2014 Media Relations Hall of Fame

2014BUL L DOGMEDI AREL AT I ONSAWARDS F ORE XCE L L E NCEI NME DI A&PUBL I CI T YCAMP AI GNS

HAL LOFF AME ANNOUNCI NGT HEGREAT EST MEDI AREL AT I ONSANDPUBL I CI T YCAMPAI GNSOFT HEYEAR

Su mma r yo f t h eWi n n e r sf o rt h e 2 0 1 4Bu l l d o gMe d i aRe l a t i o n sA wa r d s

F eat ur i ngGr andPr i z eWi nner Ray t heonI nt egr at edDef ens eSy s t ems

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

Linda Tischler, Senior Editor, Fast Company

Jennifer Rooney, Editor CMO Network, Forbes.com

Chris Elliott, Author, Journalist and Consumer Advocate, National Geographic Traveler Wendy L. Wilson, News Editor, Essence Magazine

Tom Hallman, Feature Writer (Pulitzer Prize Winner), The Oregonian

Meghan Collins-Sullivan, Supervising Editor, NPR (National Public Radio)

PRELIMINARY JUDGES

Richard Carufel, Senior Editor, Bulldog Reporter’s Daily ‘Dog Steve Beale, Editor, Bulldog Reporter’s Inside Health Media Kristin Bender, Reporter, Bay Area News Group Matt Artz, Reporter, Bay Area News Group

Katie Nelson, Reporter, Bay Area News Group

Talia Sinkinson, Editor, Bulldog Reporter's Winning PR

124 Linden Street, Oakland, CA 94607 www.bulldogreporter.com 1-800-959-1059

For more information about the Bulldog Reporter Media Relations Awards, including entry deadlines, fees and submission requirements, please go to www.bulldogreporter.com. © Copyright 2014, Bulldog Reporter–publisher of the Daily ‘Dog, Inside Health Media, PR University, Media Pro and Media Pro Pitching Alerts.

Written by Talia Sinkinsoni

On the Cover: Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems for Protecting America with Raytheon’s Blimp-Borne Radar

2014 BULLDOG MEDIA RELATIONS AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN MEDIA A N D P U B L I C I T Y C A M PA I G N S

HALL OF FAME Summary of Winning Campaigns from the 2014 Bulldog Awards for Excellence in Media and Publicity Campaigns Winners of the 2014 Bulldog Awards for Excellence in Media and Publicity Campaigns enter a pantheon of exemplary communications practitioners, and their campaigns are summarized in this edition of the 2014 Bulldog Media Relations Awards Hall of Fame magazine.

Winners of the 2014 Bulldog Awards for Excellence in Media and Publicity Campaigns 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 2014 Bulldog Awards for Excellence in Media and Publicity Campaigns Winners

B E S T M E D I A C A M PA I G N O F T H E Y E A R

GRAND PRIZE Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems for Protecting America with Raytheon’s blimp-borne radar Powerful PR messages are the key to unlocking needle-moving media coverage—especially in today’s crowded digital environment.

Yet most PR pros still don’t understand the process of creating and communicating effective messages for print and online media. They pitch narratives that fall flat because they’re recycled, outdated or simply uninspired. However, there is a way to map out and implement a messaging plan that wins big with all kinds of reporters—from bloggers to trade press to national media.

JLENS system. The second step was understanding what their careabouts were. We used an external company to do a media audit to help us see what they were concerned with: They weren’t as concerned with the hardware; what they really cared about was the JLENS capability and the end-result—how JLENS was going to protect the US interests and how it would it help them do the right thing for the American people. That gave us the knowledge that we had to really explain the value proposition of this system.”

Raytheon Company is a technology leader specializing in defense and security. When Raytheon’s blimp-borne radar program, known as JLENS, faced the threat of significant budget cuts, the company’s in-house PR team sought to rally support for Raytheon’s important innovation. The Department of Defense decided to take a “try-before-you-buy” approach with JLENS, and the PR pros needed to tell a story around JLENS and the DoD’s operational evaluation. Read on for a case study that details the anatomy of Raytheon’s knockout messaging—and explains how you, too, can revolutionize a brand story for reporters, key stakeholders and consumers.

