2011 Bulldog Digital/Social PR Awards Hall of Fame

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

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We thank this year’s team of Bulldog Awards journalist judges for their hard work, discriminating taste and commitment to promoting excellence in media relations and publicity.

FINAL JUDGES Evan Cooper, Deputy Editor, InvestmentNews Chris Elliott, Travel Scribe, The New York Times Tom Hallman, Feature Writer (Pulitzer Prize Winner), The Oregonian Meghan Collins Sullivan, Former Deputy Editor, CNN/Washington Post current Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow Maria Stainer, Assistant Editor/Continuous News Desk, Washington Times Sally Falkow, APR, Editor and Publisher, PRoactive Report, one of the first PR blogs online PRELIMINARY JUDGES Richard Carufel, Senior Editor, Bulldog Reporter’s Daily ‘Dog Meghan Collins Sullivan, Former Deputy Editor, CNN/Washington Post current Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow Steve Beale, Editor, Bulldog Reporter’s Inside Health Media James Bucci, Bulldog Reporter’s Media Pro Pitching Alerts

124 Linden Street, Oakland, CA 94607 www.bulldogreporter.com 1-800-959-1059 For more information about the Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social Awards, including entry deadlines, fees and submission requirements, please go to www.bulldogreporter.com. © Copyright 2012, Infocom Group–publisher of the Daily ‘Dog, Inside Health Media, PR University, Media Pro and Media Pro Pitching Alerts.

Written by James Bucci On the Cover: Grand Prize winner Best Use of Digital/Social in a Communications Campaign, Denison University

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

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HALL OF FAME Summary of Winning Campaigns from the 2011 Bulldog Digital/Social Awards for Excellence in Online Communications Winners of the 2011 Bulldog Digital/Social Awards for Excellence in Online Communications enter a pantheon of exemplary communications practitioners, and their campaigns are summarized in this edition of The Bulldog Awards Digital/Social PR Hall of Fame magazine.

Winners were chosen exclusively by working journalists from hundreds of entries representing the very best strategic and tactical prowess that PR/corporate communications has to offer. Campaigns were judged by a team of working journalists, who assessed them on the basis of their ability to achieve extraordinary visibility and influence opinion, as well as on their creativity, command of media and technology, and tenacity.

We now present to you, The 2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Award Winners

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

Best Use of Digital/Social for a Digital/Social Communications Campaign of the Year Grand Prize Awarded to Denison University For TheDEN (Denison University) College news sites have been places for press releases and for staged photographs of happy students or sometimes to mix it up, photos of contemplative students reading under trees. Denison University shook up this model with “TheDEN,” the online source for the college’s news, stories and ideas.

TheDEN provides prospective students, current students, faculty, alumni and members of the media quick-hit, blog-style news about the college. The site reflects the “life of the college” in a straightforward way without all the higher-education jargon by creating a tool that would be effective in telling the Denison story.

The site tells the stories of students and faculty living the Denison mission—thinking for themselves and being active in the community, learning about each other and making informed decisions.

TheDEN has a target audience with an age range of 15 to 100, which includes high school students trying to decide if the college might be a good fit for them, young alumni who want to see what their favorite professors are doing, older alumni who have not been back to campus for a while, parents, potential employees, townspeople, reporters, current faculty, staff and students.

TheDEN’s navigation organizes content around three primary conceptual buckets: “Academics & Research,” “On Campus,” and “Beyond Campus.” The first two hold stories about people and places on campus, while “Beyond Campus” shares stories of those making an impact on the wider world. For members of the press, beyond providing RSS access to site content, TheDEN provides a full section of media resources, from

downloadable photo & video footage to faculty expert information.

The site also provides readers with blog-style news about the college. All stories relate to each other through a tagbased system with commenting and social networking features that allow audiences to engage Denison and each other in conversations about the news. Even the university’s president, who sporadically followed the communications office online, now visits TheDEN several times per day to keep up with the happenings on campus.

Based on the site’s first 10 months, TheDEN generated more than 140,000 unique visitors and 300,000 page views. In February 2011, TheDEN received a Silver ADDY in the category of “Website, Consumer HTML, Products” from the Columbus chapter of the American Advertising Federation. CASE Circle of Excellence awards recognized TheDEN with a bronze medal in the category, “Individual Sub-Websites.” TheDEN also won an Ohio Interactive Award as the best entry in the category of “Social Web: Blogs.” In September 2011, TheDEN received the “Best University Website” award from the Web Marketing Association and an Honorable Mention in Online Communications at the Platinum PR Awards.

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Best Use of Digital/Social in an Arts/Culture/ Entertainment Campaign Gold Awarded to Activate Sports & Entertainment and New Jersey Devils For “Mission Control” In 2007, the state-of-art Prudential Center opened to the public, ushering in a new era for sports and entertainment in New Jersey. However, the New Jersey Devils hockey franchise and their new arena soon faced negative brand perceptions and communication challenges in building their fan base and helping in the revitalization of Newark.

Lacking the massive marketing budgets of the other arts/ entertainment properties in the region, the team and venue could not effectively compete for the attention of sports fans and concert enthusiasts. When the 2010-11 season began, Rich Krezwick, new president of Devils Arena Entertainment, set out to change the internal culture and instill a digital communications mindset to change perceptions, target and engage fans and drive new revenue. The result was a first for professional sports—the fan-sourced PR campaign entitled “Mission Control.”

The tactics included the launch of a digital command center in the heart of the Prudential Center marketing offices, serving as an interactive digital hub to better engage in online discussions, initiate proactive outreach, track media performance and trends, and deliver interactive service to fans and followers on Twitter, Facebook, fan message boards and other media channels. Fans became part of the process as well, twodozen “super-fans” from the “Devils Army” fan base provided fan-sourced communications. The organization also re-educated its sales force to sell with a “digital-first” mindset, a promotional video shared the new command center with the outside world.

The team decided to spread the story via social media

influencers, as popular Silicon Valley web strategist Jeremiah Owyang broke the news with a tweet and photo of the launch invite on his blog. In the ensuing weeks and months, media coverage included The New York Times, ESPN, Forbes and USA Today, among others. Additionally, the efforts generated more than $100,000 in incremental ticket sales, $1.2 million in new sponsorships, while in the first half of 2011, according to industry publication Venues Today, the Prudential Center ranked as the #3 grossing arena in the country for concerts, family shows and special events. Prior to 2011, the venue had never ranked within the top 15.

Best Use of Digital/Social in an Arts/Culture/ Entertainment Campaign Silver Awarded to Euro RSCG Worldwide PR For KmartGamer After the 2010 introduction of KmartGamer, an online resource and community for video gamers, Kmart Consumer Electronics searched for new ways to engage gamers and have a conversation with customers about industry insights, trends, news and offers.

Successfully launching KmartGamer through its own blog, Twitter handle and Facebook page, agency Euro RSCG Worldwide PR explored ways to enhance KmartGamer’s relationships with customers and industry influencers.

The PR team identified the Electronic Entertainment Expo—the epicenter for gaming news in the U.S.—as the platform for reaching the online gaming community. After the convention’s organizer decided to restrict blogger access, they developed a contest to drive awareness and buzz among a very influential group, creating a call for submissions from gaming blggers to attend E3.

The contest worked, attracting more than 75 bloggers to enter original posts about why they were a KmartGamer

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

and why E3 was important to them, which built relationships with a wide group of gaming bloggers who normally wouldn’t have been at the show.

Before, during and after E3, Euro Worldwide hosted regular Twitter chats to discuss news, announce the contest winners, learn what the community wanted the winning bloggers and KmartGamer to report on from the show, and give exclusive offers for deals on games, consoles and accessories. The agency also conducted ongoing relations and outreach to online, social and traditional media focused on the gaming industry.

The press release about the contest was picked up or reported on by 242 outlets including Yahoo.com, Reuters, Forbes, Game Review Network and E3Expo. At E3, Euro Worldwide arranged for the winning bloggers to receive exclusive booth visits, access to press conferences and interviews with key developers, publishers, manufacturers and other industry thought leaders. They also arranged for CBS News to interview the bloggers and created internal and external videos, which highlighted their activities, including their interactions with key vendors and products.

For less than $41,000 Euro Worldwide further established Kmart Consumer Electronics’ brand equity with some of the prominent players in the gaming industry. The new relationships with the three contest winners resulted in more than 48 original blog posts and 257 tweets due to the 19 prearranged meetings for them with top gaming publishers and developers, and interviews with Kmart executives about industry trends. One enthusiastic blogger wrote 23 posts and more than 100 tweets, resulting in almost 133,000 media impressions.

Overall, efforts at the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo generated more than 17.4 million media impressions in top-tier gaming and news outlets, including GameSpot, Joystiq, Destructoid, GoNintendo, Reuters and Forbes.

The program demonstrated that a corporation could work and develop relationships with influential bloggers without controlling their voice.

Best Use of Digital/Social in an Arts/Culture/ Entertainment Campaign Bronze Awarded to Rogers & Cowan For Avon Voices To celebrate Avon’s 125th anniversary, the company built an online community that honored the same ideal of empowering women—an integral part of Avon’s history since the brand’s founding. Avon wanted this digital community to transcend language barriers and distance, resulting in a movement called “Avon Voices,” the company’s first global online singing talent search and songwriting competition.

The purpose was to unite empowered women throughout the world with voice and song with a percentage of all financial proceeds benefiting the Avon Foundation.

“Avon Voices” ran for eleven months, beginning in December 2010 and continuing to November 2011 with four community-voting phases on AvonVoices.com. Avon invited people from more than 60 countries, along with its 6.2 million Independent Sales Representatives, to ignite a global movement through music. Women from all over the world submitted 30-second performance videos for the singing talent search, while men and women submitted original songs in a songwriting competition, both having the possibility of winning a record contract and the inclusion of the official Avon Voices album.

Avon wanted to engage the 60 global markets in the program and looked to Rogers & Cowan to implement its social media expertise in building their international digital community.

During the campaign, a combination of online public voting and the “Avon Voices” celebrity judges, including legendary musicians Fergie, Diane Warren, Natasha Bedingfield, Delta Goodrem, Lea Salonga, Ivete Sangalo, Valeriya and David Pack determined which global

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contenders advanced through the talent competition after their initial video submissions. The contenders also had the opportunity to travel to Los Angeles, Austin, Paris, Rio and Hong Kong to receive makeovers, record performance videos and voice and music coaching from the celebrity judges.

Best Use of Digital in a B2B Technology Campaign Gold Awarded to Lewis PRLEWIS PR For Digital Drives Thought Leadership

The campaign reached its crescendo in November in New York City at the Avon Foundation Gala and Avon Voices Finale where two finalists, one Avon representative and one general participant were announced. All finalists performed the “Avon Voices” anthem, penned by Diane Warren while at the Foundations Gala. The songs written by the two winners of the songwriting competition were performed as well.

Unisys, a century-old technology provider to government agencies and commercial entities, went through a tumultuous period over the last few years while it reshaped itself. The business divested of non-core assets and transformed to position itself for future growth within the hottest areas of technology, including cyber-security, cloud computing, mobile applications and social computing, to name a few.

In the first few weeks of voting, participants cast more than two million votes from around the world. Rogers & Cowan created, maintained and grew “Avon Voices” social media channels and presence into a robust and engaged international community primarily for women.

The company named LEWIS PR as agency of record to position them as a provider of mission critical IT through various thought leadership programs. With many business-to-business technology providers offering similar technology solutions and using similar marketing messages to external audiences, the challenge for LEWIS PR and Unisys was to rise above the noise, not just with a persuasive story but a unique approach to telling that story.

Historically, the Unisys corporate communications department has commissioned surveys to communicate key messages and reinforce corporate and product positioning. But, LEWIS believed more effective ways existed to tell the story with respect to the two surveys.

The PR firm recommended that the two surveys launched over the summer of 2011 include new methods, such as infographics, videos and corporate blog posts, in order to secure attention from top-tier media outlets and industry influencers.

When LEWIS came onboard, the annual Unisys Security Index (USI) announcement was only a month away. The Security Index provides a recurring, statistical measure of consumer concern about four areas of security— national, financial, Internet and personal safety. LEWIS

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

digested the survey results in order to cherry-pick the most influential findings from the report. An Infographic was approved and ready to be pitched as an exclusive to top-tier media outlets.

Mashable.com ran the Infographic, which featured the content made available by the Security Index. LEWIS continued to approach digital-savvy journalists, scoring coverage with The Atlantic. The PR team also created a “man on the street” video to emphasize the public’s point-of-view around security within the U.S. government.

The video has received over 400 views on YouTube.

Two months later, Unisys’ second major survey data launch was set to announce findings concerning the emergence of the Consumerization of IT. LEWIS offered an exclusive to GigaOm due to its focus on intersecting business, technology and social computing, believing the survey results highlighting the emergence of mobile devices entering the enterprise was a perfect fit for the outlet’s readership.

LEWIS also worked with Unisys to launch a blog series on its “Consumer Powered IT” blog, highlighting consumable chunks of data, including graphics developed by the PR agency, which were socialized and shared across channels. It was expected that journalists would find the information and easily download the art for inclusion in their stories, such as “IT Departments Hopelessly Behind iWorkers on Smart Devices” in BNET.

Best Use of Digital in a B2B Technology Campaign Silver Awarded to Bite Communications For Royal Wedding Rings in Inaugural Coverage As Sybase’s U.S. communications agency for the past three years, Bite Communications’ object is to keep the Sybase Operator Analytics 365 brand and associated products top of mind amongst IT buyers in the enterprise

as well as mobile operators.

Sybase helps enterprises extract information from their huge, ever-growing databases and turn this data into actionable business intelligence at the time it’s needed.

Sybase tasked Bite with not only raising awareness of the products, but also challenging the conventional assumption that IT managers and frontline employees who run complicated, ad hoc queries on large data sets can cause major performance issues, including unacceptable slowdowns that impede decision making and create unacceptable risks and service-level agreement problems.

As the world prepared for the upcoming UK Royal Wedding, the Bite team saw an opportunity to further the company’s objectives by positioning Sybase as the global leader in mobile messaging services and highlighting the company’s capabilities of delivering real-time analytics through Sybase Operators Analytics 365. The opportunity presented the PR team a chance to elevate the business intelligence tool beyond the deep technology trades into business press for the first time by making Sybase’s products relevant to real world events.

Bite believed that the best way to drive coverage was to not only pitch reporters on the surge in SMS/MMS traffic, but also go one step further and conduct original, near real-time research accompanied by key analysis and graphic representations. The team created assets that could be used by the Sybase PR team around the globe to drive proactive feature stories.

On the day of the Royal Wedding, the team pulled near real-time data into a pitch that sparked media interest supported by the original research and graphs. In the U.S., Bite pitched the Sybase data and supporting graphics to top IT trades, mobile trades and business press. The team monitored the news craze around the wedding, identifying who covered social media pick-up of the day’s events and reached-out to them in real-time.

Based on the success of the Royal Wedding campaign,

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Bite developed and ran a similar campaign around the peak in SMS messaging timed with the death of Osama Bin Laden. When President Obama made the announcement Sunday evening, the team quickly jumped into place to cull the data and send to media early Monday morning.

Sybase received international attention with the realtime analytic data surrounding the SMS traffic for the Royal Wedding and the death of Osama Bin Laden. Bite secured coverage for Sybase in business press for the first time. In the U.S., key results included coverage in top-tier media, such as Forbes, Time Magazine, and All Things D as well as IT trades Computerworld and eWeek.

Significant pick-up occurred on Twitter, with more than 300 tweets on Sybase’s research generated by key influencers including a Forbes.com feature that captured all of Sybase’s key messages.

Best Use of Digital in a B2B Technology Campaign Bronze Awarded to Brodeur Partners For Corning’s Day Made of Glass Goes Viral Over the past 160 years, Corning Incorporated has applied its expertise in glass science to help enable the breakthroughs that have revolutionized our modern world, Thomas Edison’s light bulb, the glass windows for all U.S. manned space flights, and optical fiber for telecommunications. However, for most consumers, the Corning brand is most commonly associated with casserole dishes and cookware, despite the sale of this business in the late 1990s.

