per month, but during the contest increased to

about 3,500. Since the contest, the “Time Well Spent”

blog has an increased traffic and averages about 2,500

views a month.

Best Blog for an Agency/ConsultancyGoldAwarded to

Havas PRForThe Voice of Innovation Nation

The blog at us.havaspr.com is a provocative, transparent

look at a midsize agency, a set of snapshots by, for and

about the people reshaping the agency life and

business. Started in late 2009 when Marian Salzman

arrived to lead the agency (known at Euro RSCG

Worldwide PR), the blog is a smartly designed showcase

of the firm’s personality. Many of the opinions shared

become cross-creations for Forbes.com, The Huffington

Post, PRWeek, CNBC and other business and industry

publications.

The blog has replaced a lot of the headhunting fees,

serving as a prospecting tool for new business and is a

live marketing billboard and allows Havas PR to be the

conversation.

From interns to the CEO, everyone at Havas PR uses the

blog to discuss innovations, share insights and start

conversations. Content covers a wide variety of topics,

but not so wide to take away from the main areas of

focus as an agency—business-to-business, CSR, fashion,

health and wellness, marketing, politics, PR, social

media, technology, trends and youth.

The blog posts help to inform the work of not only the

authors, but also everyone in the agency, giving the

entire group a forum for showcasing their expertise.

Current events or recent industry news often inspire the

blog’s posts. Additionally, staff members who write for

the blog also post on Havas’ “Social Media & Social

Trends” blog, launched based on the agency’s survey in

2009 about social media usage (managed for parent

company Havas Worldwide).

Over the past year, the blog has featured a dozen posts

per month and since September 2012, one per business

day. Page views total 4,000 per day (up from an average

of 100 daily views). The blog provides insight into Havas’

readers’ interests (prospects and potential hires make

up the majority of the audience) and the agency turns

this insight into actionable new business development.

In addition, the blog led Havas to be named by Sociagility

in July 2012 as No. 3 among the world’s 23 largest

public relations agencies for the effectiveness of its

social media presence (up from No. 6 the previous year).

The blog posts start the dialogue, which becomes

conversation, spilling onto Facebook, Twitter and beyond.



Best Blog (Company/Organization)GoldAwarded to

JRainForWalmart Green Room

As the largest retailer, the world has high expectations of

Walmart. Since 2005, the company has worked to build

a more sustainable organization and create change

globally—weaving sustainability into its supply chain,

products, associates’ lives and the communities they

serve and source from.

The company announced ambitious goals to be supplied

100% by renewable energy, create zero waste and sell

products that sustain people and the environment.

Unfortunately, research showed that few Walmart

shoppers actually knew about the good for Walmart does

for the planet and deep green critics questions whether

these ambitions goals could be reached and what type

of progress was actually being made.

The Walmart sustainability team decided in early 2012

to start a conversation. The company determined

starting a forum would highlight Walmart’s knowledge of

and commitment to sustainability issues, while reaching

a broad audience, including sustainability influencers,

media and general consumers. The result was “The

Green Room” (www.walmartgreenroom.com), a blog

created as the central hub of Walmart’s sustainability

dialogue.

In the first month alone, the site received nearly 23,000

unique visitors and to-date the blog has experienced a

614% increase in unique monthly visitors through cross-

promotional efforts on Walmart’s various social media

channels. “The Green Room” raised awareness for

Walmart’s sustainability efforts, enhanced the

company’s reputation as a sustainable business and

gave detractors the most recent facts.

The Walmart team used Green Room as another vehicle

to communicate key events at Walmart and display its

commitment to sustainability. For example, when

Walmart introduced the “Great for You” icon, the

company posted a preview video of the announcement’s

live webcast. For Walmart’s Global Sustainability

Milestone meeting in April, the blog featured a live feed

as well as a follow-up posts summarizing the meeting

and annual citizenship report highlights.

To hold readers’ interest, the Green Room team ensured

a minimum of two to three posts per week by various

contributors, including Walmart executives and third-

party experts. The team included polls and visuals, such

as infographics to invite readers to become more

involved with the blog and increase the likelihood of

return. Discussion-worthy posts continued, such as

whether or not consumers are really willing to pay more

to be green. In April 2012, the team worked closely with

Walmart’s Facebook group to identify relevant

opportunities to feature sustainability posts on

Walmart’s Facebook page, which has more than 17

million “likes” to link back to Green Room content.

With social media platform Pinterest gaining popularity,

the Walmart team decided to use the tool to host a

contest, “Pin to Win,” asking consumers to “pin” images

showing how Walmart products inspire them to be green.

Walmart stepped into new territory for the company by

implementing the first Walmart Pinterest contest to raise

awareness for “The Green Room” blog and engage

Walmart’s primary consumer—Mom. Not only did the

contest demonstrate Walmart’s ability to pioneer new

social territories, but returned unprecedented results

and helped achieve the goals of increasing traffic to “The

Walmart Green Room” and increased awareness,

engagement, and followers for the Walmart hub on

Pinterest.

In the first month alone, the blog saw nearly 23,000

unique visitors. Traffic received a boost from online

coverage by mainstream media, such as Andy Revkin’s

popular blog “Dot Earth” in The New York Times,

Treehugger, Triple Pundit and EarthTechling. “The

Walmart Green Room” featured 107 posts by 55

different authors, 13 of which were from outside of

Walmart to provide third-party credibility to Walmart’s

sustainability story.

Best Blog (Company/Organization)SilverAwarded to

Finn PartnersForMaking Michigan Healthier One Tweet At A Time

“A Healthier Michigan,” (www.ahealthiermichigan.org) a

health and wellness blog sponsored by Blue Cross Blue

Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) came to life to encourage

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Michiganders to live a healthy and active lifestyle. The

blog provides resources to help residents make better

wellness decisions, information on creating and

sustaining nurturing communities and successful

businesses and other valuable guidance on leading a

healthy lifestyle.

Michigan currently ranks as the fourth most obese state

in the nation, so the blog came about for both members

and non-members to address the need to educate

Michigan residents on healthy lifestyle options and

inspire sound living. One of the main objectives for “ A

Healthier Michigan” is to build trusting relationships with

Michiganders in advance of the 2014 health reform.

Through AHealthierMichigan.org and its coordinating

social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and

Pinterest), the blog engages with BCBSM customers and

general consumers on health and wellness topics. This

engagement creates a positive touchpoint for healthy

members and non-members who may not otherwise

regularly interact directly with the brand, and positions

BCBSM as a thought leaders and resource in the health

insurance industry and broader health and wellness

topics. The site also serves as a channel to showcase

great things happening throughout the state, including

partner organization highlights, local events and

wellness activities.

With about 4,500 total visits at its start, the blog has

grown tremendously to be the site it is today, reaching

over 20,300 total visits in August of 2012. The writers

for AHealthierMichigan.org come from various

background and expertise in health-related topics.

Example blog posts written by staff members include

“The Benefits of Boxing,” “The Incredible, Edible

Avocado” and “A Healthy Alternative to the Classic

Wedge Salad.”

As part of the ongoing goal to improve Michiganders

lifestyle, AHealthierMichigan.org executed various health

and wellness campaigns throughout the year. These

campaigns helped boost engagement on the

corresponding Twitter and Facebook pages, and

increased traffic to the blog. Examples included “Detroit

River Days Flash Mob” where a flash mob of hundreds of

BCBSM employees danced in downtown Detroit to

promote healthy living and community involvement and

“Men’s Health Week,” which challenged the “Men of

Michigan” to get healthy with seven days of blog posts

and trivia in the hopes of encouraging Michiganders to

make healthier choices.

The blog has grown rapidly throughout 2011 and 2012

in respect to consistent delivery, site traffic, site loyalty

and online engagement on social channels. Regular blog

contributors including external affairs staff and health

and wellness experts provide content ideas on a weekly

basis with the support of the site editors, the external

affairs social media team and the external agency. The

site received 11,300 views on its busiest day of 2012

(April 18, 2012) and an average of more than 558 views

per day. In addition, the site surpassed its initial annual

traffic goal of 30,000 visitors in the first quarter. Content

averaged more than 2,000 visits per month from search

engines and sentiment for the site on social channels

continues to be consistently and overwhelmingly

positive.

Best Blog (Company/Organization)BronzeAwarded to

Microsoft and Waggener EdstromForNext at Microsoft Blog

Microsoft is a worldwide technology leader with products

spanning almost every category, reaching billions of

people with a global research asset enabling the

company to introduce market breakthroughs such as

Kinect. However, plenty of media and consumers

believed Microsoft wasn’t as creative or innovative as

other large tech companies.

The problem was Microsoft lacked a unified voice when

it came to telling the stories behind these incredible

technologies and sharing Microsoft’s vision with the

world. This communications problem needed a

dedicated platform to tell their stories. Microsoft wanted

to open a window into the unseen part of the brand—a

vibrant and diverse community of people passionate

about technology.

The company developed the “Next at Microsoft” blog as

a platform for unique access to the people, places and

groups driving cutting-edge technologies and initiative at

Microsoft. The blog presented easy to digest stories and

videos spotlighting the people, places and groups driving

“What’s Next” at Microsoft.

Further, the stories arrived in an authentic, humble and

personable voice that engages readers and humanizes



the company. The content also connects the dots across

Microsoft product groups, Microsoft Research, labs and

incubation teams to provide the full view of how

Microsoft envisions the future of technology.

The “Next at Microsoft” blog launched in October of

2010, introducing Steve Clayton as the site’s editor and

storyteller. In fiscal year 2012, Microsoft made moves to

focus the blog on unique content. For example, the

company invested resources into profile series, such as

“People” and “Places Week” that spotlight the people

and places behind the scenes. With the goal of

“humanizing” Microsoft’s voice, the company looked for

compelling stories outside of Microsoft that resonated

with the blog’s core themes (such as Adidas’ wearable

tech, Top Tech at CES and PSFK on Gaming).

Through consistent, authentic and compelling posts, the

“Next at Microsoft” audience grew in 2011 to averaging

over 1 million page views per month with over 15 million

page views during the July 2011 to August 2012

timeframe. Since launching “Next at Microsoft,” Clayton

has become a recognized authority on Microsoft’s vision

for the future of technology, trends and has participated

in Microsoft and external events, including CES 2012,

PSFK Conference NYC 2012 and the Microsoft

Worldwide Partner Conference 2012.

Microsoft’s CES “What’s Next” booth garnered a lot of

pickup, especially considering the volume of tech news

coming out of CES. Coverage in BBC, CNN, NPR, Spike

TV and “NBC Nightly News” reached a total estimated

audience of 38 million viewers/listeners, along with

notable print/online pieces in the Seattle Times,

Time.com, GeekWire, ConsumerReports.org and PSFK.

The Syfy Network aired vignettes from the booth on the

Future of Shopping, Fashion Tech and the Desk of the

Future.

Most notable, the booth directly led to a partnership with

Bloomingdale’s at New York Fashion Week this past fall,

helping Microsoft reach new audiences in unexpected

places. In addition, “Next at Microsoft” led to a segment

on CNN’s “Primetime” and brief post in SmithsonianMagazine.

Best Blog (Individual)GoldAwarded to

MSR CommunicationsForWhen Your Messaging is Ahead of the Media

With a multitude of voices clamoring for attention in the

discussion of “cloud computing,” MSR Communications

and Bluewolf opted for a slightly different tactic to

secure the consulting firm’s foothold in media coverage

of the new technology landscape. Rather than focusing

on a specific technology, MSR and Bluewolf discussed in

holistic terms how success now depends not on

technology, but rather on the interplay between

technology, people and processes in order to gain

maximum agility in an increasingly erratic business

landscape.

As much of this messaging was at the time brand new,

many journalists were reluctant to delve into the human

element of technology and instead opted to focus on

cloud computing. In order to draw attention to client

Bluewolf’s issues on its own terms, MSR determined a

blog provided the best medium for its executives’

unfiltered thoughts on business agility in the 21st

century.

Computerworld’s “The Agile Business” blog, which MSR

secured on behalf of Bluewolf and works closely with

company principals to write, discusses in colorful terms

the intersection between people, processes and

technology. The blog’s topics range from outsourcing and

iPads to customer service and social media and paint a

picture of a new philosophy in which the IT is not a

separate, siloed department, but rather a well-integrated

part of the overall business.

MSR works closely with executives on a bi-weekly basis

to determine the most pressing issues and composes

blogs addressing what CIOs think about while

simultaneously shaping the discussion of what cloud

computing, mobile, social and other new technologies

really mean.

“The Agile Business” blog continues to grow in

readership with posts receiving more than 6,000 hits.

Additionally, posts have been referenced in The New YorkTimes, further solidifying the thought leadership of

Bluewolf’s co-founders Eric Berridge and Michael Kirven.

8

Best Crisis ResponseGoldAwarded to

American Airlines and Weber ShandwickFor“Like This”: American Airlines Responds to AlecBaldwin

On December 6, 2011, American Airlines crewmembers

responded immediately to an incident involving celebrity

actor Alec Baldwin. According to crew and passenger

statements obtained afterward, the incident began when

Baldwin was asked by a flight attendant to turn off his

mobile phone in preparation for takeoff. At the time,

Baldwin was playing the popular Scrabble-like game

Words with Friends on his smartphone. After being

asked to turn off his phone and refusing, Baldwin was

removed from the flight, at which point he began

tweeting to his thousands of fans and followers.

Within a few minutes, 2,722 people re-tweeted his

messages, reaching five million people in just a few

minutes.

American Airlines’ Social Media team convened

immediately and developed a response plan that would

acknowledge Baldwin’s experience and publicly offer to

assist directly to avoid a confrontation, tell the American

Airlines side of the story and ensure best practices were

taken from the incident by the American Airlines Social

Media team to enhance its existing social media issues

management plan.

In drafting its official statement, American sought to

capitalize on the fact that Mr. Baldwin began his tirade

through social media, and thus decided to explain what

happened through social media as well. Key to executing

the message was not including any names and carefully

detailing the way in which events unfolded onboard the

aircraft in a candid, objective and straightforward tone.

American Airlines posted its official statement first on

Facebook the morning of December 7, 2011. The

Facebook message served as American’s official

statement regarding the incident, explaining the nature

of the confrontation and the steps taken by the flight

crew to neutralize it.

In a first for American, the Facebook statement served

as the company’s primary media statement. As media

calls were received throughout the day, reporters and

bloggers were directed to American’s Facebook page,

which ultimately generated up to over 50 additional links

back to the statement message.

In total, the Facebook message reached 75,729 people,

resulting in 6,534 likes and 1,261 shares. A tweet

posted with a link to the Facebook post was re-tweeted

355 times. For its responsiveness, American received

praise by thousands of social influencers and novices

recognizing that celebrity does not always equate to

“carte blanche” in the face of an FAA guideline. Within a

week, social conversation about Alec Baldwin and

American Airlines amounted to 27,230 posts reaching

more than 38,000,000 people.

Digitally/Socially Engaged Brand of the YearGoldAwarded to

Weber Shandwick/MilkPEPForBreakfast Project

Milk has been a part of family meals for generations. But

with milk’s overall share of voice slowly eroding,

defending its place on the breakfast table increased in

importance. Weber Shandwick research found breakfast

represented a hot topic for social network users—to the

tune of 18 million conversations annually, including real-

time reports on what they are eating and real angst

when out of milk.

To capitalize on this untapped opportunity, Weber

Shandwick created the Milk Command Center, boosting

the mainstay classic to the cutting edge of digital

marketing. Every Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to

12 p.m. Eastern Time, the agency’s social media experts

monitored online breakfast conversations. A state-of-the-

art social listening center allowed them to efficiently

identify and engage the most influential people “talking.”

The digital and social media efforts worked as part of a

larger, multi-channel campaign executed for the Milk

Processor Education Program: The Breakfast Project,

designed to spotlight milk’s essential role in the

breakfast at home routine and help encourage increased

consumption through compelling, cross-platform content.

For the first time in its 17-year history, the National Milk

Mustache “got milk” campaign changed its focus from a

demographic-based approach to an occasion-based

approach with an emphasis on defending milk’s place on



the breakfast table. The Breakfast Project efforts

primarily targeted moms between the ages of 25-54 to

reinforce that milk is their natural partner when it comes

to nourishing and fueling their families for successful

days.

Weber Shandwick dove deeply into this audience by

spending 10 days with 35 families from coast-to-coast

via a private Facebook group, The Breakfast Club. Mom

shared their views on milk, breakfast and getting their

families off to a successful day as well as photos and

videos providing an inside look at their morning routines.

To support this new direction and harness the power of

social media for milk, Weber Shandwick developed a

real-time content marketing strategy and social listening

approach designed to make milk a larger part of the

online breakfast conversation, tell the breakfast at home

with milk story through compelling content and use a

combination of paid, earned and owned tactics to grow

existing social communities and extend the reach of

milk’s breakfast content digitally.

Program measurement at the end of the first 90-day

period showed The Breakfast Project efforts drove strong

awareness and increased engagement with advocacy for

milk messaging. During those first 90 days, there was a

26% increase in conversations about breakfast and milk

on Twitter, while 91% of the total conversations were

positive/neutral.

In addition, the campaign reflected a 122% increase in

Facebook “likes” and 28% increase in Twitter followers,

while overall engagement with content across online

properties reached 82%.