Build a narrative based on research. Rigorous research led Raytheon to determine that storytelling would be the best way to reach their audience. The team developed a detailed messaging architecture that conveyed the following points: ● The US military and its allies are endangered by hostile nations’ threats. ● JLENS has demonstrated the ability to defeat these threats. ● JLENS provides the military a needed capability it doesn’t have today. ● JLENS is more affordable to own and operate than any other system currently available. ● JLENS has a proven track record of success and is performing flawlessly.

The Challenge: Develop messaging that educates audiences around a complex and sensitive issue. A PR campaign starts well before your first press release. In reality, it begins with crafting your “home base” concept—and that requires a deep dive into the world beyond your company or client’s ecosystem.

“Our challenge was one experienced by PR practitioners around the world: You can meet with engineers or salespeople and they’ll tell you what they think is important to promote, but especially in complicated industries like defense, healthcare or science, you have to push the envelope and get to what matters based on target- and readership-interest and strategic objective,” says Donna Ayer, Raytheon Integrated Defense System Public Relations lead.

So the Raytheon team took the plunge, looking away from what they thought they knew and letting fresh concepts take shape.

The Strategy: Leverage research to rediscover your audience.

“We started everything with extensive research, and that was the fundamental piece to lay the foundation for the campaign’s success,” explains Mike Nachshen, JLENS Communications Campaign lead. “It helped us understand the audience and how to best position this program and our product in a way that would resonate with our audience.

“The first step was figuring out who the audience was and really understanding that audience. We recognized that the audience was Capitol Hill; they were the people who really needed to know the

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

We were fortunate in that we had access to some beautiful shots of the JLENS system being tested," says Keri Connors, Raytheon Integrated Defense System Digital & Social Media lead. "We tried to leverage these visuals as much as possible.

Develop your storyline for various media. “We talk about very complex systems, issues and situations that the general public and

1

B E S T M E D I A C A M PA I G N O F T H E Y E A R reporters may not completely understand at first glance—or even after attempts to educate,” notes Ayer. “We have some core trade reporters who are a part of this military ecosystem that often has its own language and its own nuance—but the majority of media we interact with on a daily basis aren’t necessarily intimately familiar with that.”

Pitch mainstream media with offbeat angles. With the goal of piquing curiosity (without confusing target audiences), Ayer and the PR team wove creative elements into the greater campaign messaging. ● Visual. “The cool thing about this entire program is that it’s really neat looking.” ● Recognizable. “It parallels to a Goodyear or Metlife blimp, so it’s visually appealing, and we pulled on that particular thread.” ● Location-focused. “The fact that Aberdeen, where the test was to take place, is located near a highly populated metropolitan hub worked in our favor.” ● Old-meets-new technology. “Within the JLENS system, you have a balloon—which is an 18th-century piece of technology—married to this 21st-century tech marvel. That helped fill the story with a lot of the press.”

these channels, we focused on the imaginative storytelling of this old-world technology and how it’s being used in a modern way— and then built out educational pieces to bring that narrative to life.

In terms of social engagement, we were trying to capture a casual reader or someone on the Hill who was doing research on what JLENS is, and we always leveraged strong visuals of the blimp itself.”

Raytheon.com housed a product page built for JLENS and used it as an educational hub that featured news stories, several infographics, videos, a FAQ document about JLENS and a dynamic photo gallery.

Craft the perfect digital pitch. “We consistently sent reporters the link to the product page,” says Lauren Pihokken, Raytheon Integrated Defense System Marketing Communications lead. “We didn’t just share the source files when a reporter asked for a photo—we would send them to the landing page. Then, it not only gave them what they were looking for, but also what they needed but didn’t yet know they needed.”

In the majority of the coverage the team placed, there was an image, infographic or video that drove back to the website.