To capture the attention of consumers, manufacturers and designers in a rapidly moving technology market, Corning worked with Brodeur Partners to secure the attention and endorsement of influential consumer

tech reporters, bloggers and consumers. The audience had to be convinced that one of the oldest manmade substances, glass, was a must-have ingredient for everyday life.

On February 7, 2011, Corning released the YouTube video “A Day Made of Glass,” which depicted the company’s vision for the future with specialty glass at its center.

The five-minute video displayed futuristic applications of Corning specialty glass and ran viewers through a day in the life of a family in the future, and how they used the surfaces of appliances, cars, mirrors and other technology products as interactive panels that display content and provide information.

Within a week, “A Day Made of Glass” received more than 444 Facebook and Twitter updates and became a viral hit on YouTube with over 2.5 million viewers in just two weeks. As of August 31, 2011, the video has garnered over 15.6 million views, positive YouTube “Likes” and comments. To date, the video has received over 11,000 total social media updates.

From February 7, 2011 to August 31, 2011, the video generated a total of 40 pieces of unique coverage. Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC conducted a live broadcast interview titled “Corning’s Clear Vision for the Future?” with Corning’s Dr. Pete Bocko and Dan Collins.

As of August 31, 2011, the “A Day Made of Glass” video has generated over 15.6 million views, while Corning’s vision for the future of technology appeared in 40 unique pieces of coverage.

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

Best Blog for an Agency/Consultancy Gold Awarded to Hellerman Baretz Communications For Sound Bites Blog “Little Blog, Big Ideas” If you wanted to know what to expect from the legal industry in 2011, there were few better sources of wisdom than the “Sound Bites” blog maintained by Hellerman Baretz Communications (HBC). It was there that leading legal journalists made their predictions for what would happen in the year now unfolding. For example, Robin Sparkman, the editor-in-chief of American Lawyer foresaw a year of improved financials for the nation’s largest firms, while David Lat, the founder of legal gossip site AbovetheLaw.com predicted the dissolution of at least one major American law firm. Dhalia Lithwick, the legal reporter for Slate, predicted a year devoid of drama at the Supreme Court.

Ask any lawyer on Wall Street or within the Beltway to identify the most influential legal journalists, and the names above will be among the first out of their mouths.

So what are they doing on the blog of a boutique PR agency?

These journalists know of the widespread respect for Hellerman Baretz Communications and for its “Sound Bites” blog.

Guided by the editorial direction of agency founder John Hellerman, the blog posts three to four times per week, within two regular features. “Monday Media” rounds up the most interesting stories at the intersection of the law and journalism and previews the week ahead. “Tuesday Tweet” offers a more expanded look at a single news item discovered through HBC’s Twitter stream. The “Tuesday Tweet” feature is a fun, ongoing reminder to legal marketers and other potential clients of HBC’s fluency with social media and earns the agency goodwill among the journalists happy to have their stories and Twitter handles broadcast to a larger audience. It also offers HBC

a chance to promote its own Twitter presence, converting blog readers into Twitter followers and deepening their contact with the agency.

The blog also has a number of popular, semi-regular features. In “Grading the Statement,” a member of the HBC team analyzes a corporate statement that has made its way into the mainstream news, such as Groupon’s apology after airing an offensive Super Bowl ad.

Another regular column is the “Young PR Pro,” written by Caitlin Fisher, one of the agency’s bright young talents, allowing HBC to speak to the latest generation of PR professionals.

The blog’s main contributor is John Ford, the agency’s director of editorial services. An accomplished writer, his writing has elevated the content of “Sound Bites” above the standard for legal marketing blogs. His post in appreciation of the late Steve Jobs demonstrated his talent and how HBC effectively uses “Sound Bites” as a running advertisement for its ability to create compelling content.

Question-and-answer features with new team members Rudy Burwell and Viveka von Rosen provided readers a glimpse of two recent additions to HBC. One of the blog’s most read post revolved around the publication of a salary survey about the legal marketing industry. Posting the survey on the blog confirmed “Sound Bites’” status as a must-read within the legal profession.

Best Blog for an Agency/Consultancy Silver Awarded to Marlo Marketing Communications For m.blog by Marlo Marketing Communications Marlo Marketing Communications wanted to create something their peers would read—something that prospective clients, potential employees, key influencers

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and members of the media would want to read.

In constructing the “m.blog,” Marlo took a different approach, deciding to talk about items they thought would be interesting, figuring if they did, others would too.

What’s different about Marlo’s blog? They have posted a blog each workday without fail since January 1, 2009.

And the blog has nothing to do with PR, but covers subjects of interest to everyone who works at the agency—everything from food to fashion, politics to travel and art to pop culture and beyond. Every post makes sense from a timeliness perspective. If a topic has “been there, done that” written all over it, they do not post it.

At least a dozen times over the course of the blog’s life, the agency has scooped a story or a trend, meaning their blogs have posted and a week or so later, the traditional media covered the story. All blogs are due to agency principal Marlo Fogelman by Thursday at 12:30, who selects the best posts of the week, edits all posts and curates the blog. If an intern topic choice and writing is as strong as the staff, they make the cut.

The “m.blog” has received 124,940 page views since its launch.

In 2011, the blog received recognition by BizBash magazine, an industry stalwart, as one of the seven most innovative event companies in Boston for the PR space. In June, the Pub Club of New England recognized the blog with a “Gold Bell” in the annual Bell Ringer awards for work around the national launch campaign for Le Whif, while the blog received a Silver award in the Bulldog Reporter Stars of PR Awards in the “Small Agency of the Year” category.

Best Blog for an Agency/Consultancy Bronze Awarded to M Booth For FWD Thinking Takes M Booth Forward Digitally “FWD Thinking,” M Booth’s forward-thinking agency blog is the collective culmination of the firm’s daily trend spotting, research, industry involvement and outreach from across the agency. It is hardly ever about agency news.

The blog allows M Booth to engage current and potential clients, inspire original thinking, share knowledge and keep the agency’s teams at the forefront of social and digital creativity. Blog posts on “FWD Thinking” generate up to 900 unique page views per post and the blog attracts an average of about 1,400 visits per month as well as 1,000 unique visitors per month.

In 2008, M Booth’s digital team of social media experts, FirstWord Digital (FWD), created the agency’s outward facing communications platform, “FWD Thinking,” on Tumblr.com to showcase its expertise in the digital realm. The blog shaped opinion, enhanced reputation and drove business results for some of the world’s most influential brands. Content included topics such as digital applications and platforms, online trends, brand campaigns, industry news, communications and pop culture trends, creative trends, personal accounts from conferences and industry events, infographics, links to articles, and more.

While blog content varied across the board, readers of “FWD Thinking” can count on the daily post called “word.” The post provides a daily rundown of 2-5 trends and innovative ideas. From an artist who places thumb drives into surfaces throughout New York City for passerby to download creative files, to an augmented reality campaign for Beck’s involving mysterious green doors placed around the globe, to a drink-concocting typewriter where each letter is hooked up to a different

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

colored syrup leaving people with a one-of-a-kind tinted drink, “word” showcases creativity in every industry with the hope of prompting fresh ideas for staff and readers.

Every Wednesday, the FWD team meets vendors and various social networks and providers of up-and-coming social media. Vendors provide free trials of their tools, which affords team members the opportunity to review the platforms and create fresh content for the blog. The blog also serves as a platform to live blog from industry events and conferences. Attendees to events from M Booth can post notable quotes and tidbits of information in real time for those who are unable to attend the event and in order to reference the material later on.

Moving forward, “FWD Thinking” will remain M Booth’s outward facing publication of digital and social knowledge, further positioning the agency as a creative, digital leader.

Readers can look forward to more behind-the-scenes looks at agency initiatives like panels and experiments, video interviews with digital innovators across various industries, “quotes from” posts from industry books published by thought leaders and buzzwords and microinfographics from top statistics heard at conferences and on the Internet each week.

Best Blog (Company/Organization) Gold Awarded to Hellerman Baretz Communications For Cutting through the Legal Blogosphere with Bracewell & Giuliani LLP’s Basis Points Blog The bankruptcy attorneys at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP represents Wall Street’s biggest and best institutions, including many of the world’s largest hedge funds, private equity funds, banks and institutional investors. The group handles a range of sophisticated financial restructuring matters, including out-of-court restructurings, in-court proceedings, distressed M&A transactions and appeals.

Accolades and great work product alone do not always generate new business or leads. For that reason, Hellerman Baretz Communications recommended that Bracewell & Giuliani launch a restructuring blog authored by attorneys in the firm’s New York and Connecticutbased Financial Restructuring practice group.

The steady exposure to a wide audience through thought leadership presented in blog entries would keep the firm top-of-mind to those most interested in the practice area and who might, one day, engage Bracewell for legal advice. A Hubspot.com survey of 1,400 small-to-medium sized businesses found not only that those businesses using blogs brought in more business, but also that the cost per lead for inbound marketing can be up to 60 percent lower than with traditional outbound marketing efforts.

Most importantly, the blog would allow for a more personal connection between Bracewell’s lawyers and blog readers.

The firm settled on an approach that would use humor and lighthearted writing to make the dense subject of financial restructuring accessible to a large, but sophisticated audience. The result is “Basis Points,” which couples commentary on restructuring

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developments with whimsical poems and amusing bios, aiming to show readers the restructuring attorneys at the firm are professional and people one would enjoy working alongside.

On the day the blog went live, a reporter from the San Antonio Business Journal requested an interview with the firm based on a tweet she had seen about the blog. Less than two months later, the blog has already garnered coverage in Daily Bankruptcy Review, Daily Bankruptcy Review Small Cap, Dow Jones Newswires, San Antonio Business Journal, Bankruptcy Professional, American Lawyer’s Am Law Daily, Connecticut Law Tribune and Kevin O’Keefe’s “Real Lawyers Have Blogs” blog.

In its first month, the blog attracted 2,048 visits, of which 1,302 were unique visitors. Impressively, 70 percent of the visits came from direct traffic. During its first year, the “Basis Points Blog” garnered 12,811 visits, of which 61.31 percent are new visits, while 52.43 percent of visits are a result of direct traffic, with only 24 percent coming from referring sites and 21 percent coming from search engines. Of those visits coming from search engines, the most popular search term is “basis points blog.”

Best Blog (Company/Organization) Silver Awarded to Scholastic Inc. Scholastic For On Our Minds @ Scholastic As the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books and a leader in educational technology and children’s media, Scholastic’s audiences span multiple demographics. The company knew its corporate blog would need to reflect the varied interests and age ranges of its customers, serving as the destination for news about its books, authors and education experts as well as general industry information overall.

“On Our Minds @ Scholastic,” is the official corporate

blog for Scholastic Inc. Nicknamed “OOM,” the Scholastic blog provides breaking book and media news, insights on education and technology, behind-the-scenes looks at Scholastic, its authors, business and more. Blog posts offer summaries of current events and pose provocative questions to readers, such as discussing national cuts in education funding or teachers and test scores. Fun posts include discussing secret codes inside of books or favorite weddings in literature, inspired by the Royal Wedding.

The blog enables Scholastic to dive deeper into the stories behind its products and books, but also to highlight its mission and credo in innovative ways that go beyond a press release. When Scholastic launched a global literacy campaign in October 2010, they took to the blog to go behind-the-scenes and regularly write about how that campaign is progressing.

In February 2011, Scholastic re-launched the blog with a new look and more bloggers, wanting the blog to reflect the brand as a 21st century company. They set up four RSS feeds, one each for Book, Education and News posts. Content can now easily be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other social media sites.

In 2011, blog traffic soared, especially since the re-launch in February 2011. Average monthly unique visitors range from 15,000 to 25,000 and page views double those totals. In August, the blog welcomed 23,794 unique visitors, visiting more than 42,000 times and 65% were direct visitors. Scholastic’s global literacy campaign, YouAreWhatYouRead.com, Kids Press Corps and joint projects with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have been tweeted by President Barack Obama, comedian Ellen Degeneres and Bill Gates. Facebook and Twitter led to an estimated 44,780 impressions from Facebook over the course of the year.

Media outlets such as MTV and USA Today have linked back to OOM posts, positioning the blog as the goto place for readers curious not just about Scholastic the company, but also about publishing, education,

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

technology, books and literacy overall.

revealing story about his return to Vietnam as a tourist after serving there during the war.

Best Blog (Company/Organization) Bronze Awarded to Princess Cruises For 50 Essential Experiences: The Travel Bucket List Blog

The blog has secured 1.3 million unique visitors since its debut, resonating with readers because of the inspirational yet attainable travel stories. In addition, the blog is now the digital hub for many of Princess’ destination marketing initiatives, while blog messages and links into digital banner ads, direct mail pieces, past passenger and prospect emails, passenger newsletters and employee communications.

Offline and online travel and lifestyle media abound with “expert” and “insider” lists of things you should know and places you should go. America loves a list.

This was the inspiration for Princess Cruises’ first company blog, “50 Essential Experiences: The Travel Bucket List.” The blog supported a key brand pillar— destination expertise—but also turned employees’ passion for travel into a unified “storytelling channel,” while adding the intrigue of slowly revealing the ultimate list of travel experiences over a full year.

Launched in October 2010, “50 Essential Experiences” concluded on October 4, 2011 after weekly posts of inspirational travel bucket list stories authored by one of Princess’ longest-serving and well-traveled shore-side and shipboard employees.

Each of the expert authors participated in a section called “Meet Our Destination Expert; 5 Revealing Questions,” to further connect readers with the author of the story. Blog readers shared their best travel bucket list experiences and one such “Reader Essential Experience of the Week” was selected and featured.

The blog features such experiences as dog mushing on a glacier in Skagway, Alaska, discovering the hidden city of the Incas in Machu Picchu, Peru, a visit to the site of the Bounty mutiny—Pitcairn Island, visiting an ancient family castle in Dingwall, Scotland and visiting the iconic Moai heads of Easter Island in Chile.

The president and CEO of Princess Cruises wrote a

As of August 16, 2011, more than 1.5 million readers have visited the blog as well as more than 2.8 million page views, coming from 206 countries and territories from around the world. The blog received more than 5,700 reader comments, while “50 Essential Experiences” is the most visited blog in the Carnival Corporation family of blogs.

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Best Crisis Response Gold Awarded to Con Edison For Response to Hurricane Irene Con Edison of New York is a regulated utility providing electric, gas and steam service to 9.2 million people in New York City and Westchester County. Maintaining reliability is crucial to all customers, which include major medical facilities, transportation systems, Wall Street financial institutions and major media headquarters.

Hurricane Irene tested Con Edison and its communications planning when the storm passed through the tri-state area in late August. The hurricane caused more power outages than any other storm in the company’s history.

Irene initially impacted 187,000 customers, while over 203,800 customers were affected by the time Con Edison completed its restoration.

Communicating both accurate and timely information was crucial and Con Edison placed the highest value on these efforts. Public Affairs representatives took on the duties of providing timely and accurate information to the general public and employees via digital and social media.

Con Edison primarily used two social media platforms during Hurricane Irene, Twitter and YouTube. The utility used Twitter to curtail the spread of incorrect information, dispelling the notion they would shutdown electricity to Lower Manhattan prior to the storm’s arrival. They also utilized Twitter to disseminate factual information about the restoration process.

Public Affairs produced 12 videos to illustrate storm preparations, show extensive storm damage and restoration efforts. The visuals underscored restoration crews’ progress and dedication, and created greater public understanding of the company’s restoration efforts.

Most notably, views surged with one video that focused on how one Con Edison facility prepared for Hurricane Irene. Con Edison felt it important to provide a visual to the public of preparations for the impending storm. The video, highlighted in a press release and Twitter, became the third most watched video on Con Edison’s YouTube site with 1,200 views. The majority of the views occurred within the first 36 hours of its release. No other company YouTube video had seen this many views this quickly after a posting.

The company had 25,593 visits to its mobile website between August 25-31. The site only received 5,827 visits during the previous week. A total of 66% of the visitors were first time visitors to the mobile site.

An interactive outage map represented the most visited locations on the website. The outage map was integrated with the operations division and updated 15 minutes.

The Public Affairs team also distributed a total of 14 press releases via email and promoted on Twitter during the week of August 25-31.

On Friday, August 26, in anticipation of the storm, Con Edison sent an email to approximately 900,000 customers. The email blast provided links to “Power Out, We’re On It” video with tips about preparing for storms and reporting outages, and web outage and Storm Central pages.