Digitally/Socially Engaged Brand of the YearSilverAwarded to

AirfoilForeBay Harnesses Social to Power Parents Pockets

eBay is the world’s largest marketplace with more than

100 million members buying and selling through the

platform. However, the company had a problem getting

parents of young children to sell on the website.

Consumer sellers represent a vital part of eBay’s

business model, and parents are a segment of the

consumer audience that has a large number of items

around their home that could be sold.

Research suggests that parents specifically have an

excess of items used for a short period of time (baby toys

or clothing) and could easily be sold via eBay, helping

them to fund anything from family trips to a new pair of

jeans. But, the perception was that eBay was too difficult

and time consuming to use and this posed a barrier for

eBay to recruit this group of users.

eBay turned to Airfoil Group’s digital and social team to

shift this perception and help educate parents that

selling on eBay is an easy way to empower themselves to

make and save money. The agency sought to use three

different channels to accomplish this—parent bloggers,

web series and media coverage.

The agency vetted 25 bloggers to determine their

appropriateness for the program, identifying the best fits

based on online content and extended community,

affinity for eBay, region of residence and age of children.

After identifying the proper bloggers, the team hosted an

in-person event to onboard bloggers to ensure they were

comfortable with eBay’s messaging and had the proper

selling skills.

Airfoil partnered with People Magazine to identify

consumers who’d persevered through hardships with the

help of eBay. The team identified three consumers who

had changed their lives with eBay. They developed a web

series around these success stories, distributing the

videos via advertising and media channels to drive video

views and expand knowledge of how eBay supports

families.

Articles and interviews appeared in more than 50

outlets, from national to hyper-local to parenting-

focused, highlighting how parents and families could use

eBay as a simple way to supplement their income and

make money from items laying around their homes.

Media coverage included publications such as ParentsMagazine, The Associated Press, MSN Money, ChicagoHerald and Knoxville Times, among others.

Digitally/Socially Engaged Brand of the YearBronzeAwarded to

Ogilvy WashingtonForMotivating Americans to Be One in a Million Hearts

Heart disease and stroke are an epidemic in the United

States. They represent the first and fourth leading

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causes of death and the leading causes of disability.

Americans suffer more than two million heart attacks

and strokes each year.

In response to this public health crisis, the Million Hearts

initiative aimed to prevent one million heart attacks and

strokes within five years. Unfortunately, many people do

not know that heart attacks and strokes are preventable.

The good news is that many of the major risk factors for

heart disease and stroke, such as high blood pressure,

smoking and obesity can be prevented and controlled.

Americans are already inundated with health messages,

which can be overwhelming in their calls for people to

change everything from nutrition and physical activity

routines to medication and doctor’s visits. How can one

reach at-risk Americans with clear and actionable

information about their heart health? The Million Hearts

initiative needed to cut through the clutter and empower

Americans to make healthy choices.

Million Hearts sought to prevent heart disease and

stroke through a multi-pronged approach that included

improving quality of care, focusing clinical attention on

the issue and by activating the public to lead a heart-

healthy lifestyle. Social media offered a low-cost and

direct way to activate and empower at-risk Americans

with life-saving tools and messages.

Million Hearts chose to distribute easily understandable

and digestible messages surrounding heart disease and

stroke risk reduction, utilizing media properties that the

target audiences area already interacting with daily.

Given the challenges and contexts in the heart health

space uncovered during the research phase, Ogilvy

Public Relations proposed stimulating audiences on

Facebook and Twitter through daily engagement and

launching a paid media campaign to amplify reach and

engagement on the social media tools. The agency also

suggested prioritizing access to easy-to-understand

information by creating digital assets and leveraging

existing and new partner relationships to maximize the

reach of the initiative by collaborating online with other

organizations (American Heart Association, Men’s Health

Network and CVS) during national health observances.

Ogilvy developed content calendars and managed the

Million Hearts communities on Facebook and Twitter,

writing 1-3 posts per day, seven days a week, which

ensured consistent communication about heart attack

and stroke prevention, promoting and reinforcing healthy

daily choices as well as signature activities, such as the

online pledge.

In addition, Ogilvy leveraged relevant partner

relationships and digital assets, hosting live Twitter and

Facebook chats around key public health observances

(American Heart Month in February, High Blood Pressure

Education/National Stroke Awareness Month in May, and

Men’s Health Month in June). Million Hearts executive

director Dr. Janet Wright published two posts in AARPThe Magazine during the month of May. Following the

female-focused outreach in May, Ogilvy implemented

tailored tactics targeting men, including Facebook ads

and hosting a Facebook chat on men’s health.

Facebook fans increased by 29,883, while during the

three-month campaign period, the Million Hearts

account grew by 202%, more than surpassing the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS)

average Facebook page growth rate of 10%. Page

engagement on Facebook increased, as 4.8% of

Facebook fans were recorded “talking about” the Million

Hearts page and page contents. Twitter followers

increased from 3,700 to 5,722, while 2,090 users

participated in the two Twitter chats, including the

American Heart Association/American Stroke

Association and the United States Surgeon General Dr.

Regina Benjamin. The chats harnessed more than 21.7

million impressions and over 3,610 mentions.

Digitally/Socially Engaged Brand of the YearHonorable MentionAwarded to

Elizabeth Arden and Lippe TaylorForRevolutionizing Social Good: Elizabeth Arden#PinItToGiveIt

After watching the rapid growth of Pinterest and

participating in the social network for several months,

public relations agency Lippe Taylor decided the tool

could be a powerful one for brands, especially client

Elizabeth Arden.

With its ability to easily share imagery and visually bring

products and brand personalities to life, combined with

the viral nature of the repin function, the agency knew

they had to quickly establish a presence for Elizabeth

Arden on the social channel. The visual nature of the

platform married with the robust imagery of the beauty

industry offered a unique opportunity for a cosmetics



brand to connect with consumers in a more emotional

way.

As Lippe Taylor set out to launch Pinterest, they wanted

to find a unique way to launch the channel.

Simultaneously, they were working on promotions with

Elizabeth Arden’s long-time charity partner—Look Good

Feel Better—an amazing organization that helps cancer

patients manage the visual side effects of treatment.

They have helped over 800,000 women in the U.S.

Elizabeth Arden has worked with them since the program

started in 1988 and looked for new ways to contribute

and draw attention to the work they do. The agency

decided to move forward with a social good campaign

and began examining the right channels to do so.

Inspired by Pin It To Win It promotion, the agency took

this concept a step further by creating a philanthropy

initiative. The “Elizabeth Arden Pin It To Give It” program

was born. Simplicity was the key, so the team created an

easy call to action—simply repin—and Pinterest provides

an easy barrier to entry. For every repin from the board,

Elizabeth Arden donates eyeliner to longtime charity

partner Look Good Feel Better, up to 10,000 pieces.

Lippe Taylor soft-launched Elizabeth Arden’s Pinterest

account in late May with a few product boards to

establish best pinning practices. On June 27, the

revolutionary social good program went live with the

creation of the Pin It To Give It board.

For the program to successfully launch Elizabeth Arden’s

official Pinterest page and achieve the campaign’s main

objectives, it was essential to create a 360-support plan,

including hosting Twitter chats, posting announcements

and regular content on Facebook and Twitter and

establishing #PinItToGiveIt hashtag on Twitter to drive

conversation.

Traditional public relations tactics included securing an

exclusive placement on Mashable.com, speaking

opportunities and additional coverage in outlets such as

The Huffington Post, AOL Impact, Examiner.com and

Insider Beauty Buzz. Influencer outreach included

working with retailers and celebrities to help promote the

campaign and securing multiple tweets from celebrity

partner Mariah Carey.

The campaign garnered 101,191,748 media

impressions, including an exclusive on Mashable.com

that ran on the day of the campaign launch. Additional

coverage occurred in AOL Impact, Examiner.com,

Digiday.com and Insider Beauty Buzz. Elizabeth Arden’s

magazine partners and their beauty editors and social

media teams tweeted and shared the program as well.

Strategic speaking opportunities to discuss the program

occurred at the Digiday Brand Conference and the

Luxury Interactive Panel.

Best Use of Digital/Social for aFood/Beverages/Restaurant CampaignGoldAwarded to

CRT/tanakaForVibrant Rioja Social Media Campaign

CRT/tanaka and DOCa Rioja (Spain’s most prominent

wine region) launched a comprehensive social media

program targeting U.S. trade, consumers and media and

industry influencers and wine consumers.

The agency used key campaign messaging to frame

Rioja as a producer of consistently superior wines with

unparalleled quality, offering tremendous value, style

diversity and food-friendliness. Campaign objectives

included increasing the number of Facebook fans and

engagement by 200% and growing Twitter following by

100%. Further, the campaign sought to grow social

engagement by reaching 100 wine bloggers, media and

influencers and 1,000 trade and consumers during a

live streaming event.

CRT/tanaka hosted and sponsored standalone social

media events (Wine Bloggers Conference and

Livestream event) and rewarded digital conversations

and tasting notes on Rioja through social gaming

platform.

The overall social media program included filming a 30-

minute episode in Rioja, which was cross-promoted by

two blog posts and live updates via Facebook and Twitter

as well as sponsoring the 2011 Wine Bloggers

Conference, enabling product sampling, engaging

bloggers during “Meet the Sponsors” event, hosting

three panel discussions and tasting events and

developing a Rioja Wine Crawl with over 300 bloggers

and by-the-glass specials. Facebook and Twitter played

an important role as well, providing daily updates and

“Like Gating,” which prompted Facebook users to “like”

the client’s page in order to view wall content.

Results included an increase in Facebook followed by

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1,200%, an increase in Twitter following by 222% and

engagement with over 300 bloggers, resulting in seven

articles. The Livestream event reached 2,538 people

from 10 countries, while shipments of Rioja wine

increased by 12% in 2011 over the previous year.

Best Use of Digital/Social for aFood/Beverages/Restaurant CampaignSilverAwarded to

Zeno GroupForSeattle’s Best Coffee Brews Up a Black Friday Dealwith a Twist

In 2010, Starbucks-owned Seattle’s Best Coffee

unveiled a bold strategy for reinvention of the 40-year old

brand—make premium coffee far more accessible and

bring Seattle’s Best to places where premium coffee has

not been available before.

To achieve that mission, the coffee brand developed a

new packaged coffee offering, the Level System. The

Level System uses numbers and colors to show the

strength of each roast, creating a far more simplified

approach to help consumers find the perfect coffee to fit

their taste profiles.

In 2011, Seattle’s Best Coffee charged Zeno Group to

make a splash about packaged coffee, driving trial and

brand awareness to their new consumer target—the

“hopeful striver.” The brand made a strategic decision to

leverage Facebook as its primary earned, owned and

paid marketing channel.

The brand learned this target audience often works a

second or part-time job in the service industry, making

$35-$65K a year. In response, Zeno and Seattle’s Best

launched a Black Friday deal with a twist—offering free

coffee to those working the busiest shopping day of the

year. Those working could log on to the Seattle’s Best

Facebook page to claim their free pot of Levels coffee.

Zeno identified the opportunity to appeal to a key

segment of the target, retail workers, during the

approaching holiday season. According to a 2010 article

in the Christian Science Monitor, approximately 25

million people work retail jobs on Black Friday in 2009.

This also proved a timely news hook—increased media

attention was being placed on stores opening for Black

Friday earlier than ever and Thanksgiving being cut short

for millions of retail workers.

Zeno made the recommendation to create a

mainstream, newsworthy program with a Facebook call

to action.

On Facebook, news fans were encouraged to “like” the

page (current fans directed to the “Working Black Friday”

tab), then choose from the following options relating to

Black Friday: “Yes, I am working,” “No, I am not working”

and “Share, I know someone who is.”

To generate further buzz, Seattle’s Best hosted a Twitter

party with Mom Central about Black Friday deals and

tips. The topic struck a chord with the audience,

resulting in the party’s customer hashtag becoming a

trending topic for that hour. Further, Zeno leveraged the

news trends of Black Friday deals, holiday workers and

stores opening early with broadcast, print and online

media. A special care package went to broadcast media

in key markets at launch.

The brand also leveraged relationships to drive

awareness and spread the “Best of Black Friday”

message, as Subway stores inside select Walmart

locations distributed free coffee to shoppers and

workers on Black Friday.

More than 84,000 consumers claimed their free sample

of Seattle’s Best Coffee, while nearly 50,000 consumers

printed exclusive $2 off coupon with a 30% coupon

redemption rate and sales increased at Walmart by 30%.

The brand’s Facebook page secured more than 100,000

new “likes” and more than 500,000 consumers visited

the Facebook application. Twitter conversations

garnered more than 116 million impressions within two

weeks.

Coverage highlights included USA Today, regional CBS

and NBC broadcast outlets, The Los Angeles Times,

AOL.com and National Retail Federation’s “Smart Brief”

newsletter. Overall, the campaign received more than

269 broadcast, 258 lifestyle-blog, 16 radio and 784

print and online stories.



Best Use of Digital/Social for aFood/Beverages/Restaurant CampaignBronzeAwarded to

Weber Shandwick/MilkPEPForThe Breakfast Project

Milk has been a part of family meals for generations. But

with milk’s overall share of voice slowly eroding,

defending its place on the breakfast table increased in

importance. Weber Shandwick research found breakfast

represented a hot topic for social network users—to the

tune of 18 million conversations annually, including real-

time reports on what they are eating and real angst

when out of milk.

To capitalize on this untapped opportunity, Weber

Shandwick created the Milk Command Center, boosting

the mainstay classic to the cutting edge of digital

marketing. Every Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to

12 p.m. Eastern Time, the agency’s social media experts

monitored online breakfast conversations. A state-of-the-

art social listening center allowed them to efficiently

identify and engage the most influential people “talking.”

The digital and social media efforts worked as part of a

larger, multi-channel campaign executed for the Milk

Processor Education Program: The Breakfast Project,

designed to spotlight milk’s essential role in the

breakfast at home routine and help encourage increased

consumption through compelling, cross-platform content.

For the first time in its 17-year history, the National Milk

Mustache “got milk” campaign changed its focus from a

demographic-based approach to an occasion-based

approach with an emphasis on defending milk’s place on

the breakfast table. The Breakfast Project efforts

primarily targeted moms between the ages of 25-54 to

reinforce that milk is their natural partner when it comes

to nourishing and fueling their families for successful

days.

Weber Shandwick dove deeply into this audience by

spending 10 days with 35 families from coast-to-coast

via a private Facebook group, The Breakfast Club. Mom

shared their views on milk, breakfast and getting their

families off to a successful day as well as photos and

videos providing an inside look at their morning routines.

To support this new direction and harness the power of

social media for milk, Weber Shandwick developed a

real-time content marketing strategy and social listening

approach designed to make milk a larger part of the

online breakfast conversation, tell the breakfast at home

with milk story through compelling content and use a

combination of paid, earned and owned tactics to grow

existing social communities and extend the reach of

milk’s breakfast content digitally.

Program measurement at the end of the first 90-day

period showed The Breakfast Project efforts drove strong

awareness and increased engagement with advocacy for

milk messaging. During those first 90 days, there was a

26% increase in conversations about breakfast and milk

on Twitter, while 91% of the total conversations were

positive/neutral.

In addition, the campaign reflected a 122% increase in

Facebook “likes” and 28% increase in Twitter followers,

while overall engagement with content across online

properties reached 82%.

Best Organizational E-Newsletter, ExternalGoldAwarded to

Deveney CommunicationForDeveney Communiqué

Deveney Communication’s “Communiqué” is not simply

an email newsletter, but rather a love letter to their

friends, colleagues and potential clients. The monthly

communication piece features strategy, successes and

sporadic sass.

Created as an engaging way to stay in touch with

industry peers and current clients, the newsletter also

serves as a unique way for garnering potential new

business opportunities. Links within each HTML email

directs recipients to the newly updated Deveney

Communication website, which highlights the agency’s

practice areas, client list, capabilities and

accomplishments.

Delivered at the conclusion of each quarter,

Communiqué provides a recap of firm activities within

the past few months, including campaigns, team

accomplishments, awards, client successes and

expanded service capabilities. In addition, the firm’s

location in New Orleans sets the company apart

culturally, as the content provided exhibits strong

14

international and industry ties.

The content for each email reflects three constant

themes highlighting the success of campaigns, growth in

capabilities, D.C. employee successes and new trends

and technology. Each quarter, based on recent work and

current environment, Deveney compiles content touching

on the areas of “Innovate,” “Influence” and “Inspire.”

These overall themes drive the content of Communiqué

and the content influences the subject line.

Communiqué content ranges from awards won to grand

openings for clients and successes of clients to work

with partner firms, such as Worldcom. The positioning of

content to imagery reflects balance to ensure one or the

other does not overpower readers.

The newsletter offers at least a 30% email open rate,

reaching 34% in September’s (2012) issue, a 60.01% for

April’s issue and a 49.8% for July’s issue. Encouraging

clients, peers and friends to click-through email links

drove traffic to the D.C. website by at least 30%.

Communiqué also maintains a 20% or less distribution

unsubscribe rate, leaving the large majority of initial

contacts still plugged in to the quarterly updates.