Deploy a digital ad campaign.

“Targeting Congress, the special committees and Hill staffers, we looked at where they read content and targeted Don’t shy away from niche trade pubs— those digital pubs,” notes Pihokken. in and out of your ecosystem. The PR “Through ads, we drove traffic directly to pros also offered tailored pitches to the website and tweaked the copy or the reporters with very specific interests. calls to action within those ads to make “We found that the IT and innovation sure that they drove to content relevant media were interested in the at that time. We only choose to do ads underpinning technology of how JLENS while Congress was in session to make woks—the system, how high it flies and sure we were capitalizing on the small the materials it’s made of,” says Ayer. budget we had. We also planned to “That was very different from the make certain announcements and PR elements we focus on for defense or pushes throughout the year, so we then The dynamic JLENS landing page houses educational military trades, which want to know altered the ads accordingly.” about the budget, the staffing and how videos, photo galleries, infographics, press releases this fits into umbrella defense Raytheon did an ad network buy, and downloadable materials. strategies.” leveraging geo-targeting, behavioral targeting and contextual targeting.

“We were able, very cost Use digital channels in concert. Research findings indicated that effectively, to get on to sites we might not have been able to Raytheon’s target audiences relied heavily on digital-based news, otherwise, ” adds Pihokken. the Web and social media as a primary source of information. As one trade press reporter mentioned, “The first place I go to look when I want to find something out is Google.”

“From a digital perspective, the key for us was using our owned media channels—Raytheon.com, our social channels and the library of digital assets we developed for JLENS—to sell the problem before the solution,” says Keri Connors, Raytheon Integrated Defense System Digital & Social Media lead. “Through

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

Keep press releases alive. “One of the tools we used to align, internally and with our Army customer, was the much-maligned press release,” says Nachshen. “It was a very effective coordination mechanism. A program of this size and with this complexity necessitated the use of traditional approaches, like press releases and media relations—as well as tactics like the infographic, Web ads and network buys.”

2

B E S T M E D I A C A M PA I G N O F T H E Y E A R He describes Raytheon’s press-release best practices: ● Every press release was aligned with the research and the message we developed in the research phase. ● They were truly newsworthy. ● They were not about Raytheon but were about the benefits JLENS brought to the table. ● They got away from the jargon and moved toward what we felt was resonating in customer meetings and would make a wider audience understand the benefits.

Prove your ROI. “As communicators, we’re all pushed hard by our customers to show results—a certain number of press releases, a news article, a blog post,” Nachshen offers. “The inclination by motivated people is to deliver results, but you have to push back against your customers in a thoughtful, creative and respectful way.

You really want to make sure you’re targeted and maintaining your message, so you have to spend a lot of time to get good engagement—meanwhile working with your internal customer—in order to get results on the backend.”

The Results: The PR campaign changes the tenor of discussion with a traditional and online media sweep. The JLENS campaign team scored 80 media placements—with 16 tier-one and 35 trade press hits. The campaign also reached target audiences online— driving 29,140 website visits, 7.7 million social media impressions and 3.5 million digital ad impressions. Overall, the team successfully capitalized on the system tests to strengthen the argument that JLENS deserved full funding for an operational evaluation.

Secrets for Success: Read on as Nachshen offers advice on PR leadership and the foundations of the best PR campaigns. ● Stellar PR leaders. “Leaders are the folks who give you the strategic guidance, resources, and top-cover to make a campaign successful. That was certainly the case with JLENS – the leaders I am privileged to work for did a masterful job of providing all of the above. My teammates and I got the direction from our leaders that JLENS was a real priority, so we cleared

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

people’s plates and gave them the time they needed to focus on making this campaign work.” ● Mindful internal management. “On the internal customer side, we faced the pressure of a demand for rapid results, but our leaders and internal customer were also very receptive to going in a different direction than we would have anticipated, because that is what the research told us to do. At Raytheon, we like to talk about the technology, but the research told us not to talk about that and to talk about the benefits. Having this support to go outside the box from the internal customers and from the leadership set the pace of the campaign.”