Best Crisis Response Silver Awarded to Kaplow and Skype For Skype & the Pre-Christmas Outage The holidays would not be the same without talking to and seeing your family. More than ever, many people communicate with family near and far via Skype. What if you logged-on to Skype for a video call with your

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

family members during the Christmas season and the applications failed to work?

When Skype suffered a global outage impacting more than 90% of its user base on December 22, 2010 right before one of its busiest video calling days of the year it was potentially devastating to the much beloved brand that people rely on for their daily communications.

Thanks to the response by Kaplow Public Relations that utilized multiple social media channels, Skype not only survived the episode, but also won back its user base.

The episode offers a great case study of best practices in how brands should use social media to respond during a crisis.

Skype enables consumers worldwide to connect with family and friends by video, voice and text easily and inexpensively or for free via the Internet. With more than 145 million average monthly users worldwide, Skype plays a critical role in both personal and business communications. Its three busiest video calling days of the year are Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. On December 22, 2010, shortly after 11 AM Eastern Time, Skype noticed an unusual decline in the number of people online and began to investigate. A confluence of technical events, such as server overload, a bug in the Skype for Windows client, and a problem with supernode availability caused a critical failure that would make Skype’s functionality unavailable to the majority of its users for the next 24 hours, frustrating and worrying its millions of daily users.

At 11:44 AM ET, the first news alert about the outage came in, prompting Skype and Kaplow to shift into crisis communications mode.

Skype and Kaplow moved quickly and aggressively to let as many users as possible know, spreading the word via social media. Within the first hour, Skype alerted users about the problem via its multiple Twitter accounts.

Within two hours, Skype posted an explanation of what had happened and how the problem would be resolved along with an apology on its blogs.

The PR team let reporters know where to find updates on the outage. News coverage of the story included information taken directly from Skype’s Twitter feed and blog posts. Throughout the less than 24-hour duration of the outage, Skype provided regular updates every few hours via its blog and Twitter feeds. The next morning, Kaplow arranged for update interviews for Skype CEO Tony Bates with key media outlets, including The Associated Press, Reuters, GigaOm.com, TechCrunch. com, IDG News Service and Skype Journal.

On Christmas Eve, Bates announced via a blog post that Group Video Calling was fully operational for holiday calls. On December 31st, Bates sent an email to the entire Skype subscriber base apologizing and informing them about compensation—Skype Credit for 60 minutes of calls or a 7-day extension of existing subscribers.

Skype’s quick regular and open communications about the outage served the company well. Skype’s reputation did not suffer. Consumers came right back and usage continues to grow. Within two weeks of the outage, concurrent usage set a new record of 27 millionexceeding the previous high set in November 2011 by more than one million concurrent users. Skype’s average monthly-connected users grew from 145 million before the outage to more than 170 million by June 30, 2011.

Skype garnered rave reviews for the launch of video calling on the iPhone on December 30, less than one week after the outage. The mobile application received 22 million downloads.

Skype’s response kept media coverage balanced during the incident. During the two-day outage, more than 680 mainstream media pieces resulted and more than 30,000 social media mentions. Almost half of the media coverage of the outage was neutral or favorable.

Unfavorable coverage lamented the fact that Skype had

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gone down, while many pieces detailed Skype’s apology for the outage.

Best Crisis Response Bronze Awarded to Navy Federal Credit Union For Navy Federal Supports Military During Crisis During times of uncertainty and unease, Navy Federal stood prepared to quickly take action to support our worldwide military members and their families.

Communications were rapidly developed and Navy Federal participated in online conversations to share essential information. Procedures were in place for Navy Federal Corporate Communications and Public Relations team to transform the corporate presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube into virtual information centers.

President/CEO messages, press release, contingency plans and video released in real time to keep members informed of the latest developments.

A significant spike in the corporate media site activity was seen immediately following the Japan tsunami/ earthquake devastation, which happened on March 11, 2011. During the crisis, many Navy Federal members were in need of account access and cash, reaching out to Navy Federal by inquiring for assistance via Facebook.

The Navy Federal Corporate Communications/Public Relations team answered questions and posted information around the clock on social media sites and corporate website and engaged in Facebook conversations with base commands. The page quickly became the key place to get information related to this disaster.

These activities resulted in 2,613 new “Likes” on Facebook and 136,405 new posts.

After the Japan tsunami/earthquake, whether or not Congress and the White House would come to an

agreement to avoid government shutdown on April 8, 2011 spurred a significant amount of Facebook activity.

The Navy PR team shared wall posts to announce a contingency plan. These activities resulted in 2,149 new “Likes,” while Facebook posts were up 53,146.

Members were relieved to hear that they would receive their full paycheck and expressed gratitude on Facebook and Twitter.

The Navy Federal Corporate Communication and Public Relations team monitors Facebook and other social media sites throughout the day and night to support its members around the world. Navy Federal is mentioned in social media on average 60 times per day and seen upsurges associated with the previously mentioned events. Word-of-mouth referrals associated with Navy Federal social media efforts have contributed to 14 percent membership growth this year, a sharp increase when compared to the typical six percent yearly growth.

Navy Federal continues to expand the corporate social media program to be available when and where their members want then. For example, Navy Federal is currently active on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Foursquare.

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

Digitally/Socially Engaged Brand of the Year Gold Awarded to Activate Sports & Entertainment and New Jersey Devils For “Mission Control” In 2007, the state-of-art Prudential Center opened to the public, ushering in a new era for sports and entertainment in New Jersey. However, the New Jersey Devils hockey franchise and their new arena soon faced negative brand perceptions and communication challenges in building their fan base and helping in the revitalization of Newark.

Lacking the massive marketing budgets of the other arts/ entertainment properties in the region, the team and venue could not effectively compete for the attention of sports fans and concert enthusiasts. When the 2010-11 season began, Rich Krezwick, new president of Devils Arena Entertainment, set out to change the internal culture and instill a digital communications mindset to change perceptions, target and engage fans and drive new revenue. The result was a first for professional sports—the fan-sourced PR campaign entitled “Mission Control.”

The tactics included the launch of a digital command center in the heart of the Prudential Center marketing offices, serving as an interactive digital hub to better engage in online discussions, initiate proactive outreach, track media performance and trends, and deliver interactive service to fans and followers on Twitter, Facebook, fan message boards and other media channels. Fans became part of the process as well, twodozen “super-fans” from the “Devils Army” fan base provided fan-sourced communications. The organization also re-educated its sales force to sell with a “digital-first” mindset, a promotional video shared the new command center with the outside world.

The team decided to spread the story via social media

influencers, as popular Silicon Valley web strategist Jeremiah Owyang broke the news with a tweet and photo of the launch invite on his blog. In the ensuing weeks and months, media coverage included The New York Times, ESPN, Forbes and USA Today, among others. Additionally, the efforts generated more than $100,000 in incremental ticket sales, $1.2 million in new sponsorships, while in the first half of 2011, according to industry publication Venues Today, the Prudential Center ranked as the #3 grossing arena in the country for concerts, family shows and special events. Prior to 2011, the venue had never ranked within the top 15.

Digitally/Socially Engaged Brand of the Year Silver Awarded to Mullen For Century 21 Buys Virtual Real Estate The way people buy and sell real estate has drastically changed over the last few years. In the past, people looking to purchase a home scheduled an in-person meeting with a real estate professional likely recommended by a friend or family member and drove the entire search process. Now, today’s homebuyers start their search online, share listings with their social networks and then download their favorites on their mobile phone before they even seek the help of a real estate professional.

Those between the ages of 25 and 44 use their smart phones to locate and research home wherever they are, whenever they want. Armed with the knowledge that one in four adults currently own a smart phone and mobile gaming attracts 26 million unique viewers per day, CENTURY 21 and Mullen enlisted the help of social activity company appssavvy.

Together, the teams identified an opportunity to reach these new homebuyers in a relevant and helpful way—by purchasing virtual real estate in one of the most popular mobile games, “We City,” which has an extremely loyal

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fan base of players who fall within the 25-to-44 yearold target. The alignment between audiences and the nature of the game growing your city by adding real estate properties and businesses—produced a unique opportunity that couldn’t be ignored.

Once the campaign began, Mullen conducted public relations and social media outreach that positioned CENTURY 21 as the Smarter, Bolder, Faster brand in real estate and in the social gaming space—tying the campaign to part of a larger trend of younger homebuyers who are mobile, social and intent on acquiring property virtually and in real life.

The client and agency team issued a news release on launch day and aggressively pitched top-tier online and print media outlets, including the marketing and real estate trades. Blog posts ran on the CENTURY 21, Mullen and “We City” blogs as well as Facebook and Twitter.

The campaign ran for a three-week period in April and strategically planned for the height of the spring home buying season.

The campaign placed more than 401,000 structures, averaging 4.32 CENTURY 21 buildings per user. This means users not only interacted with and placed all of the three free structures, but also went back into the store and spent their own in-game currency to purchase and place more branded buildings, which speaks to the popularity of the campaign.

In total, Mullen secured 27 placements, including Forbes. com, Mashable.com, Dow Jones Newswires/Wall Street Journal, ClickZ.com, Inman News, Direct Marketing News and Mobile Marketer, resulting in 73,973,075 impressions. The campaign also proved successful at driving brand awareness and agreement with CENTURY 21’s brand attributes, according to a post-campaign third-party study performed by InsightExpress. The over 250 person study reported a 14 percent lift in brand awareness and found that 21.1 percent more users thought the brand was “smart” and 17.6 percent more users described the brand as “innovative” after being

exposed to the campaign.

Digitally/Socially Engaged Brand of the Year Bronze Awarded to Kaplow For Baby Phat Builds Consumer Base via SM Kellwood designs, manufactures and markets a growing collection of premier fashion brands across a broad range of consumer lifestyles. A major brand in their portfolio is Baby Phat, a 12-year old brand whose identity and style had traditionally been linked to its former founder Kimora Lee Simmons.

Kellwood realized the brand had lost some of its focus on celebrating a young woman’s sizzle and sparkle. After talking to consumers and retailers, both domestically and internationally, the issue became clear—Baby Phat was not optimizing on the migrating style trends, choices and needs of the critical 18-24 female audience—the epicenter of the brand’s identity.

The brand sought out Kaplow Public Relations to develop a strategic and engaging social program that would drive conversation about the progressions of the Baby Phat brand. To remain relevant and a signature fashion choice for young women, the social conversation about the brand needed to focus on balancing two key areas—functional and emotional.

Functional included the stylish, on-trend looks of the Baby Phat clothing collection, while emotional focused on how the brand engaged in sharing the brand appeal with the core audience.

Baby Phat describes its new target consumer as a “metropolitan young woman” aged 18-28 seeking a strong, sophisticated and individual style. The consumer lives online, connected to pop culture, enjoying music, fashion and reality TV.

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

Kaplow studied where and how these women consumers spent their time online, researching music, entertainment and pop culture to create content tied to those interests.

They identified influencers, especially celebrities and other tastemakers who impact her fashion choices. In order to move the conversation away from the old brand perception and personality, Kaplow needed to focus on product.

In January, Kaplow distributed posts and tweets of Baby Phat’s collection of products. They engaged influencers important to the brand for style tips and product feedback, while also sharing photos of celebrities wearing Baby Phat. Consumers participated in brand decisions—from which product should go on sale to where the next Baby Phat store should open.

In April, Kaplow created a short video of the collection.

Rather than aligning the brand with a celebrity, they chose a young stylist who would resonate with the consumer audience. Celebrated beauty-fashion website Glam. com received exclusive access and featured the video and interview with the stylist in Baby Phat’s showroom.

A monthly “trends” sheet featuring new product was created for bloggers and short-lead media to drive conversation and traffic online.

The strategy to reposition the brand paid off quickly and powerfully. Negative original, founder-related chatter decreased by 75% after one month. The brand’s Facebook fan base grew by over 200% in just four months, 82% of the community now fits the new core demographic, while 56% of total Baby Phat media coverage in 2011 has been in online media and blogs.

AllFacebook.com cited Baby Phat as “a premier metropolitan fashion brand” that “has consistently remained digital savvy with its outreach efforts throughout the years.” In the article entitled “How 4 Apparel Brands Make Shopping Cool on Facebook,” the author included several key digital best practice touch points for the brand, positioning Baby Phat as a social media leader on Facebook in the retail space.

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Digital/Social Communications Campaign of the Year Gold Awarded to French/West/Vaughan For Next Blue by Wrangler French/West/Vaughan (FWV) has been the PR agency of record for Wrangler—the iconic American denim brand for 15 years. In that time, the brand became synonymous with Western lifestyle and American living. With such a pervasive brand association also comes a challenge— speaking to new audiences.

To reach and engage this audience, FWV launched the “Next Blue by Wrangler” campaign, as an invitation to design Wrangler’s next line of Blue Jeans. In order to enter, visitors submitted video outlining their vision for the future of blue jeans and an inspiration for their design.

Finalists brought their ideas and initial sketches to Wrangler headquarters, where they worked with staff product designers and merchandisers to finalize their designs. The group presented their finished work in front of a panel of Wrangler executives. FWV created and released short video vignettes of their presentations for public voting online, enabling the public to form a connection to the finalists. In addition to a $5,000 prize, the winner’s design would be scheduled for production and released in Q4 2011, as the first design in the “Next Blue by Wrangler” line.

FWV targeted a highly specific segment of current fashion students at well-known design institutions to maximize the potential for high-quality design submissions and a word-of-mouth spread. Consumer facing messaging across the campaign focused on the value propositions of “have your design sold online” by Wrangler, as well as “work directly with Wrangler executives, merchandisers and designers” at Wrangler headquarters.

Wrangler received a total of 50 videos in two weeks with over 70% deemed high quality and coming from the campaign’s desired target audience. Of the five finalists, four were current students or recent graduates of high profile fashion design programs, while the fifth was a fashion industry professional with a notable denim blog.

Of these 50 entrants, 19 have signed on to continue providing editorial content to the “Next Blue” blog documenting their career.

Wrangler acquired 5,000 new opt-in email subscribers, while its site received more than 10,000 Facebook “Likes.” In six weeks, 35,000 unique visitors came to the site, spending more than five minutes and 30 seconds per visit. Videos submitted received more than 80,000 views within the course of six weeks, while total earned media impact resulted in over 45 million impressions.

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

Best Use of Digital/Social for a Food/Beverages/ Restaurant Campaign Gold Awarded to Weber Shandwick & MilkPEP For Got Milk? Breakfast BlogHer Prgm At a time when families readied themselves to settle into back-to-school routines, an ADA study found that 20 percent of children and 32 percent of adolescents skipped breakfast. The study showed sodas as the drink of choice, and less than 20 percent of breakfast meals eaten at home included milk.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but with “breakfast skipping” rates soaring, the national Milk Mustache “got milk?” campaign needed to educate moms on the considerable contributions of a well-balanced breakfast and reinforce the importance of adding low fat or fat free milk to the morning meal.

The campaign sought to strengthen and build relationships with influential bloggers to help communicate the benefits of low fat milk at breakfast by bringing awareness to the science of milk at breakfast. They decided the best place to reach influential moms would be at the BlogHer 2010 conference, taking place right at back-to-school time.

For over 15 years, celebrities and athletes have appeared in Milk Mustache ads, but in the first time in campaign history, an ad would feature a mosaic collage of the nation’s most influential mom bloggers. The goal would be to forge stronger relationships and engage with new, influential bloggers on behalf of milk by providing a unique brand experience at BlogHer 2010. At the conference, a Milk Mustache photo studio put the spotlight on the bloggers.

With agency Weber Shandwick working on behalf of the campaign, tactics included building an entire kitchen to help moms feel right at home, engaging bloggers by taking their photos and having conversations—not

just churning out brand messages. The team wore cow print pajamas to make for a fun, natural conversation starter that attendees loved. A first-ever social media ad starred mom bloggers, as the bloggers visited the booth at the BlogHer conference and took a Milk Mustache photo. Ten contestants won individual Facebook ads, which generated 1,398 clicks and 9.7MM impressions.

The final ad was unveiled in the BlogHer hotel lobby as a send-off for departing bloggers and featured on the Milk Mustache Facebook page creating a two-way conversation with bloggers.