Communiqué aided in expanding the agency’s contact

database with new and updated contact information as

well as showcasing HTML abilities. Since launching

Communiqué, Deveney has designed and deployed

several HTML emails for clients.

Best Organizational E-Newsletter, ExternalSilverAwarded to

Spelman CollegeForSpelman Connection

Spelman College is a small, prestigious, highly selective,

historically Black college that prepares women to change

to world. Located in Atlanta, the college provides an

education experience unlike any other, embracing a long-

lasting and life-changing commitment to academic rigor,

career development, community involvement and

positive social impact.

In February 2003, the Spelman College Office of

Communications launched a weekly internal newsletter,

called the “Spelman Connection,” which went out to

2,600 faculty, staff and students at the College.

Featuring stories about students, faculty and state of the

College, the newsletter provided this information to the

campus constituency.

Three years later, the College purchased an e-marketing

tool, iContact, to expand its distribution to include

alumnae, the board of trustees and friends of the

College. In February 2012, the College surveyed its

readers to find out what they wanted to see in the

“Connection.” Content was pretty much on target, with

the exception of alumnae wanting to see more about

themselves. In response, the College used the “Spelman

in the News” section to become a link that features

alumnae stories. In September, they featured a new

template and in October expanded distribution from

14,000 to 15,000.

From January through June 2012, 27 issues of the

“Spelman Connection” were produced and distributed,

featuring 138 stories. Since January, the “Connection”

has yielded an average of 16.1 percent open rate.

Best Online Newsroom of the YearGoldAwarded to

Synaptic Digital, a Definition 6 companyForUS Dept of State Online News Room

Serving as the voice of U.S. policy abroad, the U.S.

Department of State needed a dynamic media hub to

engage with media, influencers and policy makers. With

multiple press briefings daily domestically and emerging

Public Affairs Offices in Western Europe and Asia Pacific,

being able to quickly and efficiently handle content was

of critical importance as well.

Additionally, the U.S. Department of State needed to

create an open environment allowing all site visitors the

same level of access and engagement with the content.

In late 2011, Synaptic Digital and the U.S. Department

of State finalized the media distribution platform “State

of Demand.” While Synaptic Digital hosts, manages and

maintains the website to provide the end user a

seamless experience from other U.S. Department of

State run pages, the Department procured .gov URL for

the platform to live on www.stateondemand.state.gov.

Upon launch in late January, the U.S. Department of

State conducted a soft launch focused mainly on internal



users and core constituencies to test-drive the platform.

Once ready for primetime, the U.S. Department of State

pushed users to the platform as the primary source for

multimedia content surrounding the Department. The

launch was well timed because on February 10, 2012,

the U.S Department of State discovered and released

satellite imagery of Syrian Military Artillery. Looking to

quickly grab content for broadcast, online and print

usage, media flooded the site. The U.S. Department of

State’s Public Affairs officers also distributed the link for

all incoming inquiries giving media direct access to the

footage.

The Syrian imagery received over 30,000 page views,

while 30% of the traffic arrived via Facebook referrals

and 9% via MSNBC.com. The story received 465 social

shares as well.

Best Online Newsroom of the YearSilverAwarded to
























information.





























Best Online Newsroom of the YearBronzeAwarded to

Strategic AmericaForUSS Iowa Online Newsroom

In the spring of 2012, ownership of the USS IOWA

transferred from the U.S. Navy to the nonprofit Pacific

Battleship Center (PBC). This gave the PBC a unique

opportunity to turn a historic battleship into an

interactive museum. The World War II battleship, known

as the Battleship of Presidents, over the years has

hosted Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan

and George H.W. Bush. The ship left San Francisco Bay

for Los Angeles in May, docking at its permanent home

near the World Cruise Center in the Port of Los Angeles.

Strategic America (SA) collaborated with PBC starting in

April to assist with the USS IOWA media, membership

16

and grand opening. Beginning with the hull cleaning and

then the towing, immediate opportunities existed for

worldwide interest and ongoing fascination over the next

several months.

As SA team members began working with the media on

behalf of PBC, they realized the benefit a central, online

location to store and share information would bring to

media relations. The online newsroom provided

significant, continuing updates, changes and

announcements as well as historic and history-in-the-

making photos. The site also represented a one-stop

shop for the history timeline, videos, photos, news

releases, information about events, veteran’s interviews

and more.

An online newsroom survey conducted by TEKGROUP

found the following criteria were vital to journalists

accessing online newsrooms: breaking news, search

feature, PR direct contact information (email and phone)

and links to a company’s social media sites. In addition,

USS IOWA staff and volunteer media coordinators shared

that the most frequent requests were for historic and

current photos showing the progressive cleaning,

painting and transporting of the battleship. The team

also realized a successful newsroom needed a highly

organized system in which users then feel they

“intuitively” find what they are seeking. SA used all of

this knowledge to create a resource-rich newsroom

designed for reporters and others to find information

quickly.

The announcement of the online newsroom launch itself

was coupled with a social media-style news release

about the grand opening of the USS IOWA distributed to

travel and tourism media throughout the world. This

brought 800 visitors to the newsroom and 4,400 page

views in the first three days. From the launch of the

newsroom at the end of June to the end of July, the USS

IOWA received more than 5,000 media mentions and

clips in both traditional and electronic media.

Coverage included multiple stories in Reuters, The

Associated Press, Forbes, MSNBC, CBS News, NPR, USAToday, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Fox News and

LA Times. Additional coverage appeared in the SanFrancisco Chronicle, Orange County Register, TheExaminer, Miami Herald, NBC News and New York DailyNews. Placements appeared in The Huffington Post,

Fodor’s Travel Guides and the CBS, ABC and NBC

affiliates throughout California and Iowa.

Best Online Newsroom of the Year)Honorable MentionAwarded to

MWWForNikon Pressroom

MWW Group partnered with Nikon and Kanban

(technical development) to create an innovative new

online pressroom design for sharing information with

media and company stakeholders. The objective was to

provide a modern, clean and intuitive experience for the

press industry. MWW sought to create a pressroom that

gave media the right dynamics covering all the tools they

would need to write their articles on Nikon products. This

digital environment was created to be innovative and

easy for the media to clearly gain access to the

information they needed.

MWW evaluated the current design and functionality of

leading media and news sites to account for the best

possible experience for users to interact with the Nikon

Press Room. The agency explored engaging content

experiences such as continuous page loading and

focused on making the site more visually compelling.

MWW endeavored to maximize flexibility to access, view

and filter information.

Tactically, this included an innovative interface that lets

media and other users access press information faster

and without the need to reload the page, one-click

access to multi-format assets, a centralized content

management system accessible by both Nikon and their

partners, secure publishing and translation and

localization capabilities across multiple sites and

languages.

Since the launch, the Nikon Press Room has been

reinvigorated as a visually appealing, content rich page

offering speed, flexibility and convenience for media and

other users. The agency reached its objectives by

providing a modern, clean and intuitive experience for

the press industry.

Best Digital/Social Word of Mouth CampaignGoldAwarded to

Waggener Edstrom WorldwideForTweet-a-Beer: Turning virtual contacts into personalconnections, one frosty mug at a time



Attendees come to South by Southwest Interactive

(SXSWi) to connect, learn about new interactive

tools/models and make connections over drinks. When

SXSWi attendees are your clients, getting noticed is the

first hurdle you must clear. The five-day festival offers a

packed schedule of keynote panels and workshops that

feed the most information-hungry minds assembled

anywhere at once.

With the focus being interactive media, Waggener

Edstrom desired to help attendees connect in a way that

was practical, memorable and not necessarily confined

to the event itself. The agency wanted to offer something

more than another cool widget of the moment.

Waggener tapped two talented outfits, creative agency

tenfour and Twitter commerce-enabler Chirpify. By

combining the talents of the two companies, “Tweet-a-

Beer” was born. The possibilities from personal

connections found online provided the inspiration for

Tweet-a-Beer. The Twitter application allows attendees to

share admiration and appreciation with a click when you

cannot clink glasses. At South by Southwest, attendees

use Twitter as their personal live feed for organizing their

activities and rallying followers for gatherings, providing

the perfect proving ground.

Almost immediately, the application turned into a

success, sparking new friendships and renewing

longtime relationships. With more than 100 unique

stories, Waggener Edstrom received recognition as one

of the companies bringing an innovative and compelling

application to the masses at South by Southwest. Top

media hits included CNN, Mashable.com, MSN Money

and Bloomberg Businessweek. The campaign also put

tenfour and Chirpify on the map, as short after the event,

Chirpify received significant VC funding for the next

phase of their business.

Best Digital/Social Word of Mouth CampaignSilverAwarded to

EvansHardy+Young, IncForCalifornia Walnut Board “Natural Defenders” TwitterActivation

In December 2011, EvansHardy+Young, Inc. created a

social media mission for the California Walnut Board.

Rather than just tweet about recipes, the agency sought

to spread awareness for its campaign theme of “Natural

Defenders of the Human Body.” The only problem was

money. Compared to branded and commodity board

programs for other nuts, California Walnuts had a small

social budget that did not account for social advertising

and content creation, so the plan included recruiting

influential people to get them to express “in their own

words” a healthy message about the product.

Taking into account the law of “participation inequality,”

which states that only 1% of people in an online

community create content, 9% edit content and 90%

view it without contributing, EvansHardy+Young decided

to recruit 1% of people who would help not only to create

content, but influence the 90% the agency could not

reach.

Research suggested that if the 1% could be recruited via

Twitter, they would spread the good word on blogs and

offline. The firm looked for the 1% who met two criteria—

had more than 1,000 engaged followers on Twitter and

fit the advocate profile, which included popular food

bloggers, loving moms, registered dietitians, aspiring

health professionals or simply people interested in living

healthfully.

When these advocates tweeted about doing something

naturally healthy, whether it was walking their daughter

to school or cooking a meal at home, California Walnuts

rewarded their positive action by offering to send them a

free bag of nuts. After sending the walnuts, they waited

for the law of reciprocity to work its magic and for new

advocates to spread the good word about walnuts.

The campaign started in mid-February and the response

far exceeded expectations. Out of the total bags

distributed, California Walnuts earned 76 endorsements

in return and reached 179,576 followers with a positive

message about the brand, which helped position

walnuts as a natural defender of the human body.

At the start of the campaign, California Walnuts had

1,474 followers and 2,134 advocates as of October—a

44.8% growth rate. The campaign received coverage in

27 blog posts and one recipient offered to host a

California Walnuts giveaway on her popular food blog.

Readers entered by posting a comment featuring their

favorite way to enjoy walnuts. The giveaway generated

117 responses.

18

Best Digital/Social Word of Mouth CampaignBronzeAwarded to






Elizabeth Arden.









way.
































conversation.



















Best Use of Digital/Social forCause/Advocacy/Corporate Social ResponsibilityGoldAwarded to

RF|BinderForSpreading the Gift of a Healthy Meal

Founded in 1994 by practicing cardiac surgeons Dr.

Peter Praeger and Dr. Eric Somberg, Dr. Praeger’s

Sensible Foods makes all-natural frozen foods from

veggie burgers to vegetable pancakes to products for

kids that are low in saturated fat and cholesterol,

contain no artificial flavorings or colors and are made

with “ingredients you can recognize.” Committed to

supporting causes that directly relate to healthy eating,

the company sought a cause-related program for the

2011 holiday season that would align with their

charitable objectives.

With a small execution budget, RF Binder devised a

digital holiday campaign to strengthen Dr. Praeger’s

online community, increase brand loyalty and ultimately



add to the company’s fan base on Facebook and Twitter.

The team decided that a program benefiting food banks

in regional markets would be the best fitting campaign

tactic for Dr. Praeger’s and determined a “1 dollar for 1

like” execution would be straightforward and easily

understood by users.

RF Binder created the following core messaging for the

campaign—“At Dr. Praeger’s, we believe that everyone

deserves to have healthy food options. We have

committed to donating $1 in product for every new Like

on our Facebook page. Share our page with friends and

help spread the gift of a healthy meal this holiday

season.”

The campaign launched on December 15 and consisted

of two main components. RF Binder encouraged

Facebook users to “Like” Dr. Praeger’s Facebook page to

donate $1 in product to the Food Bank for New York City.

To create fan engagement, the team posted regular

weekly polls allowing fans to vote for a local food bank

out of 10 options pre-selected based on key markets for

the brand. The top three food banks received $500 each

and the remaining seven received a product donation

from Dr. Praeger’s, so no food bank was left without a

donation.

RF Binder tagged food banks with a Facebook page and

managed to get them engaged in the polls, encouraging

their fans to vote for them, which further expanded the

reach of the campaign and generated new Likes. The

campaign received additional support from a $2,500

Facebook ad campaign and promotion via media and

blogger outreach via the brand’s Twitter handle.

In less than one week, Dr. Praeger’s Facebook page

received over 3,000 new Likes, while in just one week,

the number of people talking about Dr. Praeger’s on

Facebook increased from 89 to 1,480. The charity

program proved to be such a success that the end date

extended to December 31, 2011, at which time Dr.

Praeger’s delivered $1,500 worth of product to the Food

Bank for NYC and donated $500 to each of the three top

food banks in other regional markets, along with making

product donations to the remaining seven from the poll.

Dr. Praeger’s received a 5,807 increase in Facebook

fans and an average of 1,886 people talking about Dr.

Praeger’s, 3,535,00 ad campaign impressions.

Best Use of Digital/Social forCause/Advocacy/Corporate Social ResponsibilitySilverAwarded to

Deveney CommunicationForInaugural Childhood Obesity Summit Social Media

The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) hosted its

Inaugural Building a Healthier Future Summit from

November 29 to December 5, 2011 in Washington, D.C.

In addition to developing the strategy and coordinating

media relations efforts, Deveney Communications

managed the Facebook and Twitter accounts of PHA

throughout the duration of the Summit.

In November 2011, PHA hosted the Inaugural Building a

Healthier Future Summit, which brought together private

sector, government and nonprofit leaders to collaborate

in the effort to end childhood obesity in America within a

generation. Speakers included New Jersey Mayor Cory

Booker and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist

as well as keynote speaker First Lady Michelle Obama.

Deveney orchestrated the Summit’s Facebook and

Twitter accounts in order to generate a buzz of

conversation throughout the weeks leading up to, during

and after the event. The agency’s social media

management created a variety of original content,

including photos, links, statistics and quotes as well as

responding to other users’ posts to foster conversations

on both social media accounts.

With the Summit approaching, published content on

PHA’s social media channels centered on the Summit’s

speakers, activities, press coverage and discussion

topics. Deveney discovered the social media realm

already simmering with discussions related to childhood

obesity, healthy eating and different ways to encourage

children to get active. PHA sought to leverage news

surrounding the Summit to encourage and bolster these

conversations via social media, aiming to generate

solutions for the larger issue at hand.

Deveney built a campaign to encompass both Facebook

and Twitter, tailoring content to each platform. The

agency also generated hashtags unique to the event,

which were instrumental during evaluation as Deveney

used them to track conversations. The second part of

the campaign, included conducted live, timely postings

throughout the actual Summit. The live posts covered

20

topics, such as presenters’ background and involvement,

quotes and stats harvested from their presentations,

awards given out and live coverage of the Great

American Family Dinner Challenge.

Deveney and PHA faced several challenges when

initiating the social media effort, including distinguishing

their brand identity as separate from Michelle Obama’s

“Let’s Move!” initiative. Publicizing the event showed

how few people were aware of a private sector initiative

against childhood obesity, let alone PHA itself. Social

media efforts would have to promote, not only the

Summit, but also PHA as an entity as well as their goals

and mission.

In addition, PHA wanted to keep social media

conversations positive and upbeat, striving to find viable

solutions to a disturbing national trend, rather than

harping on the problem. PHA did not want to perpetuate

discussions about “Fat America,” but rather how to

collaborate as a national to find solutions to this ongoing

problem.

At the stare of the Summit, PHA’s Facebook page had

148 “Likes,” which increased to 282 likes. Throughout

the seven-day period, content posted by PHA and other

users discussing the Summit received 262 likes and 29

content shares on Facebook. Due to this participation

and content sharing, posts by PHA reached more than

4,600 users. In addition, @PHAnews began the Summit

with 1,320 followers and the number increased to 1,402

followers within a few short hours. Twitter posts by PHA

and other users discussing the subject of childhood

obesity were re-tweeted more than 250 times

throughout the course of the Summit.

PHA also made connections with several popular Twitter

profiles belonging to organizations, businesses,

individuals, celebrities and even politicians. This target is

particularly important because they represent the

gatekeepers to actual solutions to end childhood obesity.

Some of the more notable connections included

Walmart, Hyatt Hotels, The Food Network, YMCA and

First Lady Michelle Obama.

Through these social media platforms, Deveney fostered

a positive dialogue between PHA and their target

audiences throughout the first Building a Healthier

Future Summit and beyond.

Best Use of Digital/Social forCause/Advocacy/Corporate Social ResponsibilityBronzeAwarded to

MassMutual Financial GroupForMassMutual and Easter Seals Make the First FiveCount

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company

(MassMutual) is a 160-year-old plus financial services

brand that ranks in the Fortune 500 and listed as one of

the nine most admired life and health insurance

companies in the world in the March 19, 2012 issue of

Fortune. Consumers view the company as strong and

stable, but with those attributes come an image of

inflexibility and even distrust, especially after the recent

economic instability.