Special acknowledgements for this campaign go to: Mike Nachshen, JLENS Communications Campaign lead Donna Ayer, Raytheon Integrated Defense System Public Relations lead Keri Connors, Raytheon Integrated Defense System Digital & Social Media lead Lauren Pihokken, Raytheon Integrated Defense System Marketing Communications lead Garrett Nuttall, Raytheon Integrated Defense System Digital & Social Media team member Winner’s Profile: Raytheon Company, with 2013 sales of $24 billion and 63,000 employees worldwide, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, security and civil markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 92 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as cyber security and a broad range of mission support services. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Mass. For more about Raytheon, visit Raytheon.com and follow Raytheon on Twitter @Raytheon.

3

B E S T A R T S & E N T E R TA I N M E N T C A M PA I G N

GOLD Lee Runchey, Vice President of Chrome PR for “What's Adam Ant Doing?”

In January, 2013, Grammy-nominated 80s pop-icon Adam Ant released his first album in 18 years. Following his UK tour to support the album, his team booked an aggressive, two-month, 43-city North American tour. With tickets to sell in so many cities, the best way to impact ticket sales across the board would be through appearances on network television programs. But although he’d sold over 50,000,000 albums and was still regarded very highly in the UK, how would the new album and tour go over with his American audience?

What’s more, with Adam living in London, 5,000 miles and eight time zones from the office of Chrome PR VP Lee Runchey in Los Angeles, even timely communication would be a challenge. To further complicate the situation, Adam had to complete all press before the tour began, so that he could be razor-focused on doing solid shows every night.

If Adam couldn’t go to America, then America would have to go to Adam’s private office in London. Lee began by identifying television networks with a London bureau. Next, Adam was scheduled to fly to San Diego two days prior to the start of the tour in that city, so there was also a slim window of opportunity to secure another interview or two. Adam’s tour started the day before Comic Con opened in San Diego. Lee hedged her bets that networks in Los Angeles might send crews to cover Comic Con and that Lee could secure interviews on the day prior to the start of his tour.

As Adam’s press for national broadcast, print and online outlets began to hit, Lee notified the regional promoters, so that they could leverage the press with local tie-ins through their social media networks. Everything was going great, but there was still one massive problem: The most important booking was a performance on a late-night TV show. Lee refused to give up on each show until each booker gave Adam a solid thumbs up or down. After closely monitoring the guests on each show, Lee scoured the Web. She had a breakthrough. In an interview the previous year, Jimmy Fallon was discussing band-booking and randomly mentioned Adam. Lee zeroed in on this, reminded Jimmy Fallon’s music booker of Jimmy’s quote and, finally, with only a few weeks prior to the start of the tour, Jimmy Fallon’s team invited Adam to perform on the show two days before his tour started. In addition to a regular on-air performance, they requested a second song as a bonus Web exclusive.

Jimmy Fallon tapes in New York City, so it was a scramble to reroute the band, the crew and their gear. They would fly 3,000 miles from London to New York City where they would rent gear for the performance while the rest of the crew flew from London to San Diego to pick up the tour busses as well as the rented gear for the duration of the tour. Two days later, everyone would reconvene in San Diego. In the thirteenth hour, the performance was a go.

Adam Ant did his first USA performance on a nationally televised, late-night show in 18 years. Fallon was bubbling with excitement as he introduced Adam to approximately 2,000,000 viewers. The next day, the promoters informed Lee that the TV performance was spiking their ticket sales. Adam would go on to have a very successful tour after having completed nearly 100 top-tier national and regional interviews with leading print, broadcast and online outlets. In addition, about a week after Adam’s performance, Jimmy Fallon’s wife had her baby and the show aired a few reruns while Jimmy took a short paternity leave. But Jimmy wasn’t the only one with a bundle of joy. He aired Adam’s episode a second time.