Even though a first-time exhibitor, the “got milk?” campaign became the #1 conversation-starter with 212 tweets, which generated almost 700,000 impressions.

The campaign generated more than 30 mommy blogger placements, including Mom Trends and Fits “N” Giggles.

Following the conference, approximately 100 bloggers requested follow-up for active involvement in the campaign in the future. Overall, the program integrated 96 influential bloggers into the brand.

Best Use of Digital/Social for a Food/Beverages/ Restaurant Campaign Silver Awarded to Weber Shandwick & Milk PEP For Modern Family Got Milk?

The National Milk Mustache “got milk?” campaign and Weber Shandwick wanted to use their upcoming ad with ABC’s “Modern Family” as a springboard to build the campaign’s Facebook fan base. With the show and its loveable cast being a huge success with audiences across America on the small screen and on social media channels, they decided to use its popularity to reach “Modern Family’s” extensive online fan base, and direct them to the Milk Mustache Facebook page via a social media ad launch.

Lacking access to the cast to officially launch the ad,

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Weber Shandwick looked to the show’s three million Facebook fans, negotiating the first-ever Facebook “got milk?” ad. The campaign’s goal was to increase Milk Mustache Facebook fans by 15 percent and generate 20 million impressions within 24 hours. Show fans received an exclusive look at the new ad and behind-the-scenes footage through the “Modern Family” Facebook page, Milk Mustache Campaign Facebook fan page, WhyMilk. com and other milk social media channels.

With more than three million “Likes” on the “Modern Family” Facebook page at launch time, the team used this to deliver their messages to the large fan base and help grow the Milk Mustache fan base. The two “Modern Family” Facebook posts resulted in a 14 percent lift in page “Likes” for the Weber Shandwick-managed Milk Mustache page within the first week. There were over 600 consumer comments among the fans of both “Modern Family” and the “got milk?” campaign, highlighting how engaging the campaign became among “Modern Family’s” large established following and Milk Mustache’s growing number of fans.

The “Modern Family” Facebook page teased the new “got milk?” ad throughout the week leading up to the unveil with online posts. Following the episode, airing on Wednesday, March 30, fans saw a post linking them to the Milk Mustache campaign page and exclusive behindthe-scenes photos and videos from the as shoot from their favorite show. In total, the two posts made by the “Modern Family” page saw 605 comments and 6,994 “Likes” with approximately 85 percent of comments speaking favorably about Milk and the “Modern Family” ad. Fans were required to “Like” the page before being able to view the tab.

Engagement with fans and the “Modern Family” Facebook page resulted in over 6,994 “Likes” and 605 comments on the ABC “Modern Family” Facebook page with approximately 85 percent of comments speaking favorably Milk and the “Modern Family” ad. The Milk Mustache campaign Facebook page generated over 4,561 new “Likes” during the week of the show. The

ad launch generated 21 million media impressions in the first 24 hours, finishing with 44.3 total impressions.

Media hits included US Weekly, “Entertainment Tonight,” USA Today, The Examiner, Daily Stab and JustJared. com.

Best Use of Digital/Social for a Food/Beverages/ Restaurant Campaign Bronze Awarded to General Mills/Coyne PR For Honey Nut Cheerios “America’s Favorite Cereal” Honey Nut Cheerios found that America is nuts for its cereal and engaged their fans to spread the message.

With Nielson sales data confirming the brand as the number one selling cereal and leader in the industry, Honey Nut Cheerios was inspired to create a campaign to thank its supporters for helping make Honey Nut Cheerios “America’s Favorite Cereal.”

Honey Nut Cheerios relied heavily on blogs, social networks and online initiatives to celebrate its title at “America’s Favorite Cereal” and introduce its “Billion ‘O’ Giveaway,” a nationwide sampling blitz giving consumers the chance to rediscover why Honey Nut Cheerios is America’s Favorite Cereal.

With the help of agency Coyne Public Relations, they selected consumers to share their love of Honey Nut Cheerios on fan blogs, Twitter and Facebook. Fans threw “America’s Favorite Cereal” breakfast parties for their family and friends, their enthusiasm evident in the hundreds of photos and videos captured and shared with the brand as content for banner ads, website creative, video and Facebook integration purposes.

The buzz continued when The New York Times broke a story about the campaign leading up to the July 4th holiday weekend, a great fit for “America’s Favorite Cereal” just before America’s Birthday. At this time, a

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

website specifically created for the campaign went live and banner ads featuring real fans began appearing online.

Following the launch of the campaign, Honey Nut Cheerios continued to celebrate by surprising and delighting fans on Twitter. Fans who tweeted their love of the cereal received a message from the brand, a branded t-shirt and information about the free samples through the “Billion ‘O’ Giveaway.”

The campaign generated nearly 700,000 clicks on the FavCereal.com website, over 471,000 samples redeemed, 6.6 million word-of-mouth conversations, 1,000 real fan photos and videos submitted, hundreds of blog posts, hundreds of fans on Twitter and the exclusive New York Times story.

Best Online Employee Communications Gold Awarded to MWW Group For JetBlue’s Flight Plan for the Future JetBlue Airways is America’s only union-free carrier and believes the direct relationship with their “Crew” is vital to culture and business strategy. When ALPA, the world’s largest pilot union, filed for election to represent JetBlue’s 2,108 pilots, the stakes could not be higher.

An ALPA victory would open the door to unionization carrier-wide. In its history, ALPA losses can be counted on one hand. In addition, federal election rule changes in May 2010 made it easier to unionize because a simple majority of voters decide the outcome. ALPA has won elections at 49 carriers and many JetBlue pilots were ALPA members previously.

JetBlue hired MWW Group one week after ALPA filed with one objective—win the election. However, they had to do so without damaging the culture or a constructive working relationship in the future.

Pilots are intelligent, educated and consider themselves leaders among peers. MWW Group treated them accordingly, utilizing infographics, managerialstyle communications, and favoring substance and transparency over slogans and sound bites.

The PR team implemented a detailed campaign to reach all Pilots, addressing the burning issues and establishing a digital platform as the central point for engaging, educating and provoking debate.

MWW Group recognized three imperatives for success— engage the pilot, educate about what’s at stake and motivate to care enough to vote in JetBlue’s favor. They launched a robust, mobile-optimized website within 10 days of initial engagement at www.jetbluefacts.com.

Content was updated daily, including interactive Q&A.

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PR team members responded rapidly to tough questions, answering over 100 questions within 48 hours of submission, including openly hostile questions, all of which were posted to the website. They also used video effectively to educate on complex issues of law and process, like how a write-in vote for a joke candidate could help elect ALPA due to a technicality, as well as debunking rumors driving pilot fear, such as one on M&A protection with a straight-talk approached that accumulated over 1,500 views.

MWW Group also conducted face-to-face sessions with pilots, holding over 35 CEO/COO crew room base visits in all five JetBlue base cities in an informal, Q&A-driven format.

The efforts paid off –JetBlue scored a 17-point victory, 58-41, with one percent write-in.

Best Online Employee Communications Silver Awarded to Pfizer For Pfizer Connect, Educate & Listen Pfizer’s 2010 acquisition of Wyeth set into motion the integration of two culturally diverse biopharmaceutical companies that together were better suited to compete in a evolving healthcare marketplace. With the acquisition, Pfizer faced the daunting post-acquisition challenge of assimilating and engaging 40,000 former Wyeth employees amidst multiple rounds of reorganization, a simultaneous shift to more centralized management and the imperative for the newly merged workforce to speak with “One Pfizer voice.”

Pfizer’s Global Colleague Communication Group met the challenge by producing two firsts. They developed the company’s first-ever global employee communication strategic plan and executed that plan exclusively online.

The communications plan, “Connect, Educate & Listen,”

is based upon the recognition that Pfizer’s success depends upon its employees’ ability to understand and execute against “Our Path Forward,” Pfizer’s postacquisition plan to meet immediate and long-term business objectives.

Since its rollout, “Connect, Educate & Listen” has served as the centerpiece for how Pfizer communicates with its more than 100,000 global employees and the company’s ongoing efforts to build and enhance its thriving internal communications practice.

Pfizer’s Colleague Communications Group (CCG) created the online employee communications program that aligned employee understanding and execution of “Our Path Forward (OPF): The Next Step.” Adopted following the acquisition of Wyeth, the plan is a strategic framework that outlines Pfizer’s updated Purpose, Mission, Commitments, Strategies, Values and New Business Structure. The communications groups needed to create a communications program that resonated with all employees regardless of whether they worked in Manhattan, Madrid or Mumbai.

“Connect, Educate & Listen” was born from research that highlighted the needs and desires of employees to be part of “One Pfizer” to connect with each other and with the company, to understand their role in helping Pfizer deliver against its strategic priorities and that of Pfizer in the evolving healthcare arena and to be heard about matters of importance to them—Pfizer and the biopharmaceutical industry. The online program delivers simple, consistent, aligned messages that resonate with employees of “One Pfizer.”

Pfizer significantly enhanced its World Super Site by launching a mobile application, creating 12 new local editions, broadening and promoting “Think Science Now,” a blog written by 175 Pfizer medical and science professionals to enhance Pfizer’s reputation for scientific innovation by telling its science story. They also launched “Pfizer 101,” the first virtual business literacy program complete with customized avatars to educate colleagues

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

on business practices, provide context for leadership decisions, and help them understand their role in achieving Pfizer’s goals.

Results included the Pfizer World site becoming the most popular and trusted news source among employees, while for the first time, local editions exceeded the readership of the global edition, reflecting demand for localized content and enhancing the super site as a single point of online access for information and tools across the world. Visits grew by 490% to 59.3 million by the end of 2010 with continued growth into 2011.

Article views grew by 48% to 5.2 million and held steady in 2011. Unique users reached 162,000 by the end of 2010, despite workforce reductions.

Best Organizational E-Newsletter, External Gold Awarded to Coyne Public Relations For Coyne PR Hotsheet With so many places on the Internet to find information, it is hard to take everything in. Those who do not have time to browse every site may miss out on some of the stuff that’s happening. In March 2009, at the request of Disney Parks vice president of global public relations, Craig Dezern, Coyne Public Relations began compiling a weekly report of interesting articles from around the web. The email quickly became popular and developed a long list of internal and external fans—many of which started forwarding the email to their personal mailing lists.

In September 2009, the email went public, resulting in the “Coyne PR HotSheet.” The weekly e-newsletter highlights the coolest campaigns, creative advertisements, innovative promotions and interesting ideas of the week.

Available to readers via email subscription, in February 2011, Coyne launched the “Coyne PR HotSheet” iPad app, which can be downloaded for free via the iTunes app store.

Sent out weekly to a list of over 900 opt-in subscribers, readers include industry leaders from Ketchum, Edelman, Ogilvy, Burson-Marstellar, Weber Shandwick, MWW Group and more. Communication professionals from Disney, Goodyear, Casio, Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, General Mills, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Hilton Hotels, NBA, Groupon, The Ritz Carlton, JetBlue, Playboy, Sony, Samsung, Chrysler and FIAT subscribe as well as media representatives from The New York Daily News, NBC, CBS and American Express Publications.

Interested readers can also find the latest issue posted on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn via the official Coyne and employee accounts. Nearly 400 iPad users tap into the “HotSheet” app every Friday for fresh stories, videos

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and insightful original content.

Each day Coyne’s social media-savvy PR pros scour the web searching to uncover the buzz that’s fit to post. For each “HotSheet” candidate, Coyne asks the following questions: Is it recent? Has it been done before? Was there coverage in more than one place? Did it make you say WOW! The team breaks down each article into an easily-digestible, original caption summarizing the key points for readers, highlighting driving forces behind the campaigns, consumer/media reactions and results.

As of October 14, 2011, 109 issues had been sent to a distribution list of 926 opt-in subscribers, average open rate is 34.3 percent, average click through rate is 15.6 percent, iPad app downloads number 386 users, generating a “4 out of 5” customer rating. The “Coyne PR HotSheet” archive has generated more than 5,000 unique visits.

Best Organizational E-Newsletter, External Silver Awarded to M Booth For “word.”—M Booth’s monthly Trend Letter Public relations firm M Booth realized that most people only follow trends in those categories in which they work. To provide inspirational fodder, they launched an initiative dubbed “word.” The monthly newsletter features a rundown of trends and innovative ideas.

The content allows the agency to engage current and potential clients, inspire out-of-the-box thinking and has kept M Booth as the forefront of creativity.

Penned by M Booth’s creative team of Andrew Rossi (creative director) and Lauren Martiello (assistant creative executive), the duo handles the duties of trend tracking, writing and production that go into “word.”

Each month they distribute the link to the newest issue

of “word.” via subscription-based email to nearly 1,000 clients, colleagues, industry peers and friends. In each issue, readers find a mix of breakthrough ideas, mustsee links and recommendations for events or places to visit, Tweeters to follow or apps to download.

The team reads more than 875 national and international blogs each day, ranging from style and design to technology, finance, pop culture, media and the plain ridiculous. Additional inspiration comes from Twitter, events, museums, workshops and a global network of readers that keep them up-to-date on what’s going on in their world. “word.” allows M Booth to build, engage and maintain a community of 1,000 key agency contacts on an ongoing basis. In just one year, subscribers have increased by 25 percent, while seven ideas based on trends found in “word.” have been developed and sold into clients over the past year.

With information flooding in, M Booth decided to launch a daily version of the newsletter, posting a rundown of two to five innovative ideas daily on the agency’s blog, “FWD Thinking.”

Best Organizational E-Newsletter, External Bronze Awarded to Hunter PR For Hunter Public Relations—The 511 Newsletter In 2008, Hunter Public Relations formed its social & digital media practice and began assisting clients with their social and digital media plans, including everything from strategic blogger relations to the formation of brand Facebook pages.

After three years of growing expertise and increased thought leadership in the space, the social & digital media team at Hunter PR began discussing ways to

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provide marketers with timely and relevant social & digital media news that would help them do their jobs better.

An e-newsletter was deemed the best format to disseminate information, as it allows for the broadest distribution and ensures expedient delivery of news.

Since the newsletter provides “five things” a marketer needs to know about a given topic, The 511 was born.

Launched in March of 2011, the bimonthly e-newsletter is distributed to subscribers via email and published on the Hunter PR website.

Each issue of The 511 also features some form of multimedia, such as poll questions, YouTube videos and PowerPoint presentations integrated through Slideshare.

Hunter incorporates video more than any other medium because it is a proven driver of engagement. Almost 9 out of 10 web users engage with online video.

Hunter PR’s social and digital media team selects the topics, always addressing an issue or new product buzzing in the social & digital media space. The newsletter can be shared via email, Facebook and Twitter through integrated links.

Every issue also links to each of Hunter PR’s social assets and features a newsletter archive and ‘subscribe’ button. A Hunter email address is published on each issue to allow readers to engage with the newsletter’s writers.

Since the release of the first edition, interest in Hunter’s content has been consistent. The first issue came out in March of 2011 and had an open rate of more than 50%, double the typical open rate of most marketing newsletters. The inaugural issue mapped out the preliminary steps any brand should take when entering the crowded Facebook space. The final newsletter of 2011 hit email boxes in December, covering “Five Things You Need to Know About Online Video.”

The newsletter also serves as an excellent way to follow

up on other new business leads. For example, when a prospective client subscribes to The 511, it serves as the perfect opportunity to drop a line and start a discussion about the topic that prompted a subscription. In addition to gaining interest from new business prospects, Hunter PR’s audience of marketing professionals at large continues to increase, total subscription base growing by more than 10% since launching in May.

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Best Online Newsroom of the Year Gold Awarded to Denison University For TheDEN (Denison University) College news sites have been places for press releases and for staged photographs of happy students or sometimes to mix it up, photos of contemplative students reading under trees. Denison University shook up this model with “TheDEN,” the online source for the college’s news, stories and ideas.

information.

The site also provides readers with blog-style news about the college. All stories relate to each other through a tagbased system with commenting and social networking features that allow audiences to engage Denison and each other in conversations about the news. Even the university’s president, who sporadically followed the communications office online, now visits TheDEN several times per day to keep up with the happenings on campus.

The site tells the stories of students and faculty living the Denison mission—thinking for themselves and being active in the community, learning about each other and making informed decisions.