Despite the need to meet regulatory requirements,

MassMutual launched a presence on YouTube,

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ and

established ways to engage its community on a more

human level. Based on positive community response

MassMutual received from its recent TV ad, “Mother,”

which depicts a day-in-the-life of a young mother and her

son with special needs, the desire grew to link the

SpecialCare Program more closely with the brand.

In conjunction with its agency-of-record, Mullen,

MassMutual developed a multi-faceted Facebook-centric

program with tentacles that reached into traditional

news media. The purpose of the initiative was to raise

awareness of MassMutual’s long-standing partnership

with Easter Seals and the services they both provide to

families with special needs.

To incentivize community participation and sharing,

MassMutual pledged to donate $5 to Easter Seals’

“Make the First Five Count” program for every person

who “liked” the campaign Facebook tab. In addition to

underscoring the emotional and financial challenges

these families face, the initiative aimed to highlight

MassMutual’s unparalleled expertise in special needs

planning, positioning the brand as a leader in both

Community Social Responsibility and in the special

needs market.

Mullen designed the campaign to leverage

MassMutual’s SpecialCare Program and long-standing

relationship with Easter Seals to create a dedicated



Facebook tab experience, supported by engagement ads

to raise awareness for an important cause, drive content

shares, brand likes and overall fan engagement.

MassMutual’s fan base grew by 14% throughout the

campaign, resulting in more than 56,000 fans, while the

company gained 7,618 new Facebook fans in six weeks

and 5,000 tab “likes” in 37 days. Mullen garnered

124,923,810 impressions in leading consumer

publications, including AOL Daily Finance, MediaPost,

Parents.com, U.S. News & World Report and The WallStreet Journal.

Best Use of Digital/Social for a ConsumerTechnology CampaignGoldAwarded to

SparkprForGood Technology Finds Overtime Growing

Good Technology, the leader in secure enterprise

mobility, wanted to increase brand recognition for their

secure mobile email and applications management and

collaboration solutions. The company is well known in

enterprise channels, however as smartphones and

tablets grow in popularity for both work and personal

use, there is a much broader audience unaware of the

need for a mobile solution, which enables people to

securely do their work on their own schedule.

The company decided to sponsor a consumer survey

illustrating the extent to which people’s work and

personal life have blended, finding that in the morning,

68 percent of people check work email before 8 a.m.

and 50 percent of people check while still in bed.

Looking globally, the survey compared habits in the U.S.

and UK and found 80 percent of people are still working

after leaving the office in the U.S., versus 93 percent in

the UK. Yet the British are less likely to think about work

at the dinner table, with only 29 percent checking email

during the meal, compared to 38 percent of Americans

who have their phone sitting next to the silverware.

The campaign goal was to increase brand recognition

and visibility with new mainstream audiences by

positioning Good Technology as a thought leader in

mobile security.

Working with Sparkpr, Good Technology worked with Ina

Fried of AllThingsD, giving her an early look at the survey

results, placing an exclusive story with an outlet, which

crossed business and tech audiences. The story kicked

off coverage in coordination with the campaign’s press

release, distributed for U.S. and UK audiences

announcing the results.

Sparkpr worked with OnePoll to help release the story on

their wire service and in the U.S., utilized PR Newswire to

send the release out, which included a MultiVu inclusion

of the U.S. infographic and a link to a supporting video.

The video also went out on YouTube and Vevo. Sparkpr

also created a UK version customized with the results

from Britain. The team followed up with email outreach

to trade and consumer reporters. Lastly, a UK broadcast

media tour with a spokesperson from Good Technology

secured coverage on Bloomberg TV and regional outlets.

The campaign made an enterprise topic meaningful to

consumers by highlighting a cultural shift. This resulted

in an invitation for executive John Herrema to speak at

the Consumer Electronics Show. Stories appeared on

CNN, NBC, Bloomberg TV, The Huffington Post, Fast

Company, Mashable.com and TechCrunch, with more

than 79 global broadcast mentions reaching three

million views and 194 print stories. Online coverage

reached 68.7 million people in the first week. The results

showed how people have embraced mobile technology

and the degree to which “work time” and “personal

time” have blurred.

Best Use of Digital/Social for a ConsumerTechnology CampaignSilverAwarded to















22
















selling skills.








families.







Best Use of Digital/Social for a ConsumerTechnology CampaignBronzeAwarded to

RF|BinderForBAND-AID® brand brings bandage to life

For generations, parents have relied on the iconic BAND-

AID Brand to heal their kids’ cuts and scrapes. This year,

the brand sought to connect with parents and kids in a

new, innovative way to transform those healing moments

into moments of virtual fun. In partnership with Johnson

& Johnson, Disney and JWT Advertising, RF Binder

spearheaded the launch of BAND-AID Brand’s first-ever

augmented reality application, BAND-AID Brand Magic

Vision App featuring Disney’s The Muppets, which brings

a new element of fun to the healing process. The app

engages kids in a magical experience where they can

scan their Muppets bandages with iPhones or iPads and

bring their favorite characters—Kermit, Miss Piggy, and

Gonzo—to life in a variety of adventures.

RF Binder’s job was to reinforce the brand’s equity and

showcase how BAND-AID offers more than just a line of

products with this new, virtual way for moms and kids to

engage in the wound care space. With a low budget,

short planning window, and launch date missing The

Muppets Movie DVD release, RF Binder recognized many

challenges faced the app launch.

Given the brand’s low budget and only a one month lead

time for the PR team to execute the plan, RF Binder

developed a holistic strategy that could be executed on a

short timeline, while still making a huge splash. The plan

was largely based around the notion that crafting a

visual story in the online digital space would spark a viral

launch. The strategy included securing an exclusive top-

tier national story and leverage coverage to spark viral

pick-up to spread buzz, leveraging multi-media platforms

to showcase the app and creating a visual multimedia

story to highlight the interactivity of the app within online

and broadcast media.

RF Binder came through on it strategy by securing an

exclusive New York Times story on BAND-AID to kick-off

the launch. The day the Times article hit, the agency

distributed a multimedia press release and conducted

an aggressive media outreach to over 500 contacts from

a range of parenting, entertainment, lifestyle, marketing

and technology outlets.

In working with the Mom Central blogger network, RF

Binder further amplified the campaign buzz among the

key target audiences and secured influential mom

bloggers to post reviews of the app and detail their

brand experience to readers. Lastly, the team showcased

the Magic Vision app at a variety of events to garner

more awareness and drive trial among influential

celebrity parents, political figures and key bloggers. Such

events included BlogHer 2012, The Baby Buggy Bedtime

Bash, Johnson & Johnson’s Annual Capitol Hill Day and

“The Moms” celebrity blogger media event.

Sparked by The New York Times article, RF Binder’s



campaign strategy drove tremendous awareness for the

app and garnered a wide variety of media coverage that

excited parents about the new way to bring fun to the

healing process. PR efforts generated over 35 online

stories in two days, including The New York Times

exclusive. Coverage occurred in top technology outlets

such as Mashable.com and Gizmodo.com, representing

a first for the brand. Broadcast mentions reached over

200 stations nationwide, including CNN, New York 1, CW

and Today in LA. Online and print stories landed across

all targeted media genres, including The ChicagoTribune, Forbes, Ad Age, Business Insider,Parenting.com, People.com, Yahoo.com and MSN.com,

among others.

Due to the outreach, the Magic Vision App launch went

viral in less than 48 hours.

Digital/Social Communications Campaign of the YearGoldAwarded to

M BoothForWomen Entrepreneurs are #PoweringTomorrow

In March 2012, American Express OPEN released the

“State of Women-Owned Business Report,” a proprietary

research report uncovering the growth, impact and

characteristics of today’s women business owner

population via 2011 U.S. Census Report data. The report

revealed that as of 2011, there were over 8.3 million

women business owners in the United States, generating

nearly $1.3 trillion in revenues and employing 7.7 million

people.

OPEN’s mission is to help small businesses do more

business and one of the ongoing ways the brand does

that is by arming small business owners with important

and useful information. The State of the Women-Owned

Business Report does just that for women business

owners across the U.S., and the 76-page report received

a wide breadth of national publicity and media coverage

in 49 states. OPEN wanted to be sure the data and

findings were easily accessible to and in the hands of

women business owners and their networks, leveraging

data to drive brand favorability and prove useful and

inspiring information and content to the woman,

business owner community.

OPEN tapped the emotional story of being a woman

business owner by pulling powerful data points from the

greater Woman-Owned Businesses Report to create

compelling visual content. OPEN wrote the data points

based on share-ability, spread-ability, what would best

resonate, inspire and encourage sharing among women

business owners and their networks. In addition to the

infographics depicting specific data from the Women-

Owned Business Report, agency M Booth identified and

boarded 14 successful, socially active and relatable

women business owners to display their personal

success stories wit the use of visuals, adding the

personal and emotional side to the story.

M Booth identified targeted influencers, bloggers,

content partners, women business owners and active

social presences that reach woman business owners,

across numerous verticals, to send the visual narrative.

In addition, the 14 business owners featured in the

campaign spread the word by sharing the infographics

across their online and offline networks.

For example, Rashmi Sinha, co-founder of SlideShare

pushed out her personalized visual to the SlideShare

network on SlideShare, via their email newsletter and

across their social platforms, including Facebook and

Twitter. Other spotlights included Robin Chase, founder &

former CEO, Zipcar, Alisa Volkman, co-founder,

Babble.com and Jen Hyman, founder & CEO, Rent the

Runway.

OPEN carefully selected an online media outlet—

Mashable.com—with a highly engaging and large female

(48%) audience as the content partner of the campaign

to assist in driving the conversation with unique

sponsored content, including round-ups, original editorial

content and video interviews with influential female

founders in tech, leading to nine unique content pieces.

Mashable.com conducted a live video panel, bringing

together three high profile women business owners in

the tech space; Rachel Sklar, founder, Change the Ratio

and TheLi.st, Angela Jia Kim, founder, Om Aroma and

Savor the Success, and Kellee Khalil, founder and CEO,

Lover.ly, moderated by Allison Silver, VP Brand,

Advertising and Advocacy at OPEN.

OPEN measured the campaign’s success by online and

social engagement, specifically social interactions with

the 22 visuals that made up the narrative. The goal at

the outset of the campaign was to garner 100,000 social

interactions (blog posts, likes, comments, tweets, re-

24

tweets, +1s, pins, video views), and by the end of the

campaign 157,651 social interactions were accrued,

58% above goal.

Online media outreach resulted in 147 placements on

news and blog sites, resulting in 55,166 social

interactions. An article generated for Mashable.com

titled “10 Thing You Didn’t Know About Women-Owned

Businesses” received 2,505 social shares and 10,472

page views. An article included in the content

partnership entitled “44 Female Founders Every

Entrepreneur Should Know” received 14,780 social

interactions across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest

and StumbleUpon.

Digital/Social Communications Campaign of the YearSilverAwarded to

Backbone MediaForPolartec Made Possible Campaign

The “Made Possible” campaign came about as a way to

reach a younger demographic of Polartec customers,

while also giving back to collegiate outdoor

programming—a philanthropic focus point for the brand.

The success of the campaign far exceeded expectations

in 2011 in terms of reach and engagement as well as

overwhelming positive brand feedback. The brand

decided to duplicate the campaign in 2012, receiving

even greater results.

During the first portion of the campaign, Polartec asked

hundreds of collegiate outdoor programs across the

country to submit a video telling the company what they

would do with the winning $10,000 grant. Polartech then

choose four finalists from the submissions to add to a

Facebook voting application based on creativity. Finally,

the videos made by each finalist went on a Facebook

application for approximately 30 days and the number of

votes for each video determined the winner. Students

promoted their own videos and outdoor programs to win

the grant. The winning school received a $10,000 grant,

Polartec apparel for the entire club and a feature article

in Backpacker magazine.

The 2012 “Made Possible” contest received 5,400

applications, 27,171 total votes, 31,900 video views and

Polartec picked up 6,000 new Facebook fans.

Appalachian State University won the $10,000 grant.

Digital/Social Communications Campaign of the YearBronzeAwarded to

Honeywell Friction Materials/Weber ShandwickForBendix Brakes for Teen Safety

Bendix performed an initial consumer survey of parents

with teens (ages 15-19 with a vehicle) and found a

variety of teen driving habits and maintenance

knowledge. The survey found teen drivers tend to have

older or used vehicles and typically, teens have some

interest in the proper maintenance of their vehicles. The

survey also found that parents need more education on

driver safety and vehicle maintenance. In addition, many

parents were unsure the last time they had checked the

brakes on their teen’s car.

From these results, Bendix created objectives to

generate awareness of vehicle maintenance among teen

drivers and their parents, create a connection for

consumers between Honeywell Friction Materials/Bendix

Brakes and driving safety and to secure online media

exposure.

The “Bendix Brakes for Teen Safety” campaign began

during Teen Driver Safety Week on October 11, 2011.

Bendix conducted a survey with Harris Interactive to

provide data and gauge baseline numbers, developed a

series of videos throughout the year to provide teens and

parents with tips and information on safe driving and

vehicle maintenance and created press releases with

additional information to accompany each video,

leveraging survey data to support the stories. The video

and press releases went to a targeted media list,

including automotive trade publications, daily

newspapers, parenting reporters and bloggers,

transportation and safety reporters. An interactive news

release featuring videos, press releases, photos and

other assets provide media members with material to

shape their stories. Lastly, the company created a Bendix

Brakes for Teen Safety Facebook page.

Media hits included parenting and consumer sites, such

as Examiner.com, Earnest Parenting and The ChicagoTribune. Automotive trade sites covered the initiative as

well, allowing Honeywell Friction Materials to reach its

traditional audience of technicians, distributors and

other industry professionals. In total, coverage appeared

on more than 625 sites, resulting in 91 million media

impressions.



The Bendix Brakes for Teen Safety Facebook page

generated more than 1,800 “likes” since September

2011 and created an engaging environment for teens,

parents and other consumers to interact with the brand

and learn about vehicle maintenance and safe driving.

Videos on the Bendix Brakes YouTube channel

accounted for nearly 5,000 views.

Best Use of Digital/Social for Higher EducationMarketingBronzeAwarded to

RF|BinderForBeacon of Learning w/in Digital Space

Recently, the national debate around education has

reached a fever pitch. Spurred by concerns over student

performance and the cost of higher education, the

conversation among educators, political leaders,

parents, students and general taxpayers about how to fix

the U.S. education system spilled onto front pages and

homepages everywhere. Many of the more targeted

debates focus on issues of direct concern to educational

service and content providers like McGraw-Hill

Education, including the role of education technology

and the notion of “open source” learning.

Agency of record RF Binder saw an opportunity to insert

client McGraw-Hill into this robust conversation and

reinforce the company as a leader in the filed, delivering

digital education solutions geared toward 21st century

success. After researching successful social media

channels operated by brands to help shape the strategy

and determine the voice, content and style of McGraw-

Hill Education’s overall social media presence, RF Binder

determined the company would need to use its social

media presence to provide something of value to its

target audience groups. The agency identified Twitter as

the social media platform best suited for sharing content

regarding K-12 and higher education.

The effectiveness of a McGraw-Hill Twitter presence

depended heavily on the company’s ability to produce

timely, engaging and relevant content as well as unique

insight or perspective.

McGraw-Hill Education needed to produce issue-based

content that shied away from discussing products

directly. RF Binder worked with McGraw-Hill Education to

identify perspectives on the major education news,

issues and trends of the day, supplemented with

opinion-based content and more lighthearted tweets

designed to engage the target audiences and add a

personal, human voice to the brand, while maintaining a

smart, professional tone.

To maintain timeliness and be seen as a resource for the

latest education news, RF Binder gathered the most

relevant and interesting education news and

commentary published in the past 24 hours at the

beginning of each business day. RF Binder then

developed a program of 10 to 12 tweets for that day that

shared this news/commentary along with the company’s

unique insight and perspective.

In order to accomplish this, the agency worked from its

own knowledge of McGraw-Hill’s positions on relevant

issues, bringing in subject-matter experts from McGraw-

Hill Education when discussing complex or nuanced

issues. The RF Binder team monitored the Twitter

account throughout the day, engaging with individual

Twitter users in real-time whenever possible, and

leveraging relevant and popular hashtags.

In addition, RF Binder seamlessly integrated McGraw-Hill

Education’s Twitter account with its larger public

relations program. For example, the firm drove

awareness of McGraw-Hill’s presence at prominent

industry conferences, such as the International Society

for Technology in Education Conference and included

mentions of the company’s Twitter presence in nearly all

of the company’s press releases and encouraged media

members to follow it when conducting outreach. The

company also included a link to @MHEducation on its

corporate homepage.

The Twitter account cross-promoted a variety of other

company initiatives, including a limited-time offer in June

that made several of McGraw-Hill Education’s learning

apps available for free and the July 2012 release of the

company’s all-new “Anatomy and Physiology REVEALED”

app for the iPad.