Additional coverage was scored in People, Esquire, Hello!, Rolling Stone, SPIN, Billboard, Forbes, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, The New York Times Syndicate, “All Things Considered” on National Public Radio and approximately 85 toptier regional interviews with leading daily newspapers and/or alternative weeklies in each of his 43 tour cities.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

4

B E S T A R T S F&O O EN D T& E RBT AE IVNE M R AE G N ET C A M P A I G N

S I LV E R Wells Fargo for Wells Fargo Honors the 150th Anniversary of The Emancipation Proclamation with The Kinsey Collection Throughout 2013, Flowers Communications Group worked with Wells Fargo to present a signature campaign to honor the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. This multi-platform campaign featured a national celebratory tour of “The Kinsey Collection: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey-Where Art and History Intersect.” The Kinsey Collection, a robust collection of original African-American art and artifacts, chronicles, more than 400 years of African-American achievement in American history, including an early copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Recognizing the arts as a voice for history and culture, Wells Fargo worked in alignment with PR and advertising agency partners to develop an integrated marketing and communications plan in support of the collaboration with the Kinsey family. This timely collaboration provided an opportunity to engage media, consumers and key influencers with African-American history beyond February— Black History Month.

In order to reach the intended audiences, Wells Fargo developed a multi-faceted strategy to support several elements of the celebratory tour. The approach included a robust media relations, blogger and influencer engagement plan, and advertising partnerships with both national and local-market media, as well as special consumer promotions.

Anchored by a multi-city tour in partnership with African-American museums, the campaign also featured an interactive digital component—“Untold Stories: Our Inspired History,” a storytelling series featuring prominent celebrities and amplified by social media influencers.

The two-part storytelling series served as a platform for the celebrity curators to put a modern context on impactful artifacts from the Kinsey Collection, bringing the untold stories of African-American achievement to the forefront of discussion. The social influencer series allowed key influencers to connect their own personal “Untold Stories” with the stories told within The Kinsey Collection, ultimately creating a platform for consumers to chime in and reflect and share their personal stories.

National African-American and general market media outlets were pitched around the Wells Fargo celebratory campaign featuring The Kinsey Collection. Art- focused media publications were also pitched

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

with an angle around how Wells Fargo recognizes the arts as a voice for history and culture. For each stop on the tour, local market media and national media in close proximity to each city werewas invited to attend the opening activities for coverage opportunities.

In collaboration with each museum, Wells Fargo initiated a regional strategy in support of each stop on The Kinsey Collection Tour.

Special media previews, VIP receptions and lectures with the Kinsey family were activated to engage key media, influencers, community stakeholders and students in each city. The Kinsey family and Wells Fargo leaders were interviewed, resulting in coverage in African American community media outlets such as San Francisco Bay View, Charlotte Post and Baltimore Times. Regional general market coverage included with KQED online, Charlotte Observer and Baltimore Sun. Local broadcast was received from KGO-TV ABC in San Francisco, WBTV-TV CBS in Charlotte and WJZ-TV CBS in Baltimore.

The four-part celebrity- curated video -series, hosted on Wells Fargo’s YouTube channel and a special landing page on WellsFargo.com/kinseycollection was introduced via a national news release distribution and proactive pitching to national media outlets that broadened Wells Fargo media coverage, including entertainment focused outlets.

Media relations efforts resulted in more than 1,000 media placements with national and local-market media outlets; more than 100 million media impressions; and a total reach of approximately 900 million to date. The social influencer series resulted in an extensive amount of consumer comments on sponsored blog post and social media mentions and shares of the “Untold Stories” videos. The Untold Stories campaign garnered more than 1,700 social media mentions of The Kinsey Collection (42% mentioning Wells Fargo) and 75 million social media impressions. The YouTube videos (including celebrities’, influencers’ and campaign trailers) are at approximately 3.8 million views to date.