Based on the site’s first 10 months, TheDEN generated more than 140,000 unique visitors and 300,000 page views. In February 2011, TheDEN received a Silver ADDY in the category of “Website, Consumer HTML, Products” from the Columbus chapter of the American Advertising Federation. CASE Circle of Excellence awards recognized TheDEN with a bronze medal in the category, “Individual Sub-Websites.” TheDEN also won an Ohio Interactive Award as the best entry in the category of “Social Web: Blogs.” In September 2011, TheDEN received the “Best University Website” award from the Web Marketing Association and an Honorable Mention in Online Communications at the Platinum PR Awards.

TheDEN has a target audience with an age range of 15 to 100, which includes high school students trying to decide if the college might be a good fit for them, young alumni who want to see what their favorite professors are doing, older alumni who have not been back to campus for a while, parents, potential employees, townspeople, reporters, current faculty, staff and students.

Best Online Newsroom of the Year Silver Awarded to Cisco For “The Network: Cisco’s Technology News Site.”

TheDEN’s navigation organizes content around three primary conceptual buckets: “Academics & Research,” “On Campus,” and “Beyond Campus.” The first two hold stories about people and places on campus, while “Beyond Campus” shares stories of those making an impact on the wider world. For members of the press, beyond providing RSS access to site content, TheDEN provides a full section of media resources, from downloadable photo & video footage to faculty expert

The overall objective for redesigning Cisco’s corporate newsroom, “The Network” was to create a site that expanded beyond traditional company content and took on the characteristics of a media company. The goal was to create a corporate newsroom of the “future” by articulating and allowing users to easily share content not only on Cisco’s business, products and technologies, but also stories on the broader business and technology landscape.

TheDEN provides prospective students, current students, faculty, alumni and members of the media quick-hit, blog-style news about the college. The site reflects the “life of the college” in a straightforward way without all the higher-education jargon by creating a tool that would be effective in telling the Denison story.

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Strategies implemented to create the “newsroom of the future,” included adding new social media functionality that would allow readers a richer experience with the content. New social media functionality included the ability to comment, “Like” and tweet out content, view content by most viewed or most shared and also adding in third party and external content through specific Twitter feeds. This new social media functionality allowed the team to align the content with the right medium, measure engagement and feedback and make the content more shareable.

Another key strategy included creating unique content not just produced by Cisco. They commissioned seasoned journalists to write about and provide unbiased perspectives on technology and business trends. The purpose of these stories wasn’t to showcase Cisco, but create compelling content in the topical areas that Cisco cares about. This allowed the audience to share the piece of content and become more educated on the topics important to Cisco and their customers. Content broke out by six topics—data center, collaboration, video, core networks, Cisco culture and social media.

The team also launched a continuous program called “Got Story Ideas” where site visitors were encouraged to submit story ideas that they would like to see on “The Network.” Receiving story ideas from the public helped the team understand what kind of content the audience wanted and also helped make the appropriate changes to content.

“The Network” received fantastic external and internal feedback, including multiple press articles and blogs written about the new site such as SocialMedia B2B, Bowen/Craggs: My Newsdesk, SocialMediaToday, Ragan.com, PRWeek, ZDNet, Brian Solis and Splash Media. Multiple Fortune 100 customers also reached out to individuals to learn more about the site and the team’s experience.

In the first week alone, the site received around 86,584 visits with over 77% being new visits and from 189

different countries. Engagement with content is also a key measurement when showcasing success. To date, the most shared piece of content is a media alert on a customer roundtable Cisco hosted on the network as an innovative engine. The media alert became shared across the social web with 250 Facebook “Likes,” 107 tweets, 13 email shares and 24,669 views.

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Best Use of Digital/Social for Cause/Advocacy/ Corporate Social Responsibility Gold Awarded to Hunter Public Relations For Apple & Eve Fruitables School Music Mash-Up 2 In January 2011, Hunter Public Relations launched the second annual “Fruitables School Music Mash-up,” which garnered over 83 million media impressions and sparked a 250% growth in Apple & Eve Facebook fans.

Additionally, the Mash-up program contributed over $25,000 to school vocal groups directly and $50,000 to the VH1 Save The Music Foundation, supporting school music programs nationwide.

Apple & Eve tasked Hunter Public Relations with developing and launching a cause-related initiative to increase product awareness for Apple & Eve Fruitables, a line of fruit and vegetable juice blends, and increase the brand’s presence in social media, all while resonating with the brand’s core consumer—moms.

In the first year of the program, Hunter PR garnered publicity for a music and arts education in schools initiative through a search for the “Best School Music Mash-Up in America,” a national contest that awarded one winning school vocal group $10,000 for its school’s music department.

In its second year, Apple & Eve looked to Hunter PR to take the program to the next level, building on its existing equity. By launching the second annual search for the “Best School Music Mash-up in America,” Hunter PR sought to make a larger media impact and financial contribution to dwindling music and arts programs in schools across America.

This year, two grand prizes would be awarded in addition to prize money for four runner-up schools. One elementary school and one middle school would each win $10,000 and two runners-up in each category would

receive $1,000 toward their schools’ music programs.

As a way to encourage creativity, foster arts education for young students, Hunter PR launched the second annual search for the “Best Schools Music Mash-Up in America.”

Like Fruitables, a mash-up of fruit and vegetable juice, a music mash-up is the combination of two or more songs.

As the hit FOX TV show “Glee” premiered its second season, mash-up became an increasingly popular art form.

In order to make a larger impact than the year prior, Apple & Eve kicked off its partnership with the VH1 Save The Music Foundation with a dollar donation for every new Facebook fan, up to $50,000. Apple & Eve also doubled the prize offerings, awarding two schools—one elementary school and one middle school with $10,000 each toward music education and four runners up with $1,000 each.

Hunter PR engaged Cory Monteith, star of “Glee,” who advocates for the importance of music education to serve as the face of the campaign and a judge in the Mash-up contest.

In January 2011, Hunter PR announced the search for the “Best School Music Mash-Up in America” among national and local TV, newspaper, magazine, blog outlets and Facebook users. Hunter pitched bloggers and national print and broadcast media, gaining publicity for the campaign and encouraging entries for the Mash-Up contest.

Entrants submitted videos via Facebook of their school’s vocal group performing an original mash-up of two or more songs. An independent panel of judges reviewed the entries, selecting three elementary and three middle school vocal groups to advance in the competition. The six finalist videos went on the Facebook page and fans could view videos and vote once per day for two weeks.

A video by Cory Monteith announced the winner on the Facebook page. The announcement then released

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nationally via a nationally distributed press release.

During the contest, the Apple & Eve Facebook page increased its fan base by 250% and became a viral pep rally for contest participations and their schools, garnering hundreds of wall posts. The vote count totaled 25,000, more than 3,000 votes than the contest received the previous year. Key outlets that covered the program included People.com, JustJared.com, ABC.com, TVGuide.com, Yahoo! TV, Extra, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Ladies’ Home Journal, US Weekly, OK! Magazine as well as FOX, CBS and local ABC affiliates.

Best Use of Digital/Social for Cause/Advocacy/ Corporate Social Responsibility Silver Awarded to AIDS Healthcare Foundation For AHF Wins Members Project In 2010, American Express partnered with Take Part, a content-driven social action network created by Participant Media, and presented an online initiative for people passionate about social action and philanthropy with an opportunity to take small steps to make a big difference. This initiative, called “Members Project,” was a three-month campaign designed to encourage people to volunteer, donate, and show their support by voting for charities to receive funding from American Express.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), along with other nonprofit organizations, accepted the challenge to get the word out and to get the most online votes. People were encouraged to cast one vote a week, and at the end of the campaign the top 5 organizations would each be given $200,000 to be used towards its programs.

To promote its global HIV “Test and Treat” initiatives through Members Project, AHF created a strategy to target various supporters, through specific goals, key messages and themes.

AHF’s goals included building greater awareness of its global programs, increasing constituency of supporters, growing reputation as a leading HIV/AIDS nonprofit, and receiving the most votes to garner the $200,000 in grant funds. The strategy focused on mobilizing existing supporters as well as identifying new supporters and encouraging each of them to take many small steps to help the organization further its mission to provide medicine and advocacy to those affected by HIV/AIDS. Messages went out via Facebook and Twitter, through community email campaigns, in publications and press releases. Toward the end of the campaign, knowing they needed to recruit new voters to reach the finish line, they brought the message in-person to customers at several Out of the Closet Thrift Store locations.

Mobilizing as many supporters as possible to vote weekly for AHF as the charity of their choice included identifying new supporters, introducing them to AHF’s global programs and converting them to action takers.

The target audience included internal AHF employees, their family and friends, Board Members and their networks, online members, Facebook and Twitter followers, patients, Out of the Closet customers, supporters of local and national partners, corporate partners and vendors.

Take Part and American Express announced the winners of the Members Project on March 3rd. In addition to AIDS Healthcare Foundation, four other nonprofits won in their categories, Kiva, Alvin Ailey American, A Better Chance and Defenders of Wildlife.

The AHF Facebook page saw a huge growth during the Members Project campaign. During the time period, 71,923 new individuals liked the page. This growth accounted for 38% of all AHF’s Facebook fans at the conclusion of the campaign.

The Members Project-themed post generated a total of 2,834 interactions over the three-month period. During

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that time period, the total monthly interactions went up by an average of 1,781 interactions, which was a 43% increase in interactions compared to previous months.

Since then, interactions and new fans have continued to increase.

encouraged consumers to upload a photo of themselves or their child in eyewear for a chance to win a prize. Four winners were selected to receive the honor of having their image selected as the “Think About Your Eyes” campaign’s Facebook profile image of the week as well as a $400 general use gift card.

Best Use of Digital/Social for Cause/Advocacy/ Corporate Social Responsibility Bronze Awarded to The Foundation for Eye Health Awareness and Weber Shandwick For Make a Spectacle of Yourself

To drive awareness, Weber Shandwick reached out to consumer bloggers and trade media, engaging niche parent bloggers and encouraging them to write about vision health and inform their readers about the contest.

The team provided 11 bloggers with $25 gift cards to use for reader giveaways. The agency also alerted vision trade media about the contest and presence at Optometry’s Meeting one of the largest optometry industry events and the official annual meeting of the American Optometric Association and the American Optometric Student Association. During the course of the event, the team distributed special cards with information about the contest and social media channels.

Fresh off the successful 2010 launch of the “Think About Your Eyes” campaign, The Foundation for Eye Health Awareness (FEHA) turned to Weber Shandwick to continue to expand its audience via its social media channels. They hoped to continue to spread the word about eye health, especially the importance of protecting eyes from harmful UV radiation.

More than 30 million Americans suffer from a serious eye disease, many of which, such as cataracts and macular degeneration, could be avoided through wearing proper UV protective eyewear. In its second year, the “Think About Your Eyes” public awareness initiative aimed to encourage consumers to protect their eyes with proper eyewear that blocks 100 percent of harmful UV rays as well as educate them about the importance of vision health and yearly comprehensive eye exams.

Weber Shandwick determined the best way to reach the target audience of consumers was to grow the base of fans on the campaign’s Facebook page. The agency sought to do this through a Facebook photo contest and corresponding blogger outreach to help build upon the social media channels established as a part of last year’s PR program.

The four-week photo contest ran June 13 to July 10 and

The “Make a Spectacle of Yourself” Facebook contest generated 2,366 new “Likes” in just four weeks, a 17 percent increase in social media interactions and more than 16 million impressions. The Facebook page received 2,366 new “Likes” for a total of 3,929 “Likes.” Twitter followers increased from 398 to 528, including 498 mentions on Twitter and 84,869 Twitter impressions.

Media coverage included 250,190 impressions, 11 consumer blog post and four trade publication articles, while 100 percent of the blog posts highlighted the Facebook contest, key stats about the need for eye exams and UV protection.

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Best Use of Digital/Social for a Consumer Technology Campaign Gold Awarded to Euro RSCG Worldwide PR For Sears Blue Blogger Crew-Consumer Electronics Sears Consumer Electronics (CE) has long noted the value of the “connection synergy” brought about by the social media revolution and has leveraged it to build trust among its customer community. Consumers today spend six months thinking about purchasing a large-screen TV, and up to 80 percent of consumers trust opinions from people online when making that decision.

Knowing that, Sears has been at the forefront of recognizing the importance of lively online and social network conversations among consumers and blogging communities, giving enthusiastic bloggers resources, tools and access to industry news and events, so that they can inform customers on their blogs.

Sears recruited well-rounded and knowledgeable bloggers from across the country for the inaugural “Sears Blue Blogger Crew” initiative. For agency of record Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, the challenge would be to build digital, social and traditional media buzz, help establish relationships with key CE bloggers, build brand awareness and credibility with an influential audience.

Euro Worldwide identified a core group of well-rounded, diverse, thoughtful bloggers who displayed a strong track record for producing quality content. They monitored key industry news and determined who had active followers, looking at comments, retweets and other recognition that the bloggers were valued and respected online. They then made executives from Sears and key social team members available for interviews and conversations to discuss brand direction and alignment with the potential blog ambassadors’ own direction.

Sears invited five bloggers in key CE categories to become

Sears Blue Blogger Crew members. The company brought these bloggers to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), providing them with the opportunity to engage in events, interact with new resources and have early access to consumer electronics information, then relate information to their own social media communities about the latest tech news. The bloggers could write and review news they wanted, which was sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but always constructive, informational and insightful for readers.

The bloggers received unique content—creation opportunities and activities to use in their online and social media posts, including one-on-one interviews with executives at Sears and access to vendor press conferences and VIP tours of key manufacturer booths.

They also received relevant Twitter handles for news sharing to post tweets during the convention.

One blogger attended an exclusive industry panel of top consumer electronics executives host by TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics) magazine. Euro Worldwide maximized Blue Blogger Crew content by sharing it on Sears CE social media channels, such as MySearsCommunity, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

The blogger relationships resulted in 30 original blog posts and 300 tweets. Efforts before, during and after CES resulted in coverage in Mashable.com, Yahoo.com, ClickZ, The Next Web and Search Engine Watch, among many other blogs and digital publications.

The Blue Bloggers program represented one of the first times a retailer had brought bloggers on a company’s behalf to CES, which demonstrated that Sears is ahead of the industry curve. The campaign also opened new doors for Sears and better positioned the company among influential audiences, including bloggers and the consumer electronics community.

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Best Use of Digital/Social for a Consumer Technology Campaign Silver Awarded to Padilla Speer Beardsley, Inc For Remember Memorex? It’s back Memorex became a household name in the 1970s with an iconic television commercial. The commercial showed a crystal goblet shattering to the sound of jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald’s high-pitched voice. Viewers then were confronted with the questions—Is it live or is it Memorex?

That campaign drove sales for Memorex’s then-signature product—the cassette tape. Decades later, cassettes are virtually extinct. And so, it seemed, was the Memorex brand. But quietly, the company had started selling electronics, including iPod and Wii accessories.

Recognizing the need for a radial marketing makeover, Memorex turned to Padilla Speer Beardsley. The team positioned Memorex as the champion for “Modern Mom,” who’s always looking for new ways to enjoy family time.

Research shows modern moms largely rely on social media for product information. The team used Facebook, blogs and websites to entice them with video contests and product giveaways. The campaign culminated with a virtually birthday party for Memorex’s 50th anniversary.

Characters from the popular kids’ show “Yo Gabba Gabba!” hosted the event, which streamed live across America.

The campaign shattered its goals, generating 100plus impressions, nearly doubling “Likes” for Memorex Facebook, and directly engaging almost 30,000 participants in the contest and birthday party. Sales of two highly promoted products more than doubled during the campaign.

Padilla Speer Beardsley engaged modern moms and her

family through a Facebook video contest, they created a virtual birthday party to be featured live on with “Yo Gabba Gabba!” with the grand prize video contest winner and offered Memorex product giveaways. Media outreach included three phases—outreach to short-lead media to reach modern moms and her family, engage family bloggers as brand ambassadors to post reviews, host giveaways and participate in the virtual birthday party.