RF Binder’s social and digital media effort successfully

helped McGraw-Hill Education reach a significantly wider

section of its target audience while simultaneously

reinforcing the company as a thought leader on many of

the topics most important to its business. The company’s

Twitter account added over 4,000 followers (from

1,500), while McGraw-Hill counts among its follower

base a number of influential names in education and

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media. The account is frequently cited as a leading

source for education news and commentary by its

network of now over 5,700 followers that retweet and

share information regularly.

Best Use of Digital/Social for aHealth/Fitness/Medicine CampaignGoldAwarded to

Ron Sachs CommunicationsForThe Water Quality & Health Council’s “HealthyPools” Campaign

The Water Quality & Health Council is an independent,

multidisciplinary group sponsored by the Chlorine

Chemistry Division of the American Chemistry Council,

an industry trade association. The group comprises

scientific experts, health professionals and consumer

advocates who serve as advisors to the Chlorine

Chemistry Division of the American Council.

The Council assists in the interpretation of scientific

information related to the various applications of

chlorine disinfection, provides peer review for the

Chlorine Chemistry Division of the American Chemistry

Council documents and advises the industry on its

research priorities. In addition, members of the Water

Quality & Health Council seek to provide public health

officials, the media and the general public with a greater

understanding of issues such as safe drinking water,

wastewater, recreational waters, infection control and

food safety.

The Water Quality & Health Council launched its first

“Healthy Pools” campaign in 2010. The campaign

intended to promote healthy swimming, educate

swimmers on pool management and to dispel health-

related swimming pool myths. The campaign achieved

limited success and failed to capture public attention or

provide significant utility to swimming pool stakeholders.

For the 2011 launch, they made the decision to hire Ron

Sachs Communications, which turned into a success by

comparison to the previous campaign and left the Water

Quality & Health Council desiring for the 2012 version to

be bigger than ever before. Prior to launching the 2012

“Healthy Pools” campaign, the Council commissioned a

study analyzing swimmer hygiene. The study found that

one in five Americans (19%) admitted to peeing in a

pubic swimming pool and nearly one- quarter of

Americans (22%) report they never shower before

entering a public swimming pool.

To spread their message, the Water Quality & Health

Council grew the Healthy Pools social media

communities through organic social sharing of content

and paid promotion/advertising. Ron Sachs pitched

news, health and freebie bloggers and digital news

outlets with campaign study results, messaging and a

free pool test kit offer. A Pool Pal content series

showcased the story and struggles of floating chlorine

characters, which added comedic, likable and youth-

friendly content to the Healthy Pools ecosystem that

people could share with their networks. A

@MyBackyardPool Twitter account spread campaign

messaging in a fun and relatable way.

The “Healthy Pools” campaign secured top-tier coverage

with mainstream health and news blog websites,

including Time.com Newsfeed, Shine from Yahoo.com,

The Huffington Post Healthy Living, CNN’s “The Chart,”

The Consumerist, Yahoo.com The Week, Limelife.com

and WebProNews.com. Coverage from these digital

outlets exceeded seven million impressions.

The Healthy Pools Facebook Page grew from 31,084

fans at campaign launch to 70,432 people at the

campaign’s seasonal conclusion. The monthly count of

engaged-users reached 63,528. While Facebook housed

the largest Healthy Pools audience, other sites, including

Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr generated opted-in

audiences totaling 12,048 people.

The campaign overcame a variety of high-profile

swimmers, including Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte

speaking out in opposition of the Healthy Pools

campaign message. They told their stories of peeing in

the Olympic pool and explained that nearly 100% of

Olympic swimmers act in such a way. Given that the

2012 Healthy Pools campaign exceeded 13.6 million

impressions in the wake of major celebrities presenting

opposing perspectives made the effort that much more

significant.

Best Use of Digital/Social for aHealth/Fitness/Medicine CampaignSilverAwarded to

City of HopeForSuper Foods for Super Health



City of Hope made a strategic decision several years ago

to focus on increasing national awareness and

fundraising to support it research mission. The greatest

challenge from a marketing perspective was creating a

national brand for an institution based on the unfamiliar

City of Duarte, California. Although City of Hope’s

research discoveries have led to scientific breakthroughs

that affect millions of people all over the world, most of

its marketing funds were devoted to attracting patients

to its local medical center leaving few dollars remaining

for national outreach.

The non-profit knew its national message needed to look

beyond the exquisite care people received at the hospital

and focus on how City of Hope affected people

everywhere through its research.

As social media became more mainstream, City of Hope

recognized how powerful this tool could be for amplifying

their communication efforts and building relationships

with new and existing supporters. With this in mind, City

of Hope made an investment in social media marketing,

believing in its potential to help them reach their

national awareness objectives.

The team knew engaging content represented the key to

social media success. City of Hope had an endless

amount of content, but as a media institution, the

challenge was figuring out how to share complex

scientific research in an engaging, consumer-friendly

way. The solution resided in a topic that is part of

everyday life and often top of mind—food.

City of Hope’s scientists were among the first to discover

that five common “super foods”—blueberries, cinnamon,

grapes, mushrooms and pomegranates—may have the

ability to fight and prevent cancer. The research was

both easy to explain and comprehend. City of Hope could

also leverage the growing popularity of recipes and

healthy lifestyle/diet content to make the research

interesting and useful.

The result was an initiative called “Super Foods for

Super Health: Cooking Against Cancer,” a weekly recipe

series featuring potentially cancer-fighting super foods in

partnership with food blogger, dieticians and celebrity

chefs.

Each week, City of Hope shared a new delicious “super

foods” recipe on its Facebook wall, Twitter and Pinterest

board with integrated messaging about City of Hope’s

super foods research. They also created a tab on their

Facebook page to host the initiative and invite its

audience to join them in the fight against cancer by

cooking with “super foods.” In addition, City of Hope

gathered recipes by reaching out to popular food

bloggers and celebrity chefs.

Monthly fan growth soared on Facebook, growing more

than four-fold, increasing an average of 1,600 fans per

month after the launch of the super foods initiative.

Super foods represent one of the most engaging topics

on City of Hope’s Facebook page, contributing to the

overall increase in engagement metrics. Twitter super

foods-specific mentions from consumer reached 25,000-

30,000 additional followers.

Best Use of Digital/Social for aHealth/Fitness/Medicine CampaignBronzeAwarded to

GE HealthcareFor25 Million and Counting: How GE Healthcare UsedFacebook, Twitter and Weibo to Help Fight Cancer

In August 2012, GE Healthcare (the health business of

General Electric Company) launched its second #GetFit

campaign to raise awareness for cancer and underline

GE Healthcare’s commitment to fighting the disease. The

campaign would be a global competition, played across

all of the most popular social platforms.

Occurring between August 20 and September 28, 2012,

#GetFit participants earned points by sharing their

healthy daily lifestyle choices on a public social graph

with the #GetFit hashtag included in their posts. Players

earned further points by challenging their friends

through social networks, resulting in the game “going

viral” and generating widespread visibility for GE

Healthcare and public information around cancer

prevention.

The highest-scoring players received ranking on a

worldwide leader board. As well as getting involved

individually, #GetFit players could create teams or join

existing teams formed by others. These teams competed

for total points in a separate ranking on a team-based

leader board. The final campaign-winning team resided

in Korea, while the individual winner was American

Marshall Poindexter, a regular and bilingual tweeter who

provides sensible fitness resolutions and methods for

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staying healthy in the long term.

#GetFit’s main channels included Twitter, Facebook and

Weibo (China’s largest social network), combined with a

dedicated #GetFit website in 8 languages and 15

ambassadors on Pinterest and the #GetFit website.

Ambassadors were often proactive participants through

all social channels, encouraging healthier lifestyle

choices and helping the public become involved in

#GetFit. The 2012 #GetFit campaign also employed

“gamification” to great effect, increasing both game

activity and campaign visibility.

#GetFit achieved 25.5 million Twitter impressions, 4,200

link clicks, 1,400 mentions, and 1,600 retweets, while

@GEHealthcare gained 1,660 new followers during the

campaign. GE Healthcare earned 300,000 Facebook

shares as well. Traffic to the GE Healthcare website more

than doubled during course of the competition.

#GetFit was also popular with major influencers on

Twitter, including Dr. Bertalan Mesko and Line

StorgaardConley, as well as singer Christina Milian.

Hollywood actress Eileen Grubba was also a key

influencer, featuring health tips on her Facebook page.

Notable social media influencers Sean Swarner and

Frederic Llordachs shared #GetFit with their followers as

well.

Best Measurement of Digital/SocialCommunicationsGoldAwarded to

Zeno GroupForSeattle’s Best Coffee Brews Up a Black Friday Dealwith a Twist

In 2010, Starbucks-owned Seattle’s Best Coffee

unveiled a bold strategy for reinvention of the 40-year old

brand—make premium coffee far more accessible and

bring Seattle’s Best to places where premium coffee has

not been available before.

To achieve that mission, the coffee brand developed a

new packaged coffee offering, the Level System. The

Level System uses numbers and colors to show the

strength of each roast, creating a far more simplified

approach to help consumers find the perfect coffee to fit

their taste profiles.

In 2011, Seattle’s Best Coffee charged Zeno Group to

make a splash about packaged coffee, driving trial and

brand awareness to their new consumer target—the

“hopeful striver.” The brand made a strategic decision to

leverage Facebook as its primary earned, owned and

paid marketing channel.

The brand learned this target audience often works a

second or part-time job in the service industry, making

$35-$65K a year. In response, Zeno and Seattle’s Best

launched a Black Friday deal with a twist—offering free

coffee to those working the busiest shopping day of the

year. Those working could log on to the Seattle’s Best

Facebook page to claim their free pot of Levels coffee.

Zeno identified the opportunity to appeal to a key

segment of the target, retail workers, during the

approaching holiday season. According to a 2010 article

in the Christian Science Monitor, approximately 25

million people work retail jobs on Black Friday in 2009.

This also proved a timely news hook—increased media

attention was being placed on stores opening for Black

Friday earlier than ever and Thanksgiving being cut short

for millions of retail workers.

Zeno made the recommendation to create a

mainstream, newsworthy program with a Facebook call

to action.

On Facebook, news fans were encouraged to “like” the

page (current fans directed to the “Working Black Friday”

tab), then choose from the following options relating to

Black Friday: “Yes, I am working,” “No, I am not working”

and “Share, I know someone who is.”

To generate further buzz, Seattle’s Best hosted a Twitter

party with Mom Central about Black Friday deals and

tips. The topic struck a chord with the audience,

resulting in the party’s customer hashtag becoming a

trending topic for that hour. Further, Zeno leveraged the

news trends of Black Friday deals, holiday workers and

stores opening early with broadcast, print and online

media. A special care package went to broadcast media

in key markets at launch.

The brand also leveraged relationships to drive

awareness and spread the “Best of Black Friday”

message, as Subway stores inside select Walmart

locations distributed free coffee to shoppers and

workers on Black Friday.



More than 84,000 consumers claimed their free sample

of Seattle’s Best Coffee, while nearly 50,000 consumers

printed exclusive $2 off coupon with a 30% coupon

redemption rate and sales increased at Walmart by 30%.

The brand’s Facebook page secured more than 100,000

new “likes” and more than 500,000 consumers visited

the Facebook application. Twitter conversations

garnered more than 116 million impressions within two

weeks.

Coverage highlights included USA Today, regional CBS

and NBC broadcast outlets, The Los Angeles Times,

AOL.com and National Retail Federation’s “Smart Brief”

newsletter. Overall, the campaign received more than

269 broadcast, 258 lifestyle-blog, 16 radio and 784

print and online stories.

Best Measurement of Digital/SocialCommunicationsSilverAwarded to

Weber ShandwickForUS Army Reserve Status: Engaged

During 2011 as Weber Shandwick and the U.S. Army

Reserve worked to establish regular patterns and

standards for social media management, the Army

Reserve’s social media strategy heavily emphasized

daily, weekly and monthly monitoring and measurement.

The strategy focused on monitoring for rapid response

and content development in social media. As a strategy,

it helped the Army Reserve make strong initial forays into

the social media space. But as the audience grew, it no

longer reflected the most efficient use of client or agency

resources.

As the social media presence and audience matured

during 2012, it was essential to update the Army

Reserve’s social media strategy and objectives to take

growth and engagement to a new level.

Weber Shandwick worked to develop a social media

strategy that reinforced measurement efforts to collect

meaningful, relevant data, which was used to inform

social media recommendations, improve outcomes and

ultimately lead to outstanding growth and engagement.

This meant utilizing data to inform the type of social

media posts, monitoring trends for opportunities to

engage and identifying influencers who affect relevant

online conversations, in order to target and engage

them.

The strategy focused on three major components,

refocusing monitoring on weekly social listening reports

that concentrate on key themes and the most successful

social post, monitoring the online activities of individuals

and organizations who influence relevant conversations

in social media and optimizing Facebook ads for

maximum audience growth and engagement.

Weekly social listening reports enabled the team to keep

a finger on the pulse of the Army Reserve’s social media

efforts. By discontinuing daily reports, the agency

reduced “noise” in the data, instead focusing on

identifying and responding to the most meaningful

results. The agency developed reports to focus on five

key themes for the Army Reserve. Those themes

included joining, civilian employment, family and Post-

traumatic stress disorder/suicide as well as soldier

fitness.

Suicide prevention turned into a major topic of

discussion in August after the Army reported a record

number of July suicides. Weber Shandwick recognized

this trend early, allowed the Army Reserve to participate

in online conversations, refocusing the dialogue on the

availability of resources for soldiers facing PTSD. This

engagement segued into an even stronger focus on

suicide prevention in September—the Army’s designated

Suicide Prevention Month.

Additionally, these reports offered weekly updates on the

Army Reserve’s most effective social media posts from

the previous week. By highlighting successful posts on a

regular basis, the client-agency team developed stronger

insight on the types of posts users found valuable and

engaging, subsequently optimizing the editorial calendar

in favor of those posts. These efforts helped

demonstrate that over time, users responded strongly to

posts focusing on internal matters within the Army and

military. This finding enabled the team to target the

audiences of soldiers, veterans and military families

more sharply.

Lastly, Facebook is a major hub for soldiers, veterans

and military families who want to engage with each other

and the military, so it made sense to leverage the social

media tool’s ad to reach those audiences and stimulate

growth on the Army Reserve page. Weber Shandwick

launched and managed three Facebook ads connected

to holidays with high levels of significance for military

30

audiences—Veterans Day, Memorial Day and Patriot Day.

The campaigns combined Facebook ads with compelling,

relevant content and calls to action, stimulating growth

and engagement. By closely monitoring the actions

catalyzed by these ads, the agency could take key finds

from each experience and use them to continually

improve metrics on Facebook at all levels.

The effort saw more than 100% growth in reach across

Twitter and Facebook and consistently high engagement

on both platforms. The three Facebook ad campaigns

consistently and dramatically outperformed industry

standards for ad buys of their size and each campaign

significantly improved upon previous ones. The Army

Reserve’s reach more than doubled on Twitter and more

than tripled on Facebook. On Twitter, sharing remains

consistently high, as a third of Army Reserve mentions

have been replies or retweets, and many of the most

popular tweets have linked to vital resources for soldiers,

veterans and families.

The Army Reserve’s Facebook page saw 63,874 total

likes, 1,656,827 average monthly post views and

34,967 average monthly active users. On Twitter, the

Army Reserve has 10,683 total followers, while one in

three tweets about the Army Reserve in fiscal year 2012

was either a retweet or a reply.

Best Microsite or Specialized WebsiteBronzeAwarded to

Spelman CollegeForSpelman Website

Spelman College is a small, prestigious, highly selective,

historically Black college that prepares women to change

to world. Located in Atlanta, the college provides an

education experience unlike any other, embracing a long-

lasting and life-changing commitment to academic rigor,

career development, community involvement and

positive social impact.

In February 2003, the Spelman College Office of

Communications launched a weekly internal newsletter,

called the “Spelman Connection,” which went out to

2,600 faculty, staff and students at the College.

Featuring stories about students, faculty and state of the

College, the newsletter provided this information to the

campus constituency.

Three years later, the College purchased an e-marketing

tool, iContact, to expand its distribution to include

alumnae, the board of trustees and friends of the

College. In February 2012, the College surveyed its

readers to find out what they wanted to see in the

“Connection.” Content was pretty much on target, with

the exception of alumnae wanting to see more about

themselves. In response, the College used the “Spelman

in the News” section to become a link that features

alumnae stories. In September, they featured a new

template and in October expanded distribution from

14,000 to 15,000.

From January through June 2012, 27 issues of the

“Spelman Connection” were produced and distributed,

featuring 138 stories. Since January, the “Connection”

has yielded an average of 16.1 percent open rate.

Best Microsite or Specialized WebsiteGoldAwarded to

GroundFloor MediaForOnline War Room: Securely Simulating OnlineConversations and Crises

The worst-case scenario for a business in a crisis used to

be a lead story on an evening network newscast and a

story on the front page of the morning newspaper. Today,

the greater risk for companies is what happens when

readers share the story across social networks in real

time. In the era of social media, not only do unexpected

sources have the opportunity to say, report and offer

opinions at will, but also able to do so without any type of

factual checks or balances.