BRONZE Sugar Mountain PR for No Kidding? Just Kidding: “Win a Trip to NYC” with Symphony Space and SiriusXM Satellite Radio Sugar Mountain PR contracts with Symphony Space to publicize their family performance series “Just Kidding.” One new goal for the 2013-14 season was to increase national exposure for the venue and to partner with SiriusXM’s Kids Place Live channel. This satellite

5

B E S T A R T S & E N T E R TA I N M E N T C A M PA I G N radio channel is the only national radio show for kids to spotlight and play songs from the independent artists featured in Symphony Space’s “Just Kidding” series, so the proposed partnership was natural. Together, the PR team developed a national sweepstakes and media campaign to promote the 2013-14 performing arts season for families at Symphony Space in New York City. SiriusXM Satellite Radio’s Kids Place Live channel was interested in expanding its reach via the partnership and generating excitement for the channel’s featured musicians.

The sweepstakes campaign was conducted with existing staff at each of the organizations with a prize budget of $5,000. The campaign involved dozens of engaged partners, from SiriusXM Satellite Radio and Parents Magazine, to 16 performing artists and their fans. The PR team knew that all of these entities and the artists could spread the word about the giveaway to their constituents.

the news to an in-house list of NYC and national entertainment and family/parenting media and blog contacts. They also sent a giveaway news blast and promotional video to all Symphony Space customers and landing pages for the contest and song downloads.

Social networking was leveraged on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

More than 3,200 people from around the country entered the contest, and press and social networking hits proved that they had reached their goal of increasing national awareness for Symphony Space’s Just Kidding season. Media partner Parents Magazine and Parents.com posted the giveaway news. SiriusXM Kids Place Live aired the sweepstakes “liners” at least 50 times during the contest period, along with frequent live shout-outs to listeners and social networking to their 22,600 followers on Facebook. The PRWeb news release distribution received 23,577 impressions and 830 reads as of August 22. The PR team also scored coverage on numerous blogs.

The campaign included a sweepstakes offering a grand prize of a free family trip to NYC, including travel, meals and accommodations; plus four tickets to see the Story Pirates, which kicked off the “Just Kidding” season at Symphony Space. A child from the winning family could also submit a story to be acted out by the acclaimed Story Pirates sketch comedy troupe. Five secondprize winners won CDs from “Just Kidding” season performers.

There was also an “everybody wins” element to the campaign: Everyone who opted -in at the online entry received a free download link to 16 songs from this season’s artists.

Sugar Mountain PR had no paid advertising budget available to promote the campaign, so they had to be creative about how to build buzz and response with media, parents and listeners of SiriusXM’s Kids Place Live channel. They pitched the idea to the client and met with partners from SiriusXM and Story Pirates in the spring and summer to coordinate details of the promotion. First, they collaborated with all of the sweepstakes sponsors to come up with the prizing. SiriusXM provided airfare for the grand- prize winners, set up the sweepstakes and selected winners using their randomizing sweepstakes software. DJs on the Kids Place Live show created a promotional “liner” announcing the contest, interviews with Story Pirates (and the giveaway winner’s family) and frequent live call-outs to enter the sweepstakes. Symphony Space provided marketing staff time to create a promotional video, alert customers and set up tickets to the Story Pirates show.

Symphony Space enlisted NYC partners to provide two hotel nights, meals and created goody basket items for the winning family.

Sugar Mountain PR engaged 16 performing artists from the Just Kidding series to provide CDs, songs for download, and to help promote the contest via social networking and fan communications.

They distributed a news announcement via PRWeb and distributed

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

6

B E S T G R E E N C A M PA I G N

GOLD European Commission for A World You Like Public support is paramount to maintain ambitious climate policies. And the European Commission’s research showed a rising concern over climate change among Europeans. But at the same time, many citizens perceived the issue as complex, distant, difficult and costly to address. And in a time of economic crisis, other more immediate concerns tended to prevail for most people. Thus, the Commission set out to rebrand climate action and show that the transition to a climate-friendly society is feasible, affordable and comes with important cobenefits for the individual. The fundamental idea of the campaign was to change the narrative away from melting glaciers and polar bears to focus the debate on the solutions that people and companies can apply in their everyday lives—and to encourage citizens and organizations to act by creating a positive and engaging vision. Hence the slogan “A world you like.”