The campaign generated over 53 million impressions on blogs and other online media, creating over 30 million impressions via Facebook advertisements. Social media efforts generated over three million impressions. The video event was viewed from 5,250 computers. Most viewers watched the video, likely resulting in more than 15,000 impressions from the event. Between July 1, 2011 and September 16, 2011, Memorex’s Facebook page received 1,130 new “Likes.” Memorex’s fan base on Facebook increased among women between the ages of 25-34. Fan interactions increased, with post views and feedback more than doubling. The monthly active users increased from 876 per month on July 1 to 5,301 per month on September 16.

Best Use of Digital/Social for a Consumer Technology Campaign Bronze Awarded to Richards Partners For “FRAM Blogger Junket” FRAM is a recognized leader in the automotive oil and air filter market for more than 75 years. During the past decade, FRAM began experiencing “reputation creep,” the ease of online communication allowing consumers the freedom and place to voice negative product and brand sentiments.

In 2011, what began are sporadic complaints and concerns had now evolved into a full-fledged reputation

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management issue. Years of unaddressed product and brand comments colored the brand image and stood to affect sales long-term.

During May of 2011, FRAM decided to set the record straight, debunking the myths and to engage with consumers. Rather than attempting to tackle all the automotive consumers online, Richards Partners recommended starting by influencing the influencers.

After a review of commentary on the most influential automotive blogs and forums, Richards Partners determined the “influencers” that would be the ideal target and first step in turning around negative brand perceptions. What resulted was an innovative bloggerinfluencer outreach campaign. The effort represented the company’s first-ever proactive attempt to reach out to top automotive bloggers.

Richards Partners suggested FRAM directly connected with these influencers through a junket to FRAM’s “Proving Grounds,” the company’s product testing lab.

The behind-the-scenes tour and access to FRAM’s chief engineer would be a company first. Never before had FRAM opened its doors to the public, let alone citizen journalists.

The bloggers chosen based on their expertise and credibility, included Andrew Markel Brake & Front End, Jeff Smith Car Craft, Jeff Martin Motorcycle Forum, Kevin McCartney technical trainer and expert. Richards Partners worked closely with FRAM to ensure that chief engineer Gary Bilski led the behind-the-scenes tour and set aside one-on-one time to answer direct questions and concerns. Senior product manager Duane Pekar was on site as well to kick off the junket and convey the brand’s commitment to an open and honest dialogue.

The PR agency challenged the blogger-influencers to put FRAM and its products to the test, challenging them to attend the junket on May 13, 2011. During the junket, seven key bloggers attended an in-depth, behind-thescenes factory tour, where they observed each of the

three confidential filter tests—clog, dirt and burst-in action.

In addition to the positive verbal feedback from all attendees, the FRAM blogger junket efforts and follow up with each blogger-influencer garnered three forum/ blog posts, and bolstered brand discussion with each blogger’s post generating upwards of 150 comments and 427,000 unique impressions. Three of the four posts totaled more than 10 pages long, including images from throughout the FRAM lab.

Continuing to build upon the relationships formed during the junket, FRAM hosted a dinner for the bloggers who attended the junket at the industry’s largest annual trade show, the Automotive Aftermarket Parts Expo in November. The dinner afforded FRAM the opportunity to share new product and company information with the bloggers, to clarify any new issues and to reinforce the brand’s appreciation for being online ambassadors.

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Best Use of Digital/Social for Higher Education Marketing Gold Awarded to Denison University For TheDEN (Denison University) College news sites have been places for press releases and for staged photographs of happy students or sometimes to mix it up, photos of contemplative students reading under trees. Denison University shook up this model with “TheDEN,” the online source for the college’s news, stories and ideas.

TheDEN provides prospective students, current students, faculty, alumni and members of the media quick-hit, blog-style news about the college. The site reflects the “life of the college” in a straightforward way without all the higher-education jargon by creating a tool that would be effective in telling the Denison story.

The site tells the stories of students and faculty living the Denison mission—thinking for themselves and being active in the community, learning about each other and making informed decisions.

TheDEN has a target audience with an age range of 15 to 100, which includes high school students trying to decide if the college might be a good fit for them, young alumni who want to see what their favorite professors are doing, older alumni who have not been back to campus for a while, parents, potential employees, townspeople, reporters, current faculty, staff and students.

TheDEN’s navigation organizes content around three primary conceptual buckets: “Academics & Research,” “On Campus,” and “Beyond Campus.” The first two hold stories about people and places on campus, while “Beyond Campus” shares stories of those making an impact on the wider world. For members of the press, beyond providing RSS access to site content, TheDEN provides a full section of media resources, from

downloadable photo & video footage to faculty expert information.

The site also provides readers with blog-style news about the college. All stories relate to each other through a tagbased system with commenting and social networking features that allow audiences to engage Denison and each other in conversations about the news. Even the university’s president, who sporadically followed the communications office online, now visits TheDEN several times per day to keep up with the happenings on campus.

Based on the site’s first 10 months, TheDEN generated more than 140,000 unique visitors and 300,000 page views. In February 2011, TheDEN received a Silver ADDY in the category of “Website, Consumer HTML, Products” from the Columbus chapter of the American Advertising Federation. CASE Circle of Excellence awards recognized TheDEN with a bronze medal in the category, “Individual Sub-Websites.” TheDEN also won an Ohio Interactive Award as the best entry in the category of “Social Web: Blogs.” In September 2011, TheDEN received the “Best University Website” award from the Web Marketing Association and an Honorable Mention in Online Communications at the Platinum PR Awards.

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Best Use of Digital/Social for a Health/Fitness/ Medicine Campaign Gold Awarded to Waggener Edstrom For Shire’s Gaucher Disease Awareness Month In February 2010, Shire received FDA approval of VPRIV, its treatment for Gaucher disease, a rare condition affecting less than 10,000 patients worldwide. Prior to the launch of VPRIV, Genzyme dominated the market for 15 years with the only commercially approved enzyme replacement therapy for Gaucher disease. In addition, another competitor, Protalix, loomed with a potential treatment alternative that could be approved within the year.

the campaign, WE created a Facebook “Fan Page” that served as the hub of all Gaucher Disease Awareness Month activities. To encourage audiences to return to the site, WE created engaging content, which included developing tweets and Facebook status updates, launching a physician blog series to highlight medical issues, interviewing and recording “Gaucher Patient Voices” podcasts and developing a viral “man on the street” YouTube video that the online community could pass along.

Following the FDA approval of VPRIV, Shire was tasked with winning over a group of patients that were already very loyal to Genzyme, as well as deepening newly established relationships with existing patients to avoid market loss when Protalix’s drug came to market.

To drive traffic to the Facebook page, Shire committed to donate $1 to the National Gaucher Foundation for each member who became a fan during the month of September. The team promoted the Facebook page on Shire’s VPRIV iPhone application and other Shire Web properties including VPIV.com. WE tweeted daily, which increased the Facebook page’s SEO and capitalized on YouTube to capture new audiences beyond the existing community. Lastly, WE identified key patient influencers online and encouraged them to post and share the information through their existing communities including other Gaucher related blogs and forums.

Gaucher Disease Awareness Month, recognized each September, was established in 2006 as a way for the Gaucher community to come together to raise awareness of the disease and drive funding for research. Waggener Edstrom recognized that Gauche Disease Awareness Month provided Shire with the perfect opportunity to support the Gaucher community while also forming new, and cementing existing relationships with community members.

At the start of Gaucher Disease Awareness Month, the page had zero fans, but by the end of the month, Shire’s page had more than 1,100 fans. Fans accessed patient podcasts 889 times, while YouTube views reached nearly 400 and Shire donated $10,000 to the National Gaucher Foundation, confirming their dedication to the community and the disease. WE secured positive coverage in media outlets such as Boston Business Journal, Mass High Tech, Jewish Press International and various blog posts.

The Waggener team observed that the Gaucher community was extremely active online and therefore placed digital and social media at the center of the campaign.

When it came time for tactical implementation, WE wanted to leverage the existing social media platforms favored by the community versus creating new channels that could potentially segregate members. To kick off

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Best Use of Digital/Social for a Health/Fitness/ Medicine Campaign Silver Awarded to Hager Sharp Inc. For Best Bones Forever! Let’s Dance Contest “Best Bones Forever!” is a national social marketing campaign of the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health (OWH).

The organization engaged Hager Sharp to create the campaign in response to a need. While adolescence represents the key bone building years, 65 percent of girls age 9-14 do not get the recommended amount of calcium. Additionally, physical activity declined as girls got older, as 50 percent of girls ages 8-10 report some physical activity at school, but the share drops to 19 percent by ages 16-17. Insufficient calcium, vitamin D and physical activity during these years may increase girls’ long-term risk for osteoporosis and bone fractures.

Research revealed that girls felt long-term bone health is something to neither worry about nor take actions towards. Instead, friendship is of huge value to them, and friends serve as major influencers of girl’s perceptions of physical activity and healthy eating.

This confirmed that themes of friendship and fun should be woven throughout the campaign. Playing on the term “best friends forever,” Hager Sharp designed “Best Bones Forever!” to encourage girls and their best friends to “grow strong together, stay strong forever.”

In an effort to make “Best Bones Forever!” a true social marketing campaign, the overarching strategy was to package the desired behavior change—calcium and vitamin D consumption and physical activity—in an appealing way that increased benefits, reduced costs and connected with girls where they were.

During the summer of 2011, Hager Sharp and OWH launched a national dance contest to present physical

activity and bone-building foods in fun and exciting ways to girls and ultimately help them build strong bones.

On June 21, 2011, the “Best Bones Forever!” Let’s Dance Contest featuring tween pop group Savvy officially kicked off. Girls from across the country were invited to grab their best friends, choreograph a dance routine to one of five Savvy songs, record a video of themselves doing the routine, and then upload the video to the contest website for a chance to win a trip to Los Angeles to meet and dance with Savvy.

In the spirit of friendship, girls had to work in groups of 2 to 6. The majority of the girls in each group also needed to be within the campaign’s target audience age range of 9-to-14. A “Let’s Dance” website was the go-to resource for the contest and where girls turned for information, including the rules and regulations.

To promote the contest, Hager Sharp used traditional media and conducted grassroots outreach, but social media efforts proved to be the most successful. The PR team activity promoted the contest through the campaign’s Facebook page and Twitter feed. The girls from Savvy played a huge role in the promotion, posting several pictures of themselves in campaign t-shirts. They also created short “teaser” videos to intrigue and engage the audience.

As a result of the campaign’s social media efforts, 71 different partners and organizations promoted the “Best Bones Forever! Let’s Dance Contest” featuring Savvy through social media. A total of 314 Facebook posts appeared, including those posted by “Best Bones Forever!” resulting in 1,305,147 impressions.

Hager Sharp drafted a press release and pitched print, broadcast, and online outlets. Information about the contest appeared on 66 different media outlets generating more than five million media impressions.

Highlights included Teen Vogue, PBS Kids “It’s My Life Blog,” Bob and Tiger Beat Online, Popstar! Blog, Pixie Magazine and Kidsworld.com.

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

Social media proved a crucial promotional tool, accounting for more than 50 percent of the website’s referrals. The contest website received a total of 5,528 visits and 15,196 page views, with 7,443 views of the homepage, 3,162 views of the gallery page, and 2,918 views of the registration page.

The contest closed on August 21, 2011 with a total 87 girls in 31 groups from 17 states participating. All participants “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they would participate in another dance contest. In addition, all of the girls either “strongly agreed” or “agreed” that they planned to do more physical activity to strengthen their bones and learn more about ways to keep their bodies healthy.

Best Use of Digital/Social for a Health/Fitness/ Medicine Campaign Bronze Awarded to The Foundation for Eye Health Awareness and Weber Shandwick Weber Shandwick For Make a Spectacle of Yourself Fresh off the successful 2010 launch of the “Think About Your Eyes” campaign, v Eye Health Awareness (FEHA) turned to Weber Shandwick to continue to expand its audience via its social media channels. They hoped to continue to spread the word about eye health, especially the importance of protecting eyes from harmful UV radiation.

More than 30 million Americans suffer from a serious eye disease, many of which, such as cataracts and macular degeneration, could be avoided through wearing proper UV protective eyewear. In its second year, the “Think About Your Eyes” public awareness initiative aimed to encourage consumers to protect their eyes with proper eyewear that blocks 100 percent of harmful UV rays as well as educate them about the importance of vision health and yearly comprehensive eye exams.

Weber Shandwick determined the best way to reach the target audience of consumers was to grow the base of fans on the campaign’s Facebook page. The agency sought to do this through a Facebook photo contest and corresponding blogger outreach to help build upon the social media channels established as a part of last year’s PR program.

The four-week photo contest ran June 13 to July 10 and encouraged consumers to upload a photo of themselves or their child in eyewear for a chance to win a prize. Four winners were selected to receive the honor of having their image selected as the “Think About Your Eyes” campaign’s Facebook profile image of the week as well as a $400 general use gift card.

To drive awareness, Weber Shandwick reached out to consumer bloggers and trade media, engaging niche parent bloggers and encouraging them to write about vision health and inform their readers about the contest.

The team provided 11 bloggers with $25 gift cards to use for reader giveaways. The agency also alerted vision trade media about the contest and presence at Optometry’s Meeting one of the largest optometry industry events and the official annual meeting of the American Optometric Association and the American Optometric Student Association. During the course of the event, the team distributed special cards with information about the contest and social media channels.

The “Make a Spectacle of Yourself” Facebook contest generated 2,366 new “Likes” in just four weeks, a 17 percent increase in social media interactions and more than 16 million impressions. The Facebook page received 2,366 new “Likes” for a total of 3,929 “Likes.” Twitter followers increased from 398 to 528, including 498 mentions on Twitter and 84,869 Twitter impressions.

Media coverage included 250,190 impressions, 11 consumer blog post and four trade publication articles, while 100 percent of the blog posts highlighted the Facebook contest, key stats about the need for eye exams and UV protection.

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Best Microsite or Specialized Website Gold Awarded to Ruder Finn/RFI Studios For Mountain Dew Throwback Shack RFI Studios and Ruder Finn received great news in December 2010. They’d been awarded the communications business for Mountain Dew, one of the most active and exciting brands on the consumer landscape.

Mountain Dew Throwback, made with real sugar, would be returning to shelves and the brand wanted to spread this product news, have fun with the product brand hero “Willy” and launch a campaign that celebrated Dew fans.

Some of the most passionate and evangelistic, you’ll find six million Mountain Dew fans on Facebook.

“Willy the Hillbilly” was the original Mountain Dew pitchman, a star of their early advertising, but creating a story and emotion around a campaign that hadn’t been seen since the sixties would be challenging. After brainstorming for about a week on potential ideas, RFI Studios came up with “The Throwback Shack.”

The agency wanted to create Willy’s house, a magical place of all things Dew. The Throwback Shack is where he’s been hiding since his last campaign, hoarding an entire house full of DEW items. The entire house is a discoverable experience, with Easter eggs hidden all over the house. Click the recipe box in the kitchen and you’ll find DEW infused recipes. Click on Willy’s scrapbook and find other fans that have left their DEW memories. Click the coat rack to win Willy’s coat or backpack or trucker cap.

Fans were allowed one entry per day, giving them a reason to come back, and the house opened up in phases, a few rooms at a time, creating a drum-roll of excitement over the summer.

The Throwback Shack placed the history and permanence of the DEW Brand front-and-center, focusing on the Story of Dew through the eyes of Willy. The Shack invited you into Willy’s home to have a look at all the DEW merchandise he had accumulated over the years working for DEW. Visitors had a chance to win some of Willy’s favorite items from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and on.

Not a single dollar went to advertising The Throwback Shack. Word of mouth via Facebook and Twitter where Willy had his own handle served as the campaign’s advertising engine. The Throwback Shack received 354,663 visitors, while the campaign collected 245,985 votes from the start in April. Registered members totaled 23,365. Media hits included The Atlanta JournalConstitution, PRWeek, Foodista, Trend Hunter Magazine and Retroist.

Best Microsite or Specialized Website Silver Awarded to Denison University For TheDEN (Denison University) College news sites have been places for press releases and for staged photographs of happy students or sometimes to mix it up, photos of contemplative students reading under trees. Denison University shook up this model with “TheDEN,” the online source for the college’s news, stories and ideas.

TheDEN provides prospective students, current students, faculty, alumni and members of the media quick-hit, blog-style news about the college. The site reflects the “life of the college” in a straightforward way without all the higher-education jargon by creating a tool that would be effective in telling the Denison story.