The information lives online in perpetuity and can have

material impact on a company’s brand perception and

reputation. In response to this evolution, GroundFloor

Media (GFM) sought a tool that would allow them to

better prepare clients to enter the social media arena,

broaden their communications efforts on social media

platforms and overcome any anxieties associated with

being active on social media.

GFM’s digital strategy team developed a proprietary tool

in-house, adopting a three-pronged strategy to guide

them in this endeavor. They developed a tool to allow

clients to simulate social media conversations in a real-

time, private/secure setting, so they are better prepared

to have day-to-day, as well as difficult conversations on



multiple social media platforms. The tool also provided a

structure to allow clients to experience a wide variety of

scenarios and online conversations to develop social

media response plans and corporate social media

policies. Lastly, the company wanted to provide a tool to

allow clients to train existing and new social

media/community managers to engage in conversations

consistent with the brand’s objectives and overall voice

via social networks.

Out of this strategy came the Online War Room, an

online, secure and proprietary tool allowing GroundFloor

Media to work closely with clients to create customized

training sessions that mimic online crises and issues in

real-time, across multiple social media platforms such as

Facebook, Twitter, blogs and online news outlets.

In developing the OWR platform, GFM chose to structure

it in a blog format, which provides a high-level of

flexibility and ease of use. The intent was for the

simulations to focus on conversations and content that

could occur or posted, rather than on the frequently

changing bells and whistles of social networks. This also

allowed the tool to be evergreen, reducing the likelihood

that it will quickly become outmoded or require frequent

maintenance.

Utilizing actual client experiences, GFM developed the

platform so it could encompass a variety of scenarios

(negative posts, photos, videos, links to outside

information, hashtags and @replies).

Client feedback was overwhelmingly positive, resulting in

six separate client simulations. Clients that have

conducted sessions or are planning to utilize the OWR

include Qdoba Mexican Grill, Orange Leaf Yogurt, BNSF

Railway, Colorado Garden Show, LiveWell Colorado, The

Southcentral Foundation, Bellco Credit Union and

SlimGenics. Media coverage for OWR includes

placements in The Denver Post, Denver BusinessJournal, the Denver PR Blog, Ragan’s PR Daily,

Ragan.com, Fortune Africa and O’Dwyer’s.

Best Microsite or Specialized WebsiteSilverAwarded to

Union Pacific Railroad Corporate CommunicationsForUP150.com

This year, Union Pacific Railroad celebrated its 150th

Anniversary, a milestone few companies ever have the

privilege of reaching. Even few companies have such a

rich history to share.

At the height of the Civil War as he fought to unite

America north and south, President Abraham Lincoln

decided connecting our nation east to west was just as

important. In 1862, he signed the Pacific Railway Act,

setting the first American transcontinental railroad into

motion and creating Union Pacific to build its eastern

stretch.

The 150th Anniversary had several goals, including

reaching each of Union Pacific’s 45,000 employees,

connecting with the 7,3000 cities and town along the

railroad’s 23-state system, sharing its story with

investors, customers and elected officials and the

general public and differentiating Union Pacific from

industry peers.

Union Pacific’s Anniversary celebration had hundreds of

moving parts, including a steam engine tour, more than

150 employee and community celebrations and a

nationwide media blitz, but the heart of the celebration

beat online. Union Pacific launched a special website—

UP150.com—on Jan. 1, 2012. The site contained a

timeline of the railroad’s 150-year history, an archive of

railroad stories and “Great Big Rollin’ Railroad” videos.

Promotion occurred on Union Pacific’s Facebook page

and Twitter. Fans submitted more than 180 videos and

the finalists flew to Omaha, Nebraska for an “American

Idol” event, which streamed live on UP150.com. The

grand-prize winning video received $15,000 and later

aired as a commercial on CNN.

Union Pacific’s Facebook page received 5,000 new

“likes” and more than 2,300 new Twitter followers.

Nearly 1.4 million people took part in anniversary events

and more than 2,800 news stories ran about the

anniversary, most of them mentioning the UP150.com

website. A company profile on the front of The New YorkTimes Business section discussed the 150th Anniversary

strategy, while Bloomberg TV produced four segments.

Union Pacific also landed coverage in newspapers

across its 23-state system, including The HoustonChronicle, Salt Lake Tribune, Sacramento Bee,Spokesman-Review, Advocate and Omaha World-Herald.

A video news release submitted to TV stations triggered

nearly 100 TV news stories, reaching an estimated 45

32

million people.

Best New or Redesigned Website of the YearGoldAwarded to
























information.





























Best New or Redesigned Website of the YearSilverAwarded to

Waggener Edstrom WorldwideForShared Learning Collaborative Website

The Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC) is an alliance

building an education technology infrastructure to

facilitate personalized learning for every U.S. student.

The alliance works with pilot states and partners to

design and develop a technology foundation on which

third parties can build and distribute education solutions

and products.

The organization’s website (slcedu.org) promotes the

technologies and serves as a centralized information

resource about the SLC, project progress and the

technologies in development.

The goal of SLC is to help teachers more efficiently

enable effective, personalized instruction. The

organization’s mission is built on the theory that there

are two main barriers preventing the education sector

from realizing this goal—a lack of data interoperability

and application compatibility among the solutions

currently in existence and a lack of information about

what learning products actually work for the intended

end users of educators, students and community

leaders.

The SLC sought to build engagement and rapport with

these diverse audiences who share a passion for using

technology to improve K-12 education in the United

States by launching a blog representing the many voices

of the project, using Twitter for wider community-building



and frequent updates, and using YouTube for easy

access to videos.

The straightforward website structure seeks to eliminate

barriers between the technically complex project and

tangible, meaningful outcomes by focusing on the areas

the initiative seeks to impact, highlighting project

participants, philanthropic supporters, collaborators and

participating states and school districts. Strategies for

site development include establishing an inclusive,

welcoming tone that builds rapport, establish an impact

narrative by focusing on user benefits and desired

outcomes and provide a clear calls to action that

establish purposeful next steps for all visitors.

From February 1 through Sept. 26, 2012, the SLC

website attracted more than 24,000 unique visitors and

more than 42,000 total visits. Visitors average more

than four minutes on site and consumer an average of

more than four pages per visit. More than 40% of site

visitors represent return visitors, page views have

reached nearly 200,000 and more than 500 website

visitors have signed up to receive monthly projects

updates in email. The SLC website won an Interactive

Media Awards (IMA) Best in Class Award in the Education

category by recording an overall score of 484 out of 500.

The Best in Class Award is the highest honor bestowed

by the IMA, representing the very best in planning,

execution and overall professionalism.

Best New or Redesigned Website of the YearBronzeAwarded to

Hilton Hotels & ResortsForHilton Global Media Center Relaunch/Redesign

In January 2010, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, the flagship

brand of Hilton Worldwide, launched Hilton Global Media

Center (HGMC), the hotel industry’s first comprehensive

online resource created exclusively for the media and

designed to act global, but “speak local.” As the world’s

most recognized hotel brand, Hilton Hotels & Resorts is

known for its unmatched expertise and experience in

global travel. From being the first to install televisions in

guest rooms to boasting the first hotel in the world with

both LEED and Green Seal environmental certifications,

Hilton Hotels & Resorts commits itself to pursuing

excellence through industry firsts.

The 2012 re-launch of Hilton’s media center reflected

this pursuit of excellence. Recognizing the continuing

need to serve both traditional journalists as well as

online media professionals, Hilton Global Brand Public

Relations re-launched the site to blend three distinct

aspects of the Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand—

innovation, style and reach.

While the first media center relied on traditional

navigation, the re-launched site used information-ready

mega menus, putting news in your hands before you

even get to it. As the content in the HGMC is vital to

internal and external audiences, both the website and

the mobile site have undergone a complete overhaul,

with the mobile site strategically directing mobile users

to the information visitors on the go need at the ready,

while keeping the entire site easily available as well.

The re-launch made the Hilton brand’s online newsroom

as cutting-edge as possible for the international

community that regularly relies on the HGMC for

information. A key part of the redesign strategy was to

place the most pertinent and top-level information

upfront, instead of users having to dig for it. Hilton Hotels

& Resorts also wanted an HGMC that was uncluttered

and easy-to-navigate for users of all skill levels.

Innovative changes to the award-winning HGMC included

easy-to-navigate mega menus highlighting featured

pages, improved social media integration and a new Bing

mapping tool that instantly connects users to related

property profiles, news articles, photo galleries and

more. Visitors can customize their parameters and

receive news as it happens via email or RSS. The re-

launched HGMC is iPad and mobile-optimized to

accommodate the changing nature of media

professionals who have moved from behind the desk to

constantly on the go.

The HGMC has always been an invaluable internal

resource for the Hilton Global Brand Public Relations

team and the global properties it supports. The re-

designed HGMC gives these internal audiences a

dynamic tool with which to cultivate new media

relationships and community resources. From June 30,

2011 to August 31, 2012, the HGMC received 254

media accommodation requests and 246 media

inquiries. In that same period, more than 24,500 images

have been downloaded directly from the HGMC.

Qualitative results included praise from some of the

industry’s top media outlets within just hours of the July

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9, 2012 launch. Members of the HGBPR team received

admiration from the President of

GlobalHotelNetwork.com, the editor of ENTRÉE TravelNewsletter and the international news editor for

HotelNewsNow.com. The re-launch also secured John

Forrest Ales, senior director for Global Brand Public

Relations for Hilton Hotels & Resorts, an interview with

PRWeek.com only a day after the new site was

announced to media.

Best Use of Digital/Social in a PublicAffairs/Awareness CampaignGoldAwarded to

National Association of Social WorkersForNational Association of Social Workers SocialWorkers Speak

Social workers serve a vital role in American society by

working in hospitals and helping patients get the best

care. They ensure students have housing, food and other

services they need to get the best possible education.

Social workers also serve military personnel, veterans

and their families, advocate for the elderly and protect

children from abuse and neglect.

The nation’s more than 650,000 social workers

represent educated and trained professionals who help

people who may be experiencing some of the worst

times in their lives. Yet the media often depicts social

workers as cold bureaucrats who “steal babies” from

parents on the slightest pretense of abuse. Who can use

a social work title varies by state and people who are not

educated in the profession may call themselves social

workers. As a result, reporters often label state child

welfare agency staff involved in child abuse and death

cases as social workers, even when these people are not

trained and educated social workers or licensed to

practice social work in that state.

The National Association of Social Workers launched a

campaign in 2005 to improve the image of social

workers in the media, engage movers and shakers in the

entertainment and news industries and empower social

workers to improve how the profession is portrayed in

the public. Since 2009, one of the main tools of this

campaign is the SocialWorkersSpeak.org website and its

affiliated Facebook and Twitter pages.

Between June 30, 2011 and August 31, 2012, the

National Association of Social Workers used the

SocialWorkersSpeak.org website to help build a

relationship with the producers and writers of the FOX

sci-fi television series “Touch,” which included a

prominent social work role. The association also worked

with the distributors of the British film “Oranges and

Sunshine” to encourage social workers across the nation

to view the film, which contained a positive social work

role. Further, they met with writers representing actor

and director Blair Underwood, working on a social work

television series. They also used the social workers

website to engage and build relationships with several

television networks, including the Oprah Winfrey

Network, the Sundance Channel and the CW.

Officials at FOX invited NASW staff to be part of the

premiere of the “Touch” series in New York City in March

2012. More than 12 million people watched a special

preview of the series in January. Actor Underwood

endorsed the social work profession during Social Work

Month in March 2012. The Oprah Winfrey Network

turned to social workers to review several documentaries

that either featured social workers or a social work issue.

The Sundance Channel and TVOne agreed to work with

SocialWorkersSpeak.org to feature two new 2012 reality

series featuring the work of social workers—“Get to

Work” and “Save My Son.” NASW helped local chapters

draft communications plans to address inaccurate and

misleading coverage of social workers in child abuse and

neglect cases.

Documentary filmmakers now increasingly turn to NASW

and SocialWorkersSpeak.org to promote their films.

SocialWorkersSpeak.org attracted 127,685 unique

visitors between June 30, 2011 and August 31, 2012, an

almost 30 percent increase over the previous year.

Best Use of Digital/Social in a PublicAffairs/Awareness CampaignSilverAwarded to

M BoothForWomen Entrepreneurs are #PoweringTomorrow

In March 2012, American Express OPEN released the

“State of Women-Owned Business Report,” a proprietary

research report uncovering the growth, impact and

characteristics of today’s women business owner

population via 2011 U.S. Census Report data. The report

revealed that as of 2011, there were over 8.3 million



women business owners in the United States, generating

nearly $1.3 trillion in revenues and employing 7.7 million

people.

OPEN’s mission is to help small businesses do more

business and one of the ongoing ways the brand does

that is by arming small business owners with important

and useful information. The State of the Women-Owned

Business Report does just that for women business

owners across the U.S., and the 76-page report received

a wide breadth of national publicity and media coverage

in 49 states. OPEN wanted to be sure the data and

findings were easily accessible to and in the hands of

women business owners and their networks, leveraging

data to drive brand favorability and prove useful and

inspiring information and content to the woman,

business owner community.

OPEN tapped the emotional story of being a woman

business owner by pulling powerful data points from the

greater Woman-Owned Businesses Report to create

compelling visual content. OPEN wrote the data points

based on share-ability, spread-ability, what would best

resonate, inspire and encourage sharing among women

business owners and their networks. In addition to the

infographics depicting specific data from the Women-

Owned Business Report, agency M Booth identified and

boarded 14 successful, socially active and relatable

women business owners to display their personal

success stories wit the use of visuals, adding the

personal and emotional side to the story.

M Booth identified targeted influencers, bloggers,

content partners, women business owners and active

social presences that reach woman business owners,

across numerous verticals, to send the visual narrative.

In addition, the 14 business owners featured in the

campaign spread the word by sharing the infographics

across their online and offline networks.

For example, Rashmi Sinha, co-founder of SlideShare

pushed out her personalized visual to the SlideShare

network on SlideShare, via their email newsletter and

across their social platforms, including Facebook and

Twitter. Other spotlights included Robin Chase, founder &

former CEO, Zipcar, Alisa Volkman, co-founder,

Babble.com and Jen Hyman, founder & CEO, Rent the

Runway.

OPEN carefully selected an online media outlet—

Mashable.com—with a highly engaging and large female

(48%) audience as the content partner of the campaign

to assist in driving the conversation with unique

sponsored content, including round-ups, original editorial

content and video interviews with influential female

founders in tech, leading to nine unique content pieces.

Mashable.com conducted a live video panel, bringing

together three high profile women business owners in

the tech space; Rachel Sklar, founder, Change the Ratio

and TheLi.st, Angela Jia Kim, founder, Om Aroma and

Savor the Success, and Kellee Khalil, founder and CEO,

Lover.ly, moderated by Allison Silver, VP Brand,

Advertising and Advocacy at OPEN.

OPEN measured the campaign’s success by online and

social engagement, specifically social interactions with

the 22 visuals that made up the narrative. The goal at

the outset of the campaign was to garner 100,000 social

interactions (blog posts, likes, comments, tweets, re-

tweets, +1s, pins, video views), and by the end of the

campaign 157,651 social interactions were accrued,

58% above goal.

Online media outreach resulted in 147 placements on

news and blog sites, resulting in 55,166 social

interactions. An article generated for Mashable.com

titled “10 Thing You Didn’t Know About Women-Owned

Businesses” received 2,505 social shares and 10,472

page views. An article included in the content

partnership entitled “44 Female Founders Every

Entrepreneur Should Know” received 14,780 social

interactions across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest

and StumbleUpon.

SBest Use of Digital/Social in a PublicAffairs/Awareness CampaignBronzeAwarded to

Union Pacific Railroad Corporate CommunicationsForUnion Pacific’s 150th Anniversary

This year, Union Pacific Railroad celebrated its 150th

Anniversary, a milestone few companies ever have the

privilege of reaching. Even few companies have such a

rich history to share.

At the height of the Civil War as he fought to unite

America north and south, President Abraham Lincoln

decided connecting our nation east to west was just as

important. In 1862, he signed the Pacific Railway Act,

36

setting the first American transcontinental railroad into

motion and creating Union Pacific to build its eastern

stretch.

The 150th Anniversary had several goals, including

reaching each of Union Pacific’s 45,000 employees,

connecting with the 7,3000 cities and town along the

railroad’s 23-state system, sharing its story with

investors, customers and elected officials and the

general public and differentiating Union Pacific from

industry peers.

Union Pacific’s Anniversary celebration had hundreds of

moving parts, including a steam engine tour, more than

150 employee and community celebrations and a

nationwide media blitz, but the heart of the celebration

beat online. Union Pacific launched a special website—

UP150.com—on Jan. 1, 2012. The site contained a

timeline of the railroad’s 150-year history, an archive of

railroad stories and “Great Big Rollin’ Railroad” videos.

Promotion occurred on Union Pacific’s Facebook page

and Twitter. Fans submitted more than 180 videos and

the finalists flew to Omaha, Nebraska for an “American

Idol” event, which streamed live on UP150.com. The

grand-prize winning video received $15,000 and later

aired as a commercial on CNN.

Union Pacific’s Facebook page received 5,000 new

“likes” and more than 2,300 new Twitter followers.

Nearly 1.4 million people took part in anniversary events

and more than 2,800 news stories ran about the

anniversary, most of them mentioning the UP150.com

website. A company profile on the front of The New York

Times Business section discussed the 150th Anniversary

strategy, while Bloomberg TV produced four segments.

Union Pacific also landed coverage in newspapers

across its 23-state system, including The HoustonChronicle, Salt Lake Tribune, Sacramento Bee,Spokesman-Review, Advocate and Omaha World-Herald.

A video news release submitted to TV stations triggered

nearly 100 TV news stories, reaching an estimated 45

million people.

Best Use of Digital/Social to Pitch Traditional MediaGoldAwarded to

HISTORYForHatfields & McCoys Lynn Gardner, SVP Publicity,Chris Meador, VP Marketing and Susan LevoliDirector of Publicity














another Civil War.




























































Best Use of Digital/Social to Pitch Traditional MediaSilverAwarded to






Elizabeth Arden.









way.
































conversation.





38















Best Use of Digital/Social to Pitch Traditional MediaBronzeAwarded to

Havas PRForGetting Linked to “Ellen”

Allison Pinter, director of talent and development at

Havas PR North America had recently returned to the

agency after six months off to work for a former client,

Yéle Haiti—an NGO started by Wyclef Jean that provides

relief in Haiti—and had also gotten involved with the Bob

Woodruff Foundation, which supports and provides

resources to injured service members. Pinter had no PR

background before becoming Havas’ HR Director and

became a key figure on the 24/7 running of media

relations for Jean’s presidential campaign in Haiti.

On March 15, 2012, Pinter sat down to watch “The Ellen

DeGeneres” and little did she know she was about to

combine her two loves—human resources and human

services.

Pinter watched Joshua Johnson talk with Ellen and

learned he used his talent for tap dancing to pay for his

college education at Penn State. Every weekend,

Johnson took a bus from Penn State to New York City to

tap dance on the subways to raise money to work his

way through college. During the interview, Johnson

mentioned his communications major and that he was

from New York. Pinter hires communications majors for

her agency based in New York. She decided to reach out

to the young man, but did not know how.

She searched on LinkedIn and quickly found a senior

producer for the show. Then, she sent a note saying she

wanted to offer Johnson a summer internship and

wanted to contact him. She mentioned she had already

received approval to pay for his board too.

Within 12 hours, Pinter had an email from the senior

producer and shortly after that received a call with a

human resources producer at “Ellen” who asked for

approval to present Johnson with the offer on air the

following week. The segment aired with the firm’s logo

on the screen. Pinter wrote a blog post published on the

“Social Media and Social Life” blog and the team

tweeted news of the hit and put it on the firm’s Facebook

page, tripling Facebook engagement during the two-day

period after the show. The massage splash on “Ellen”

led to several thousand hits on our website.

Johnson accepted the internship and worked within the

firm’s affiliated urban agency, Team Epiphany. He

worked on an intern project assigned by the chief

creative director, helped to conceptualize and create a

product that would engage teens regarding childhood

obesity.

Best Use of Search Engine Optimization in aCampaignGoldAwarded to

CRT/tanakaForSweetening SEO for PureCanadaMaple

Although the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup

Producer’s website was beautiful, consumer-focused

and communicated its message about the health and

culinary benefits of pure Canadian maple syrup, the

website was nowhere to be found when searching for

relevant terms on Google. While Canada accounts for

80% of the maple syrup production worldwide, the

Federation’s website and message was invisible.

Entering a year with significant news to announce, the

Federation knew its website needed to be restructured,

infused with a cross link strategy, married to its

Facebook and Twitter pages and optimized for strategic

search terms.

Agency CRT/tanaka came aboard to raise awareness of

pure Canadian maple syrup, showcase the product as

versatile and innovative in cooking and finally

demonstrate that maple syrup is a healthy, natural



sweetener and a good substitute for simple sugar.

The goal of CRT/tanaka was to get specific pages of

purecanadamaple.com ranking on the first page of

Google. Knowing Google received over three billion

searches a day, playing in that arena would help to raise

awareness of pure Canadian maple syrup.

In auditing the website’s content, the agency learned

that the site’s content, while informative, was not

keyword rich making the site hard to find in Google. Not

only was content not optimized for searches, some

technical aspects of the site’s development were not

catering to the search engine either. Knowing that

Google ranks web pages based on keyword relevance

and popularity, CRT/tanaka set out to align and

restructure the content around keywords and fix the

site’s build to enhance the website’s Google presence.

Already knowing competitors had invested resources into

optimizing the generic term “maple syrup,” the agency’s

strategy was to optimize the words relating to recipes

and health, which would then align with the client’s

ongoing research and give a point of difference from the

competition.

With its keyword research in place, it was time to think

about how these keywords would influence content and

site structure. Within a two-month timeframe, taking

advantage of the client’s significant health news, the

agency, restructured the site’s architecture and

navigation to cater to specific key words and re-wrote the

site’s content, page titles, URLs, heading tags and page

descriptions to be keyword rich. In addition, the agency

redesigned the homepage to feature more content and

act more like a “dashboard,” restructured the interior

page sidebars to highlight and cross link deep content

and integrated social share functionality for Facebook,

Twitter and Pinterest in order to grow social backlink

profile.

Best Online/Social Media Community of the YearGoldAwarded to

Medtronic, IncForMedtronic Thriving Diabetes Community

Medtronic Diabetes is a world leading medical device

company dedicated to improving the lives of people with

diabetes. The company’s core products—insulin pumps

and continuous glucose monitoring devices—have the

capability to provide better glucose control, which is key

to living long and well with diabetes.

But the therapy is complex, making education and

support important to beginning and staying on insulin

pump therapy. Because customers typically choose a

new pump every four years and must purchase ongoing

supplies to stay on the therapy, the company is equally

focused on retaining its current customers and acquiring

new ones.

Research demonstrates that those with diabetes turn to

others online for advice on day-to-day living, along with

products and therapies. In fact, according to the Pew

Internet American Life Project, 83% of Internet users

living with chronic conditions such as diabetes say they

look online for health information. In addition, a study by

Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital

researchers evaluated 690 social media posts on

diabetes-related sites and found that 29% of the posts

were by people with diabetes providing emotional

support to others and 13% of the posts provided specific

feedback to information requests by others in the

diabetes community.

When Medtronic wanted to build customer loyalty and

provide educational support for its U.S. customer base, it

looked no further than social media. But the diabetes

online community landscape was already crowded with

hundreds of individual diabetes bloggers, multiple well-

established forums and online communities by the

leading advocacy organizations. In addition, indirect and

direct competitors had already built Facebook

communities and Twitter followings.

To make an impact, Medtronic needed to create a truly

unique approach to engage its customer base while also

differentiating itself from the competition. With three

million people with diabetes using Facebook, the social

media tool represented the clear choice for a platform

upon which to build this unique community.

Medtronic created a social strategy focusing on providing

education and support to people living with diabetes and

managing it with technology. Instead of delivering

generic information on diabetes management and

healthy living that other sites provide, the company

decided to leverage existing support resources, inside

scoop from its world-renowned leadership team and

current customer success stories to build and engage a

40

community that would both increase current customer

loyalty and build broader awareness of the benefits of its

products. This is all content the community desires and

that Medtronic is uniquely equipped to provide.

Medtronic launched its Facebook community on April 13,

2012 with a “trip giveaway” content targeted to its most

likely and loyal fans. Any customer who “liked” the page

entered to win a trip to Los Angeles and visit with

Medtronic executives. At launch, targeted emails and

newsletters promoted the contest, while “Like us on

Facebook” calls to action were integrated throughout the

organization.

To encourage its loyal customers to share their stories of

living well with diabetes, Medtronic launched the “Let’s

Build Our Timeline Together” app, the first of its kind in

the healthcare industry. Individuals upload photos and

stories from the moments in their life made possible by

good diabetes management practices and the help of an

insulin pump or continuous glucose monitor. Unlike your

typical Facebook photo upload app, each story posts on

the Medtronic Diabetes Facebook Timeline as a

Company Milestone, as well as on each individual’s

personal timeline, expanding the reach of each success

story. In addition, the “Let’s Build Our Timeline Together”

application generated more than 250 submissions,

consistently the top performing wall posts in terms of

both reach and engagement rate.

Best Online/Social Media Community of the YearSilverAwarded to

CRT/tanakaForVibrant Rioja Social Media Campaign

CRT/tanaka and DOCa Rioja (Spain’s most prominent

wine region) launched a comprehensive social media

program targeting U.S. trade, consumers and media and

industry influencers and wine consumers.

The agency used key campaign messaging to frame

Rioja as a producer of consistently superior wines with

unparalleled quality, offering tremendous value, style

diversity and food-friendliness. Campaign objectives

included increasing the number of Facebook fans and

engagement by 200% and growing Twitter following by

100%. Further, the campaign sought to grow social

engagement by reaching 100 wine bloggers, media and

influencers and 1,000 trade and consumers during a

live streaming event.

CRT/tanaka hosted and sponsored standalone social

media events (Wine Bloggers Conference and

Livestream event) and rewarded digital conversations

and tasting notes on Rioja through social gaming

platform.

The overall social media program included filming a 30-

minute episode in Rioja, which was cross-promoted by

two blog posts and live updates via Facebook and Twitter

as well as sponsoring the 2011 Wine Bloggers

Conference, enabling product sampling, engaging

bloggers during “Meet the Sponsors” event, hosting

three panel discussions and tasting events and

developing a Rioja Wine Crawl with over 300 bloggers

and by-the-glass specials. Facebook and Twitter played

an important role as well, providing daily updates and

“Like Gating,” which prompted Facebook users to “like”

the client’s page in order to view wall content.

Results included an increase in Facebook followed by

1,200%, an increase in Twitter following by 222% and

engagement with over 300 bloggers, resulting in seven

articles. The Livestream event reached 2,538 people

from 10 countries, while shipments of Rioja wine

increased by 12% in 2011 over the previous year.

Best Online/Social Media Community of the YearBronzeAwarded to
































selling skills.








families.







Best Online/Social Media Community of the YearBronzeAwarded to

Ron Sachs CommunicationsForProtect People with Brain Injuries

On July 24, 2012, David Armstrong of Bloomberg News

published the findings of his in-depth investigation into

alleged abuse at the Florida Institute for Neurologic

Rehabilitation (FINR). Three days later, Walter Dartland,

executive director of the Consumer Federation of the

Southeast, issued an emergency call for state and

federal authorities to immediately send a protective

services team to FINR to ensure the safety and well-

being of each resident.

He also advocated for a state or multi-state or federal

forensic audit of the facility to investigate its possible

misuse of any federal and state tax dollars, while also

urging insurance investigators to thoroughly examine

possible fraudulent activity that would “milk or bilk”

patients’ premiums.

No Florida-based media outlets covered the alleged

abuse at FINR during the three days that occurred

between Armstrong publishing his investigation findings

and Dartland’s issuance of the emergency call for

authorities to act. This lack of media attention warranted

the development of a social media public awareness

campaign as a means of promoting community

stakeholder interest and regional coverage of the

investigation.

Directed by Ron Sachs Communications, the agency

created the “Protect People with Brain Injuries”

Facebook community. Team members posted relevant

messaging on traumatic brain injury-related Facebook

pages, encouraging interested parties to join the Protect

People with Brain Injuries Facebook community. Ron

Sachs identified and contacted influential stakeholders

in the traumatic brand injury community nationwide and

encouraged them to spread word about the Protect

People with Brain Injuries Facebook community.

The Protect People with Brain Injuries Facebook Page

grew through organic social sharing as client messaging

resulted in content worthy of community members

sharing with their social networks. The agency team also

managed the Protect People with Brain Injuries

Facebook community to respond to questions and

messages and keep conversation active and strategically

focused.

The campaign generated increased media coverage as

the investigative reports and updates received coverage

by top-tier news outlets, such as BloombergBusinessweek, The Tampa Bay Times, Tampa Tribune,Miami Herald and San Francisco Chronicle.

On August 2, 2012, the Florida Agency for Health Care

Administration, the Florida Department of Children and

Families and the Florida Department of Health

conducted a surprise investigation of FINR. In addition,

the Florida Surgeon General called for state laws to be

strengthened, giving agencies more oversight over

traumatic brain injury patient care in the wake of alleged

abuse at FINR.

42

Content extended beyond those who opted-in to the

Protect People with Brian Injuries Facebook community,

with many posts “going viral” as 95,752 people saw

content associated with the community over the course

of the campaign. Additionally, as the campaign grew,

FINR staff members regularly added disparaging

comments on Protect People with Brian Injuries posts.

These comments oftentimes appeared after hours and

on weekends, requiring 24/7 management of the

community crucial.

Best Social Network Messaging StrategyGoldAwarded to

Ogilvy WashingtonForMotivating Americans to Be One in a Million Hearts

Heart disease and stroke are an epidemic in the United

States. They represent the first and fourth leading

causes of death and the leading causes of disability.

Americans suffer more than two million heart attacks

and strokes each year.

In response to this public health crisis, the Million Hearts

initiative aimed to prevent one million heart attacks and

strokes within five years. Unfortunately, many people do

not know that heart attacks and strokes are preventable.

The good news is that many of the major risk factors for

heart disease and stroke, such as high blood pressure,

smoking and obesity can be prevented and controlled.

Americans are already inundated with health messages,

which can be overwhelming in their calls for people to

change everything from nutrition and physical activity

routines to medication and doctor’s visits. How can one

reach at-risk Americans with clear and actionable

information about their heart health? The Million Hearts

initiative needed to cut through the clutter and empower

Americans to make healthy choices.

Million Hearts sought to prevent heart disease and

stroke through a multi-pronged approach that included

improving quality of care, focusing clinical attention on

the issue and by activating the public to lead a heart-

healthy lifestyle. Social media offered a low-cost and

direct way to activate and empower at-risk Americans

with life-saving tools and messages.

Million Hearts chose to distribute easily understandable

and digestible messages surrounding heart disease and

stroke risk reduction, utilizing media properties that the

target audiences area already interacting with daily.

Given the challenges and contexts in the heart health

space uncovered during the research phase, Ogilvy

Public Relations proposed stimulating audiences on

Facebook and Twitter through daily engagement and

launching a paid media campaign to amplify reach and

engagement on the social media tools. The agency also

suggested prioritizing access to easy-to-understand

information by creating digital assets and leveraging

existing and new partner relationships to maximize the

reach of the initiative by collaborating online with other

organizations (American Heart Association, Men’s Health

Network and CVS) during national health observances.

Ogilvy developed content calendars and managed the

Million Hearts communities on Facebook and Twitter,

writing 1-3 posts per day, seven days a week, which

ensured consistent communication about heart attack

and stroke prevention, promoting and reinforcing healthy

daily choices as well as signature activities, such as the

online pledge.

In addition, Ogilvy leveraged relevant partner

relationships and digital assets, hosting live Twitter and

Facebook chats around key public health observances

(American Heart Month in February, High Blood Pressure

Education/National Stroke Awareness Month in May, and

Men’s Health Month in June). Million Hearts executive

director Dr. Janet Wright published two posts in AARPThe Magazine during the month of May. Following the

female-focused outreach in May, Ogilvy implemented

tailored tactics targeting men, including Facebook ads

and hosting a Facebook chat on men’s health.

Facebook fans increased by 29,883, while during the

three-month campaign period, the Million Hearts

account grew by 202%, more than surpassing the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS)

average Facebook page growth rate of 10%. Page

engagement on Facebook increased, as 4.8% of

Facebook fans were recorded “talking about” the Million

Hearts page and page contents. Twitter followers

increased from 3,700 to 5,722, while 2,090 users

participated in the two Twitter chats, including the

American Heart Association/American Stroke

Association and the United States Surgeon General Dr.

Regina Benjamin. The chats harnessed more than 21.7

million impressions and over 3,610 mentions.



Best Social Network Messaging StrategySilverAwarded to

HISTORYForHatfields & McCoys Lynn Gardner, SVP Publicity,Chris Meador, VP Marketing and Susan LevoliDirector of Publicity














another Civil War.


























































Best Social Network Messaging StrategyBronzeAwarded to

RF|BinderForFor the Love of Chocolate

Sold to the Hershey Company in 2005, Scharffen Berger

Chocolate Maker is the first bean-to-bean chocolate

manufacturer established in the United States in the

past 50 years. Customers revere the San Francisco

brand for both its high standards for sourcing cacao

44

beans and its artisan chocolate-making methods. Since

the purchase of the brand and relocation of the factory,

Scharffen Berger has struggled to maintain its status.

Working with agency RF Binder, Scharffen Berger sought

to continue to engage its original supporters and re-

conquer lapsed consumers who abandoned the brand

after The Hershey Company’s purchase under the

perception standards of cacao sourcing and production

had lowered. RF Binder worked to re-establish the brand

as the premium chocolate of choice for banking and

eating.

RF Binder went to work, deciding to engage consumers

and the online food community on a national level

primarily via social media. In 2010, RF Binder launched

the brand’s Facebook fan page and launched the

brand’s Twitter handle @ScharffenBerger.

In 2012, the agency shifted its focus from baking to

confection with a more emphatic push for promoting the

brand as an eating chocolate.