The site tells the stories of students and faculty living the Denison mission—thinking for themselves and being active in the community, learning about each other and

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

making informed decisions.

Communications at the Platinum PR Awards.

TheDEN has a target audience with an age range of 15 to 100, which includes high school students trying to decide if the college might be a good fit for them, young alumni who want to see what their favorite professors are doing, older alumni who have not been back to campus for a while, parents, potential employees, townspeople, reporters, current faculty, staff and students.

Best Microsite or Specialized Website Bronze Awarded to M Booth For Ameda “I Breastfeed Because” Campaign

TheDEN’s navigation organizes content around three primary conceptual buckets: “Academics & Research,” “On Campus,” and “Beyond Campus.” The first two hold stories about people and places on campus, while “Beyond Campus” shares stories of those making an impact on the wider world. For members of the press, beyond providing RSS access to site content, TheDEN provides a full section of media resources, from downloadable photo & video footage to faculty expert information.

The site also provides readers with blog-style news about the college. All stories relate to each other through a tagbased system with commenting and social networking features that allow audiences to engage Denison and each other in conversations about the news. Even the university’s president, who sporadically followed the communications office online, now visits TheDEN several times per day to keep up with the happenings on campus.

Based on the site’s first 10 months, TheDEN generated more than 140,000 unique visitors and 300,000 page views. In February 2011, TheDEN received a Silver ADDY in the category of “Website, Consumer HTML, Products” from the Columbus chapter of the American Advertising Federation. CASE Circle of Excellence awards recognized TheDEN with a bronze medal in the category, “Individual Sub-Websites.” TheDEN also won an Ohio Interactive Award as the best entry in the category of “Social Web: Blogs.” In September 2011, TheDEN received the “Best University Website” award from the Web Marketing Association and an Honorable Mention in Online

Ameda sought to increase its overall share of voice and level of consumer engagement in the breastfeeding equipment category, as well as announce the national retailer launch of the Ameda Purely Yours Breast Pump.

Agency M Booth recommended tapping into the passionate and vocal online breastfeeding community via a concerted and coordinated social and traditional media campaign. M Booth discovered that those speaking about breastfeeding were incredibly passionate, particularly when discussing the matter of choosing to breastfeed their babies.

Additionally, women, when debating whether to breastfeed, most often turned to online resources and their social networks—particularly those populated by other moms—to help inform their decision. What they needed was a sense of validation and support that they were making the right decision for their baby.

M Booth launched the “I Breastfeed Because” campaign via a microsite, which functioned as the hub of the campaign and the platform where moms could share their reasons for why they choose to breastfeed. Participates shared via video submissions, comments on the microsite or Tweets. A partnership was also forged with the National Milk Banking Association of North America, a charity that aligned with the pro-breastfeeding message.

For each consumer submission, Ameda donated $1 to the charity.

The campaign tapped Bethenny Frankel, star of “Real Housewives of New York” and “Bethenny Getting

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Married” as the spokesperson for the campaign. Frankel was a natural choice for the initiative as she was a breastfeeding mom and authority on healthy living. She spoke about her personal experience bonding with her baby during breastfeeding, as well as some of the health benefits for the baby.

M Booth secured an interview with “Access Hollywood” and an Internet media tour with Frankel to generate additional traffic to the microsite. The campaign coincided World Breastfeeding Month to provide the announcement with a logical news hook.

Ameda’s “I Breastfeed Because” campaign generated over 34 million media impressions with key placements in top-tier outlets such as “Access Hollywood,” People. com, AOL Parentdish and PopSugar. Overall the campaign generated 83 television, print and online placements as well as 3,469 “Likes” of the microsite, 1,673 comments, 257 Twitter entries and 126 consumer-generated videos.

During the campaign, Ameda’s website saw a 28% growth in traffic directly from the campaign microsite.

Best Use of Digital/Social in a Public Affairs/ Awareness Campaign Gold Awarded to Euro RSCG Worldwide PR For Campaign Money Watch Campaign Money Watch, a campaign-finance watchdog group, wanted Euro RSCG Worldwide PR to bring back the “Yes We Can” spirit for the 2010 midterms. The objective was to engage and reinvigorate the core Obama base from 2008—younger voters, aged 20-to-40, as well as African American and Latino populations and remind voters a long road for change remained ahead and they couldn’t abandon the president halfway through his term.

The campaign aimed to provide a rallying cry to motivate voters on Nov. 2, 2010 to remain resolute about advancing the agenda they voted for two years earlier. In addition, voters needed to understand that apathy and complacency in the 2010-midterm elections were not an option because more than seats were at stake.

Named the “TheyWinULose” campaign, efforts focused on six states with closely contested U.S. Senate elections to draw attention to candidates’ platforms and funding sources. The states included Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The core premise of “TheyWinULose” was to use the candidates’ own words in video and text to reveal contrasting agendas and their potential implications to the president’s ability to achieve key goals. In the midst of the madness and hype, the campaign provided a sane, clear, focused voice for fairness, progress and accountability. The PR team knew they had to spread their message where young people lived—digital and social media.

By integrating online advertising, viral assets, social and traditional media and celebrity endorsements,

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

the campaign looked to capture the target audience, penetrate multiple networks of influence and generate maximum momentum in a limited time frame.

PR efforts included the launch of a “TheyWinULose” website, the branded hashtag #theywinulose and partnering with a media buying agency to carefully place ads for the videos created to raise awareness against big money in elections. Celebrities like Wyclef Jean and Alyssa Milano blogged and tweeted for the cause on outlets ranging from the campaign’s website and CNN. com to The Huffington Post and regional publications.

TheyWinULose.com debuted “Election Time,” a newsworthy single from Grammy winner Jean, which went out in a mailing to a substantial email list of influential journalists and media representatives as well as by Twitter in order to drive young voters to the site. The song and website were referenced in two Jean-bylined opinion pieces and the politician-entertainer became an active participant in the program’s Twitter campaign. The rallying cry “Don’ sit this one out” spread through a series of celebrity opinion pieces that appeared online. Some of those pieces for the campaign placed in regionally relevant and nationally prominent media, mostly online.

At the end of the six-week campaign, media impressions totaled almost 233 million, including 1.05 million unique visitors to the campaign’s site, 11.9 million Twitter impressions and 13,300 YouTube video views. The campaign secured 130 online media placements from JustJared.com and the Boombox to The Orange County Register, The Atlantic Online, CNN and Politico, among others.

Best Use of Digital/Social in a Public Affairs/ Awareness Campaign Silver Awarded to Weber Shandwick For Sharing the Army Strong Story Since 2008, Weber Shandwick has taken steps to showcase Army life through digital channels and involve the Army in online conversations about recruitment and military life, including the launch of “Army Strong Stories” (www.armystrongstories.com), the first-ever official Soldier blog, inviting Soldiers to share their unfiltered perspective on military life and interact with those interested in Army service through shared experiences.

As Army Strong Stories grew, establishing credibility as the Army’s signature Soldier blog, and as people’s online habits skyrocketed, the team seized the opportunity to expand Army Strong Stories and introduce new integrated social media platforms.

In the fall of 2006, Weber Shandwick conducted a comprehensive online landscape analysis to identify what was being said about the Army relating to recruitment and military life. The analysis found a high volume of relevant discussion taking place, but a lack of Army representatives participating.

With the majority of its recruiting audience active online, the Army established a goal to increase its social media engagement by expanding Army Strong Stories with new social storytelling platforms and initiatives to provide an accurate depiction of military life.

Weber Shandwick set objectives aimed at humanizing the Army, building trust and fostering two-way conversation.

The campaign sought to reach out to two key audiences— Prospects and Influencers. Prospects needed to be armed with the online resources and information essential for making informed decisions about military service, while Influencers needed an accurate understanding

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of what Army service means through informative communications.

Tactics included the launch of “Inspire Stories,” inviting social media influencers to events and installations, a redesigned and re-launched ArmyStrongStories.com, welcoming anyone to share their story and developing Go Army Advocates, an online community for business and community leaders, educators and other supporters to foster a better understanding of the value of being a soldier. The launch of an Army Strong Stories iPhone application and mobile site provided users with on-thego access to the site.

The Army’s social media initiatives received a significant and positive response, indicating a strong interest from soldiers to share their stories and from the Army’s target audience in learning more about soldier life. Army Strong Stories generated more than one million visits in 2010, a more than 250 percent increase over 2009. New soldier bloggers totaled 576 for a collective total of more than 700, including 860 posted video and written stories with new stories added daily. They reached more than 1,300 unique visitors and engaged nearly 150 Army influencers through Go Army Advocates. The campaign leveraged social media, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by posting at least 10 updates per week to reach the Army’s more than 570,000 fans and followers with the Army story. App downloads reached nearly 1,000 with more than 5,340 mobile site visits.

Best Use of Digital/Social in a Public Affairs/ Awareness Campaign Bronze Awarded to Euro RSCG Worldwide PR For The French Will Never Forget 9/11 When the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, most of the world was shocked, angered and moved to profound sorrow for the nearly 3,000 lives lost. Two years

later, France made headlines for its strong opposition to the U.S. invasion in Iraq, causing widespread anti-French sentiment in the U.S. As a result, a standard cliché appeared in the American media that the French did not remember what the United States had done for them during World War I and World War II. To attempt to reverse this perception, four French citizens living in the U.S. formed a grassroots organization in 2003 called The French Will Never Forget (TFWNF) to help strengthen the long-standing friendship between the two countries.

Since then, the organization has paid tribute to the United States in annual displays of fellowship, such as making a human chain with 2,500 people on Omaha Beach.

With the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11 approaching, TFWNF wanted to create a meaningful symbol to increase awareness for the organization among French and American citizens, strengthen the Franco-American friendship and offer French condolences that Americans would see on the anniversary.

Euro RSCG Worldwide PR took on TFWNF’s positive message of friendship and hope for the future, engaging their France office and the CK agency in London to help the tribute appear in news headlines across the globe.

While TFWNF designed a 75-foot replica of the Twin Towers to be erected opposite the Eiffel Tower that would read “The French Will Never Forget Sept. 11,” listing the names of each victim, PR team members got busy spreading the group’s message.

PR efforts included increasing the group’s social media presence through Facebook and Twitter, creating a U.S. version of the group’s Facebook page and revamping their website to include an English version.

They encouraged Facebook fans to share messages of support and sympathy, spreading TFWNF’s message to interest groups by building relationships with 9/11 support groups and linking to American-Francophile Facebook pages.

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

In just a few short weeks, the social media conversation erupted on Facebook as emotional messages flooded in of support and remembrance from both sides of the pond, reflecting a grassroots social initiative that appealed to the emotional bond and fraternity that these two nations share.

The campaign tallied 490 “Likes” on Facebook, 367 news fans and 275 wall posts and comments in the first 11 days of September and more than 17,300 “tweet-pressions,” including retweets and mentions from CNN France and the U.S. Embassy. Coverage of the event spanned the globe, with more than 231 million media impressions in the first three days alone. Broadcast segments aired on CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Europe 1, France 3, France Today and Radio France International.

Sixty-eight print and online placements appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Independent, Daily Mail, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.

Best Use of Search Engine Optimization in a Campaign Gold Awarded to LEWIS PR For SEO Drives Competitive Positioning Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media marketing provide the ultimate competitive advantage.

Not just because of organic traffic provided, but because technology-sophisticated audiences rely on search and social to find solutions, make decisions and network.

Neustar’s Internet Infrastructure Services (IIS) portfolio operates in an ultra-competitive niche where being found organically is essential to growth.

One specific challenge that the LEWIS PR team identified from the start of the relationship with Neustar was the need to continue to develop each product portfolio tied to a larger brand in Neustar, which consisted of three main identities, UltraDNS, Webmetrics and BrowserMob. The goal would be to differentiate all three portfolios separately, while aligning all of the entities to the overarching Neustar brand.

LEWIS PR began by conducting an SEO audit to identify target market keywords that would best meet the needs of candidates searching for specific types of Internet Infrastructure solutions dealing with DNS, website monitoring and load testing. As a result of the audit, a keyword glossary of popular and relevant terms was created and used to make recommendations to improve on-page content for users and search engines, flesh out meta information, optimize site architecture and ensure a consistent linking strategy.

The agency provided relevant intelligence for the company’s websites including customer-centric keywords associated with Neustar’s portfolio. The LEWIS team activated social communities behind each of the products to help build links, social signal and brand awareness to strategically impact search engine visibility.

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LEWIS began the SEO process by conducting a codelevel audit of each product website, analyzing more than 50 aspects of server configuration, site architecture, templates and Webmaster tools reports. A task list was produced for the Neustar development team to improve technical optimization of the sites following best practices set forth by each of the major search engines. LEWIS next conducted keyword research for several domains within the IIS division of Neustar. By analyzing which keywords had search demand and were customer-centric, LEWIS optimized content on Neustar’s web properties in order to increase search traffic to the company’s domain.

LEWIS also reviewed each website within the IIS domain, making edits to the content to better align with the terms more frequently used within search engine queries. The PR team analyzed the results populated from Google Analytics on a monthly basis in order to visualize web traffic variations and changes within search rankings associated with the Neustar domain.

Within the first four months of implementing recommendations, search engine visibility to the three web properties displayed significant improvement.

Results included a more than 250% increase in visibility in search rankings for targeted phrases across product websites and an over 150% increase in non-paid traffic for the key-phrase “website performance monitoring,” which is one example of the many high-relevancy and conversion-oriented key phrases. Additional results included overall consistent month-over-month growth of social communities being marketed in tandem with the websites and a 75% increase in search engine traffic after four months.

Best Online/Social Media Community of the Year Gold Awarded to M Booth For Ameda “I Breastfeed Because” Campaign Ameda sought to increase its overall share of voice and level of consumer engagement in the breastfeeding equipment category, as well as announce the national retailer launch of the Ameda Purely Yours Breast Pump.

Agency M Booth recommended tapping into the passionate and vocal online breastfeeding community via a concerted and coordinated social and traditional media campaign. M Booth discovered that those speaking about breastfeeding were incredibly passionate, particularly when discussing the matter of choosing to breastfeed their babies.

Additionally, women, when debating whether to breastfeed, most often turned to online resources and their social networks—particularly those populated by other moms—to help inform their decision. What they needed was a sense of validation and support that they were making the right decision for their baby.

M Booth launched the “I Breastfeed Because” campaign via a microsite, which functioned as the hub of the campaign and the platform where moms could share their reasons for why they choose to breastfeed. Participates shared via video submissions, comments on the microsite or Tweets. A partnership was also forged with the National Milk Banking Association of North America, a charity that aligned with the pro-breastfeeding message.

For each consumer submission, Ameda donated $1 to the charity.

The campaign tapped Bethenny Frankel, star of “Real Housewives of New York” and “Bethenny Getting Married” as the spokesperson for the campaign. Frankel was a natural choice for the initiative as she was a breastfeeding mom and authority on healthy living. She

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

spoke about her personal experience bonding with her baby during breastfeeding, as well as some of the health benefits for the baby.

M Booth secured an interview with “Access Hollywood” and an Internet media tour with Frankel to generate additional traffic to the microsite. The campaign coincided World Breastfeeding Month to provide the announcement with a logical news hook.

Ameda’s “I Breastfeed Because” campaign generated over 34 million media impressions with key placements in top-tier outlets such as “Access Hollywood,” People. com, AOL Parentdish and PopSugar. Overall the campaign generated 83 television, print and online placements as well as 3,469 “Likes” of the microsite, 1,673 comments, 257 Twitter entries and 126 consumer-generated videos.

During the campaign, Ameda’s website saw a 28% growth in traffic directly from the campaign microsite.

Best Online/Social Media Community of the Year Silver Awarded to General Mills/Coyne Public Relations Coyne Public Relations For MGCheerios on Twitter After winning a partnership with “The Biggest Loser,” MultiGrain Cheerios created a Twitter handle @ MGCheerios to engage fans of the brand. From January through May, consumers had the opportunity to unlock exclusive weight management tools and recipes on www. multigraincheerios.com through codes found on specially marked packages of the product. Through the strategy of weekly Twitter Parties and daily engagement, MultiGrain Cheerios created and encouraged ongoing discussion about the brand and converted it to registrations for the exclusive content.