The campaign’s message strategy operated under the

overall campaign theme of “For the Love of Chocolate,

How Far Will You Go?” This key message reflected

people’s passion for chocolate, their readiness to travel

for a specific bar or flavor fix and their willingness to pay

a little extra for the brand they love. The idea behind the

campaign was to playfully-challenge consumers on what

lengths they would go for their love of chocolate, while at

the same time highlighting the lengths to which

Scharffen Berger goes to make the best chocolate and

get consumers to taste it.

RF Binder leveraged the feelings chocolate lovers have

toward their treat of choice through daily messaging

tactics on both Twitter and Facebook that played to the

“How Far Will You Go” theme.

On Scharffen Berger’s Twitter handle, @ScharffenBerger,

RF Binder developed a Daily Retweet Giveaway, giving

away one free bar of Scharffen Berger chocolate each

weekday. Each day, Scharffen Berger’s daily re-tweet

question probes followers to engage with the brand and

express their love for chocolate and how far they would

go for it.

On Facebook, RF Binder wrote targeted messaging on

Scharffen Berger’s brand page, driving the focus toward

the company’s line of artisan chocolate bars for eating,

while still highlighting the brand’s baking line. Through

these simple, lighthearted daily Facebook posts, polls

and shared photos, Scharffen Berger Facebook fans

received information about the history and science of

the cacao plant, the various steps of Scharffen Berger’s

artisan chocolate-making process, and the details of

Scharffen

Berger’s efforts at sourcing cacao beans.

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, RF Binder created a

customizable and shareable Chocolate eGram on

Scharffen Berger’s Facebook page. Users could send

these virtual cards to friends on Facebook with the

option to share on their own public walls. The eGram

aimed to multiply brand exposure and drive news fans to

visit the Scharffen Berger Facebook page as a place to

connect with fellow chocolate lovers.

Meanwhile on Twitter, Scharffen Berger held a

Valentine’s Day Twitter Party, inviting fans to exchange

thoughts on the connection between love and chocolate,

including gift ideas, celebration plans and how chocolate

fit into their Valentine’s Day festivities. In addition,

Scharffen Berger leveraged five prominent mommy

bloggers to serve as co-hosts of the party to contribute

perspectives on the place of chocolate in their lives and

relationships, as well as to introduce their fan

communities to a new chocolate brand.

Further, in May, Scharffen Berger held a Mother’s Day

Twitter Party, encouraging fans to share how chocolate

relates to their special relationships with their mothers

or, as mothers, with their children. Scharffen Berger

again recruited a panel of influential bloggers to drive

the discussion, which centered on memories between

mothers and children surrounding chocolate, the perfect

chocolate moment with mom and chocolate gifts for

Mother’s Day.

From the start of the “How Far Will You Go?” campaign in

February 2012, Scharffen Berger gained over 5,000

fans on Facebook, breaking the 10,000 fan mark just a

few months into the campaign and increasing the

number of people talking about the brand to over 300 on

average. Since the beginning of the campaign, Scharffen

Berger also gained 4,000 followers on Twitter, expanding

its reach and sending chocolate bars to nearly 200

consumers across the United States.



Best Use of Digital/Social for a Travel/HospitalityCampaignGoldAwarded to

KC Convention & Visitors AssociationForAll-Star Game Social Media Command Center

To engage with tourists throughout their experience in

Kansas City during Major League Baseball’s All-Star

Game week, members of the Kansas City Convention &

Visitors Association (KCCVA), Major’s office and the KC

Social Media Club activated a community wide and

destination marketing-based Social Media Command

Center.

The effort focused on the city of Kansas City, separate

from the MLB All-Star conversation. The goals of the

KCCA team were to share its Midwest hospitality, extend

a social welcome to visitors and apply real time social

customer relationship management (CRM) strategies.

The team answered visitors’ questions in real time as

well as requests for information and that tourists

remained well informed about the city’s great features

and remained satisfied throughout their experience in

Kansas City.

Part of the campaign’s overall success is due to

@VisitKC’s ability to work effectively with other civic and

private interest groups, defining each organization’s

approach to social listening to prevent crossover, while

allowing for a scalable activation. For example, where

the MLB focused its social listening teams on the global

All-Star conversation, local law enforcement agencies

monitored for public safety, the Airport Commission

engaged on topics of safety and traveler needs

throughout their facility and the KCCVA teams remained

focused on enhancing visitor experiences. Each group

working together enabled a citywide and comprehensive

approach to social CRM practices, while still offering

essential public safety and local support services.

During the campaign, the team processed 78,000

conversations that included branded keywords in the

context of the event and tourism related interests

through content filters. The number of conversations

containing core destination branding #KC or Kansas City

included 52,000, while the team selected 32,000

conversations for direct review, using an advanced social

media workflow process. In addition, the team directly

engaged in 2,100 conversations, answering questions

from parking information to recommendations on where

tourists might find the best BBQ. Ten percent of the

event-related conversation surrounding Major League

Baseball’s All-Star week featured the brand of the city

and marketing language, KC, Kansas City, FanatiKC and

more.

Ninety-three percent of conversations involving the city

represented positive to neutral remarks, while 73% of

conversations remained positive. During the peak of

event activity from July 7 to July 11, 2012 and based on

the 1,911 direct messages sent, the team recorded 2.2

interactions per person, resulting in a potential reach of

over 1.7 million people.

Best Use of Digital/Social for a Travel/HospitalityCampaignSilverAwarded to

Hilton HHonorsForGlobal Social Treasure Hunt

In October 2011, Hilton HHonors launched the world’s

largest Global Social Treasure Hunt to celebrate its

fourth quarter promotion—Fast Ways to Free Stays. Hilton

HHonors, the loyalty program for the 10 distinct hotel

brands for Hilton Worldwide, offered consumers 500

Free Night Certificates in events in five cities around the

world over a five-day period.

Directed by Edelman Worldwide, the campaign utilized a

multi-phased, research-based communications strategy

to drive widespread awareness and excitement for the

Global Social Treasure Hunt, both on and offline, among

loyalty travelers throughout the promotion.

The promotion also positioned HHonors as a guest

loyalty program that provides incentives (free stays or

double points) to members in a short amount of time,

compared to other loyalty programs.

Edelman targeted leisure travelers, both men and

women, ages 25+. From this broad audience, the agency

targeted a sub-audience, identified as “Status Seeking

Relaxers” who are men and women ages 25-34. In

addition, a careful plan was developed to create a user

experience that catered to this audience, such as

offering social media “scavenger hunt” tasks that could

be completed quickly, which encouraged younger

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audiences to participate.

To execute the first-ever global social media program, the

team hosted back to back events in Washington, D.C.,

London, Chicago, Milan, San Francisco and Istanbul. The

Global Social Treasure Hunt unfolded in a two-tiered

approach. First, Edelman promoted the HHonors

program and grew online communities and then used a

Surprise & Delight tactic to engage community with

additional promotional incentives. Consumers were

required to follow @HiltonHHonors on Twitter to unlock

clues and tips to learn which city the Global Social

Treasure Hunt was each day and what task needed to be

completed to win.

Results for Hilton’s “Fast Ways to Free Stays,” included

108.2 million media impressions and coverage in USAToday, Yahoo News and Forbes.com. In addition, pre-

launch outreach to travel blogger, “The Points Guy”

established a brand relationship that secured additional

coverage around the Global Social Treasure Hunt events

throughout the rest of the promotion.

The re-designed site debuted on March 1, 2011,

receiving an increase in several areas, including unique

visits (355%), page views (415%), pages per visit (18%)

and a decrease in bounce rate (20%). Visits to the site

directly from Google searches increased by 514%, while

due to the keyword research and website restructuring,

there are now over 50 search terms that place the

website on page one of Google.

Further, Hilton built HHonors’ online social media

community on Twitter and Facebook, gaining 1,400 new

followers and 1,400 new fans. The Global Social

Treasure Hunt’s dedicated hashtag appeared in 1,000

tweets, reaching 4.6 million Twitter users. The

#Hhfreenight hashtag was a global Twitter trending topic

during the online Free Night Certificate giveaway, which

was a “Surprise & Delight” bonus to HHonors Twitter

followers who did not live in the markets of activation.

Best Use of Digital/Social for a Travel/HospitalityCampaignBronzeAwarded to

Matter CommunicationsForOur Vacation Home is Your Vacation HomeVacationHomeRentals.com

VacationHomeRentals.com (VHR) CEO Tom Gilmore built

his business around the fact that people want to share

their vacation homes. Growing up, Tom and his sister

helped his grandmother get camp ready for guests and

he saw the joy his grandmother got from playing a part of

a family’s incredible vacation. Now, as a property owner

himself, he brings a unique perspective to his business

and truly understands the “value” of a fun vacation.

As the fourth largest vacation home rental site, VHR

competes with giants like HomeAway, VRBO and FlipKey.

VHR looked for a way to highlight its personality and

differentiators while engaging with target consumers on

a deeper level. One of VHR’s key differentiators is that it

is a family owned business providing stellar customer

support via its “Happy Rental Guarantee” and “Best

Price Promise.”

VHR worked with Matter Communications to create a

contest that would reinforce the company name for both

brand awareness and SEO, while reinforcing the

“personal” experience that consumers get from working

with a family owned, customer service-centric company.

VHR launched the month-long “Our Vacation Home is

Your Vacation Home” contest on its blog on April 6,

2012. The contest had CEO Gilmore and his family

opening the doors of their Maine vacation home for a

week’s vacation for one lucky consumer and seven

family members. VHR asked consumers to comment on

the blog post by answering the simple question “Why do

you need a vacation?”

In addition to launching the contest on the blog, VHR

issued a media alert, included the contest in their

monthly newsletter and shared via social channels.

Matter Communications also pitched the news out to a

handful of key bloggers with appropriate audiences to

post the news or establish giveaways in conjunction with

the contest, generating coverage in CafeMom.com,

MomGiveaways.com, FamiliesGo!, Cake Mom and

HuffPost Travel who shared the news via social channels

or posted on the news.

More than 1,450 consumers submitted for the contest

saying why they should win the Vacation Home.



Best Use of Video in a Digital/Social EnvironmentSilverAwarded to

Honeywell Friction Materials/Weber ShandwickForBendix Brakes for Teen Safety

Bendix performed an initial consumer survey of parents

with teens (ages 15-19 with a vehicle) and found a

variety of teen driving habits and maintenance

knowledge. The survey found teen drivers tend to have

older or used vehicles and typically, teens have some

interest in the proper maintenance of their vehicles. The

survey also found that parents need more education on

driver safety and vehicle maintenance. In addition, many

parents were unsure the last time they had checked the

brakes on their teen’s car.

From these results, Bendix created objectives to

generate awareness of vehicle maintenance among teen

drivers and their parents, create a connection for

consumers between Honeywell Friction Materials/Bendix

Brakes and driving safety and to secure online media

exposure.

The “Bendix Brakes for Teen Safety” campaign began

during Teen Driver Safety Week on October 11, 2011.

Bendix conducted a survey with Harris Interactive to

provide data and gauge baseline numbers, developed a

series of videos throughout the year to provide teens and

parents with tips and information on safe driving and

vehicle maintenance and created press releases with

additional information to accompany each video,

leveraging survey data to support the stories. The video

and press releases went to a targeted media list,

including automotive trade publications, daily

newspapers, parenting reporters and bloggers,

transportation and safety reporters. An interactive news

release featuring videos, press releases, photos and

other assets provide media members with material to

shape their stories. Lastly, the company created a Bendix

Brakes for Teen Safety Facebook page.

Media hits included parenting and consumer sites, such

as Examiner.com, Earnest Parenting and The ChicagoTribune. Automotive trade sites covered the initiative as

well, allowing Honeywell Friction Materials to reach its

traditional audience of technicians, distributors and

other industry professionals. In total, coverage appeared

on more than 625 sites, resulting in 91 million media

impressions.

The Bendix Brakes for Teen Safety Facebook page

generated more than 1,800 “likes” since September

2011 and created an engaging environment for teens,

parents and other consumers to interact with the brand

and learn about vehicle maintenance and safe driving.

Videos on the Bendix Brakes YouTube channel


Best Use of Video in a Digital/Social EnvironmentGoldAwarded to

Litzky PRFor“Call Me Maybe” Litzky Public Relations’ YouTubeRecruiting Video

While Litzky Public Relations’ (LPR) employees pride

themselves on being up-to-date on the latest PR

techniques, social media trends and pop culture

sensations, they take immense pride in their careers and

their place of employment as well.

When two entry level positions at LPR opened up in late

spring 2012, it was the employees who, without direction

from management, decided to marry their knowledge of

social medial with their pop culture prowess to create a

unique recruiting video to reach creative and

enthusiastic candidates in a popular social media space,

YouTube.

Ultimately, the goal of the agency’s video was to

generate buzz about the two open positions, attract

talent candidates and increase overall awareness of

Litzky Public Relations in the industry.

The strategy behind the video was to use the popular

Carly Rae Jepson song “Call Me Maybe” (which, at the

time had just started to generate national buzz) to give

potential candidates a taste of LPR’s distinct office

culture. From perks like office yoga, bagel Fridays and a

pet-friendly office to a sneak peek at “A Day in the Life of

LPR,” including some of the more mundane tasks like

packing boxes to send to LPR’s media contacts, the

video gave viewers a glimpse of what it was like to work

at LPR.

Shot on a simple Flip video camera and edited in-house,

LPR’s rendition of “Call Me Maybe” cost the agency

nothing to create and allowed employees to really make

the video their own. Employees excited about the idea of

creating a viral video, stayed late into the night to

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choreograph the routines and write out the story board

for the video, shot during lunch and after hours in late

May and edited over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

The plan for distribution included pitching both local and

national media and sharing the video with LPR’s almost

600 Facebook fans. Although YouTube recruitment

videos are a dime a dozen, this video represented the

first time a PR agency tapped into an emerging trend

and used the social platform as an in-house hiring tool.

LPR hoped the popularity of the song coupled with the

unique office atmosphere and the underlying story of a

small business growing in an unstable economy would

pique media attention and help the video bring

awareness to the two open positions and LPR’s ability to

create a good media story.

Once the video went live online, the team immediately

pitched local Hoboken, New Jersey online and print

media to let them know that LPR was hiring. Following

pitches to local media, the team extended to statewide

media and eventually national media, all the while

tweaking their pitches as the video’s popularity

increased.

Before LPR knew it, their strategic pitching efforts

landed the agency’s story and video on popular websites

such as The Huffington Post, Mashable.com and The

New York Post. In the coming days, news stations from

Las Vegas to Texas featured the video in broadcast

segments. The agency and its viral video even made

media roundups with Miss USA contestants and the

President.

Shortly after the video came out to the media, LPR

received over 100 resumes. The video had a direct result

on the number of applications as almost every candidate

referenced the YouTube video in their cover letter. In

addition, LPR received resumes from people all over the

world, writing on the agency’s Facebook wall and

tweeting about the opportunity on Twitter (the video was

a number six trend on Twitter the second day of its

release as a result of the Mashable.com story). In the

end, the video garnered more than 122 million media

impressions and put the agency in the running for a few

new business accounts as well.


Best Use of Video in a Digital/Social EnvironmentBronzeAwarded to

Weber ShandwickForCreate New Usage: REFUEL | got chocolate milk?

After decades of a slow but steady decline in milk

consumption, an emerging body of research identified a

surprising new usage occasion and a new audience for

chocolate milk as an effective beverage for helping

active adults recover after strenuous exercise.

To change the perception of chocolate milk being a

“kids’ drink” and build credibility around its post-workout

recovery benefits among serious athletes, Weber

Shandwick launched an all-new fully integrated program

highlighting what athletes do after strenuous exercise

can make a dramatic difference in how they feel and

perform during the next workout.

The REFUEL “got chocolate milk” “my After” campaign

highlighted the benefits of refueling with low fat

chocolate milk after strenuous exercise and specifically

showcase how some of the worlds greatest athletes

incorporate it as part of their “after.”

The agency developed a series of training day videos

featuring an inside look at the real-life training routines

and techniques of an elite team of celebrity and

competitive athletes with a spotlight on their recovery

and post-exercise nutrition. The REFUEL athletics

included twelve-time swimming medalist Dara Torres,

Ironman World Champions Chris Lieto and Mirinda

Carfrae, USA Basketball legend Carmelo Anthony, U.S.

Swim Team Trainer Nick Folker, and more.

The team designed a strategic plan focused on creating

unique, exclusive content that delivered the REFUEL

message authentically to athletes/influencers

nationwide. The digital format videos sought to engage

athletes online to inspire and educate them about

training techniques, but most importantly, to show them

that the things they do after a strenuous workout

(refueling with chocolate milk) can be just as important

as their pre-workout prep.

For example, a four-part series featuring Torres profiled

her as she “competes against the clock” to train, be a

Mom and compete against the biological clock, as she

gets ready to become the oldest Olympic swimmer in



history.

To date, 15 videos have been produced and distributed

with another 19 planned for production/distribution

through December 2012.

From March 10 to August 31, the Training day videos

received 175,644 views and 1,349 engagements on

YouTube, including shares and likes. Within the first

three months after launch, the videos received more

than 48,000 total views and nearly 1.5 million

impressions.

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2012 bulldog digital/social pr awards hall of fame

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