The campaign kicked off in January with the start of the 11th season of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser: Couples.”

Each week, MultiGrain Cheerios hosted a Twitter party for one hour during the show. Fans were invited to “tweet and greet” with special guests, including past season winners and the eliminated contestant from the previous week’s episode. Through discussing weight management, recipes, and motivational tips, in addition to the happenings of the weekly episode of “The Biggest Loser: Couples,” MultiGrain Cheerios forged relationships with fans new and old, establishing a presence on Twitter and consistently gaining new followers.

MultiGrain Cheerios connected with consumers who are already fans of the brand on Twitter and who voiced their appreciation for the cereal through the social platform.

Offering relevant tips, tools, and in some cases sending physical packages, the brand engaged with consumers in a personal yet unobtrusive manner, forging and strengthening relationships with brand advocates.

Results included more than 1,500 Twitter followers, 2.6 million followers on the hashtag per party, 90,000 website registrations for the exclusive content, 650 Tweets per party, 80 to 100 participants per party, 36 new participants each week and 55 new followers to the handle each week.

Best Online/Social Media Community of the Year Bronze Awarded to French/West/Vaughan For Wrangler Western As the PR agency of record for Wrangler Western for more than 15 years, French/West/Vaughan (FWV) is regularly charged with securing traditional media placements on behalf of the western lifestyle brand. Wrangler Western provides both functional and fashionable clothing to consumers living the western lifestyle, such as people passionate about ranching, riding, rodeo and country music.

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Understanding the increasingly important role of social media in the PR field, but realizing the conservative nature of the brand and its consumers made for a careful tight rope walk to guide the brand into the idea of communicating in a new way. FWV focused first on the most commonly used social media platform—Facebook.

Overall, FWV wanted to establish Wrangler Western as the online authority on the western and equine lifestyle.

They also wanted to offer fans living the western lifestyle an online community to engage with each other on meaningful topics and maintain a consistent increase in fan engagement levels month-over-month to reach 400,000 fans by the end of 2011.

FWV developed a comprehensive Facebook content plan to establish the brand’s role as the lifestyle authority by delivering timely, exclusive, behind-the-scenes rodeo, country music and equine news and content to fans, conducting a sweepstakes awarding fans trips to attend important industry events and engaging with fans in a direct, thoughtful way and providing content that sparked discussion.

They hosted the Wrangler National Patriot Photo story contest to build awareness of the brand’s program that raises funds and awareness for wounded or fallen military veterans and their families. Fans had the chance to honor a special veteran in their life and vote for, comment on and share their favorite entries. Wrangler also hosted the Ultimate Cowgirl Next Door Contest, a search for a Facebook fan to appear in upcoming print advertisements in which fan voting determined the top 10 finalists.

In order to gain fan growth during the promotional period, FWV launched Facebook ad campaigns and on-air radio promotional mentions to drive traffic to the Facebook page with a call-to-action to “Like” the page.

Wrangler Western continues to surpass industry competitors including Ariat International, Inc., Cinch Jeans, Cowgirl Tough Company, Cruel Girl Jeans,

Panhandle Slim, Petrol Jeans, Rock and Roll Cowgirl, Rockies Jeans and Southern Thread in total fan count and fan interaction levels. The brand ranks in the top six of top denim brands on Facebook. Wrangler’s Facebook page exceeded 454,000 fans by the end of 2011.

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

Best Social Network Messaging Strategy Gold Awarded to Allways Integrated Marketing For DrinkNeuro Neuro is a groundbreaking line of functional drinks made with natural ingredients in fully recyclable packaging.

Formulated by nutrition scientists, Neuro is backed by scientific research to promote health and well-being.

Each low calorie drink contains essential vitamins, minerals, amino acids and proprietary dietary ingredients to enhance and support healthy and active lifestyles.

New to the consumer market, Neuro is available in seven drink choices, including NeuroBliss, NeuroGasm, NeuroSleep, NeuroSonic, NeuroSport, NeuroSun and NeuroTrim. Select retailers in the United States and United Kingdom carry the drink.

When Allways Integrated Marketing came onboard to direct Neuro’s social media campaign, the company had only scratched the surface of awareness on social media networks, even though the brand enjoyed a solid fan base. PR efforts included encouraging fans to participate and share their experiences with Neuro products, educate new fans about the benefits of Neuro products and introduce new Neuro products to this audience of consumers. Additional objectives included gaining customer feedback for future brand development and positioning, creating national and local awareness and converting product trial to retention.

The “How do you Neuro?” became one of the campaign’s primary themes. Through utilizing the “How do you Neuro?” slogan Allways developed promotional giveaways and engaging messaging. The campaign also yielded valuable results including knowledge of how consumers interact with the brand.

Examples of giveaway promotions hosted through Neuro’s social media channels included asking consumers

how they incorporate Neuro into holidays such as the Fourth of July and Memorial Day weekend, how specific consumer groups like busy moms and college students use Neuro and the best example of how you Neuro in a given week. For each of these promotions, social media users submitted photos and testimonials for a chance to win free Neuro.

Allways also successfully seeded a Neuro viral video to entertainment outlets, mom and parenting, health, beauty, fitness and women’s interest blogs and outlets, which resulted in over five million views. The PR team also utilized photos of celebrity ambassadors as well as organic celebrity Neuro branded photos, such as the photos of the Kardashian sisters at Neuro events and Paris Hilton’s refrigerator full of Neuro bottles by seeding them to celebrity fan sites and entertainment and gossip outlets.

Neuro’s Twitter followers increased from 4,653 on March 1, 2011 to 7,117 on October 14, 2011. YouTube upload views increased from 37,101 on March 1, 2011 to 1,836,823 on October 14, 2011.

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Best Use of Digital/Social for a Travel/Hospitality Campaign Gold Awarded to Princess Cruises For 50 Essential Experiences: The Travel Bucket List Blog Offline and online travel and lifestyle media abound with “expert” and “insider” lists of things you should know and places you should go. America loves a list.

This was the inspiration for Princess Cruises’ first company blog, “50 Essential Experiences: The Travel Bucket List.” The blog supported a key brand pillar— destination expertise—but also turned employees’ passion for travel into a unified “storytelling channel,” while adding the intrigue of slowly revealing the ultimate list of travel experiences over a full year.

Launched in October 2010, “50 Essential Experiences” concluded on October 4, 2011 after weekly posts of inspirational travel bucket list stories authored by one of Princess’ longest-serving and well-traveled shore-side and shipboard employees.

Each of the expert authors participated in a section called “Meet Our Destination Expert; 5 Revealing Questions,” to further connect readers with the author of the story. Blog readers shared their best travel bucket list experiences and one such “Reader Essential Experience of the Week” was selected and featured.

The blog has secured 1.3 million unique visitors since its debut, resonating with readers because of the inspirational yet attainable travel stories. In addition, the blog is now the digital hub for many of Princess’ destination marketing initiatives, while blog messages and links into digital banner ads, direct mail pieces, past passenger and prospect emails, passenger newsletters and employee communications.

As of August 16, 2011, more than 1.5 million readers have visited the blog as well as more than 2.8 million page views, coming from 206 countries and territories from around the world. The blog received more than 5,700 reader comments, while “50 Essential Experiences” is the most visited blog in the Carnival Corporation family of blogs.

Best Use of Digital/Social for a Travel/Hospitality Campaign Silver Awarded to Weber Shandwick For Omni Hotels & Resorts Family Travel Skype Media Tour Omni Hotels & Resorts offers families traveling with children several amenities and options to ease travel for adults and children. During their stay, children receive an Omni Sensational Kids backpack with games and activities, milk and cookies at turndown, and access to books and games housed at each property.

The blog features such experiences as dog mushing on a glacier in Skagway, Alaska, discovering the hidden city of the Incas in Machu Picchu, Peru, a visit to the site of the Bounty mutiny—Pitcairn Island, visiting an ancient family castle in Dingwall, Scotland and visiting the iconic Moai heads of Easter Island in Chile.

Select properties across the brand feature Kids Sensory Suites—large hotel rooms designed for younger travelers with kid-sized beds, cozy furniture, and play areas featuring activities, toys and crafts. Each Kids Suite connects to a hotel room for the parents.

The president and CEO of Princess Cruises wrote a revealing story about his return to Vietnam as a tourist after serving there during the war.

To promote its family travel amenities, particularly the Kids’ Suites, PR agency Weber Shandwick connected with bloggers around the country in a unique, personal

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

and visual way. Given the video and voice chat elements of Skype and the ability to “meet” bloggers in varying locations, the PR team coordinated Omni’s first Skype Media Tour, hosted in an Omni Kids Sensory Suite to give bloggers a “tour” of this unique attribute of Omni Hotels.

Once the PR team confirmed blogger participation, they developed a schedule of 20-minute “interviews” occurring the afternoon of Nov. 18. The interviews included a “tour” via webcam of the Kids Sensory Suite at the Omni Mandalay in Las Colinas, highlighting the furniture, décor and activity areas. In addition to promoting Omni’s family travel initiatives, the interviews included discussion of new travel trends and current needs for families when traveling.

To give bloggers and their readers an opportunity to experience an Omni Hotel property, each participant received a complimentary weekend stay at a property, as well as a weekend stay to offer to a blog follower.

Weber Shandwick and Omni Hotels & Resorts secured a total of 10 media placements that yielded 1,331,505 media impressions. Key placements included The Lonely Planet, TravelingMom.com, and The Vacation Gals. Coverage highlights included a placement on The Lonely Plan, which was considered the “Best Hit” for its large audience reach, and focus on the key messages.

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Best Use of Video in a Digital/Social Environment Gold Awarded to NVIDIA For NVIDIA Tegra 3 Demo Turns to Video Gold NVIDIA is the leader in visual and parallel computing with four powerful brands of processors, including GeForce for gaming, Tesla for supercomputers, Quadro for professional graphics on workstations and Tegra for mobile devices. With this expertise, the company is focused on discovering new ways to leverage video when telling their brand stories.

A recent highly successful example is the NVIDIA Glowball demo video, which was created to promote the upcoming release of their quad-core mobile chip, named Project Kal-El, a reference to Superman’s birth name.

NVIDIA produced a short screen-capture video, where a narrator guides viewers through Glowball’s fantasy environment, showing how visuals dramatically improve when switching from dual-core to the Project Kal-El quadcore processors. Viewers see what looks like the inside of a carnival fun-house, complete with an ominous clown’s face watching the movement within the environment.

The app features a glowing ball, which is driven by the narrator, around the fun-house, demonstrating how elements within the environment are able to dynamically reach to the glowball’s presence. It shows viewers extremely advanced visual processing from dynamic lighting to randomized flow of fabric. They created a video with an eye towards social media, by preserving a casual style, rather than a highly produced commercial. The goal was to have the video syndicated and embedded as widely as possible, knowing that media will leverage company-created assets if they are informational and objective, with little marketing push.

The results included hundreds of unique articles about Glowball that appeared globally in outlets beyond the

usual press of mainstream business media. The Glowball video resulted in nearly 800,000 views, reaching 400,000 views in its first day and 600,000 in its first week.

The campaign also benefited from nearly 700 fan comments, many of which were positive and indicated a desire to purchase future products.

Best Use of Video in a Digital/Social Environment Silver Awarded to Paine PR/Citizen Paine For Power Those Who Protect Us Duracell needed to give consumer a reason to choose the brand over the competition, while reinforcing the brand equity—Trusted Everywhere—and simultaneously rethinking how to connect with meaningful causes.

Along with PR agency Citizen Paine, Duracell launched “Power Those Who Protect Us,” a campaign focused on mobilizing social media to activate consumers for a specific cause. All elements of the program sought to drive online engagement for an offline call-to-action to purchase specially marked packs.

For every pack purchased, Duracell donated batteries to volunteer fire departments around the country, helping provide the nation’s 23,000 departments with one million volunteers with the critical supplies to power their lifesaving devices.

The campaign came to life in every aspect of the marketing mix from advertising, in-store, traditional PR and digital, rallying consumers to activate more than 15 million battery donations. The program significantly grew Duracell’s Facebook fan base, from 20,000 fans to 160,000 fans in just six weeks. Media attention and social media buzz impressed so much that the program became a finalist for a VH1 “Do Something” Award, given

2011 Bulldog Reporter Digital/Social PR Awards

to honor individuals’ commitment to social change.

After identifying a relevant cause—supporting the cashstrapped volunteer firefighter community, Duracell created a strategic partnership with the NVFC and commissioned a survey with IPSOS to highlight their tireless sacrifices, which included an average out of pocket cost of $500 annually for firehouse supplies.

The brand also created strategic partnerships with Grammy Award-winning entertainer Cee Lo Green and who re-recorded his track, “Forget You” to create “Thank You” as a tribute to volunteer firefighters. NFL legend Kurt Warner also helped out, participating in firefighting training to support the program.

Throughout the campaign, the brand’s Facebook page was consistently referred to as the ideal source for more info. Through a customized Facebook tab, consumers could log on to learn more about the program, read through volunteer firefighters’ personal accounts of their lifesaving experiences, catch exclusive footage of Warner conducting a firefighter training at a local volunteer firehouse, among other exclusive videos. Customers could also localize their battery donations to affect the closest volunteer department.

During the second phase of the program, consumers could download Cee Lo’s limited edition “Thank You” track, made available exclusively to user who “Liked” the Duracell page. In addition to downloading the track, brand fans could watch the exclusive music video or tune in to hear from Cee Lo on why the cause resonated with him.

Duracell’s campaign generated 15 million battery donations to 23,000 volunteer fire departments, which met the needs of two years worth of batteries for every department. Media impressions totaled 828 million, including an exclusive Associated Press and three succeeding articles discussing the cause, all of which created substantial media pickup and online buzz with influencers including Alyssa Milano and Oprah grew the Duracell Facebook fan base from 20,000 fans to

160,000 fans in just six weeks. The campaign and Cee Lo Green’s track received a nomination for a VH1 “Do Something” Award, the song later receiving a finalist designation based upon fan votes.

Best Use of Video in a Digital/Social Environment Bronze Awarded to Padilla Speer Beardsley, Inc For Remember Memorex? It’s back Memorex became a household name in the 1970s with an iconic television commercial. The commercial showed a crystal goblet shattering to the sound of jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald’s high-pitched voice. Viewers then were confronted with the questions—Is it live or is it Memorex?

That campaign drove sales for Memorex’s then-signature product—the cassette tape. Decades later, cassettes are virtually extinct. And so, it seemed, was the Memorex brand. But quietly, the company had started selling electronics, including iPod and Wii accessories.

Recognizing the need for a radial marketing makeover, Memorex turned to Padilla Speer Beardsley. The team positioned Memorex as the champion for “Modern Mom,” who’s always looking for new ways to enjoy family time.

Research shows modern moms largely rely on social media for product information. The team used Facebook, blogs and websites to entice them with video contests and product giveaways. The campaign culminated with a virtually birthday party for Memorex’s 50th anniversary.

Characters from the popular kids’ show “Yo Gabba Gabba!” hosted the event, which streamed live across America.

The campaign shattered its goals, generating 100plus impressions, nearly doubling “Likes” for Memorex Facebook, and directly engaging almost 30,000

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participants in the contest and birthday party. Sales of two highly promoted products more than doubled during the campaign.

Padilla Speer Beardsley engaged modern moms and her family through a Facebook video contest, they created a virtual birthday party to be featured live on with “Yo Gabba Gabba!” with the grand prize video contest winner and offered Memorex product giveaways. Media outreach included three phases—outreach to short-lead media to reach modern moms and her family, engage family bloggers as brand ambassadors to post reviews, host giveaways and participate in the virtual birthday party.

The campaign generated over 53 million impressions on blogs and other online media, creating over 30 million impressions via Facebook advertisements. Social media efforts generated over three million impressions. The video event was viewed from 5,250 computers. Most viewers watched the video, likely resulting in more than 15,000 impressions from the event. Between July 1, 2011 and September 16, 2011, Memorex’s Facebook page received 1,130 new “Likes.” Memorex’s fan base on Facebook increased among women between the ages of 25-34. Fan interactions increased, with post views and feedback more than doubling. The monthly active users increased from 876 per month on July 1 to 5,301 per month on September 16.