With a budget of EUR 2.3 million, the challenge of reaching a target audience defined as "urban Europeans aged 18-45" was enormous.

Add to that a colossal amount of daily operations and other major communication projects. And put on top that three out of five staffers in the communication unit were on leave in the critical development phase of the campaign.

Rather than moral preaching, the team’s approach was to move focus to the solutions and convince the audience to act by demonstrating that the societal benefits achieved through climate action come with benefits for the individual—good shape, improved health, delicious food, low energy bills, etc. No power is stronger than the power of example, so they wanted to base the campaign on concrete cases where climate action and improved quality of life go hand in hand. At the same time, they wanted to go beyond the traditional iconography of wind turbines and power grids and find examples that were original, easily replicable and close to the everyday life of normal people.

The European Commission collected concrete cases from all 27 Member States and turned them into short films that constitute the key component of the content on the campaign website. The cases were important in order to ensure local anchoring of the campaign and also created a first batch of partners with a clear interest to promote the campaign on their own. They also proved very important for media relations as they could generate clippings both about the solution itself, the people behind the solution and the EU Commissioner's visit to the site.

Co-branding and forging alliances with trusted senders closer to the target audience were important ways to spread the message. In total, more than 230 organizations joined the campaign as partners and contributed with concrete communication actions and events. Under the heading “Visions for a world you like,” dialogue events were also organized in seven Member States supplemented by online chats and twitterviews with the Commissioner.

Finally, the team sought to make online engagement easy and attractive for the target audience. They invited citizens and stakeholders to help build “a world we like” online. By uploading their solutions, contributors participated in a competition to become Europe's best lowcarbon project. Over 300 projects registered. Over 230,000 votes were cast. National winners were rewarded in five chosen focus countries and a European winner was celebrated at a major award show with more than 1000 guests hosted by a campaign partner. Again, this triggered significant additional coverage driven by the show host and the winners who published own press releases, news on their corporate platforms etc. The Wweb platform was supplemented by engagement on social media.

Among the more than 1200 press clippings, hits include coverage on BBC, Le Monde, Il Sole 24 Ore, EFE, Il Publico and national TV in several countries including Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Denmark.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

7

B E S T G R E E N C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R

fracturing, water shortages, pulp and paper mills and Superstorm Sandy.

Williams Consulting PR, LLC for Wastewater Made Clear

Williams designed a media relations campaign that resulted in coverage in Flow Control Magazine, Long Island Business News, National Driller, Pollution Engineering Magazine, Industrial WaterWorld Magazine, Water Technology Magazine, Reuters, MarketWatch, Earthtechling and Pipeandgasjournal. Research also produced opportunity to pitch Patty Els, Chief Science Officer of AWWT and a subsequent invitation to serve as a company spokesperson to participate in an invitation-only event titled, “Wastewater Treatment and Related Modeling Technical Workshop” with the U.S. EPA Office of Research & Development in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.

Advanced Waste and Water Technology, Inc. (AWWT), a startup company specializing in the removal of chemical and liquid waste, water and waste treatment options was formed by Williams Consulting P.R. client Amincor, a holding company specializing in distressed debt companies. AWWT was formed after the client bought the assets of a distressed water treatment company on Long Island. In an effort to rebrand the firm and expand the small amount of petroleum-impacted water treatment business left over from the previous entity, Amincor executives purchased a licensing deal for electrocoagulation technology for wastewater treatment.

From a communications perspective, the biggest challenge was to position this startup company with no brand recognition as a viable provider of innovative wastewater treatment to various publics nationwide. A secondary challenge was to explain how electrocoagulation—a decades-old technology—helps to solve current demand and capacity problems within traditional industrial water treatment. Without any EC clients or marketing budget at AWWT, Williams was brought in as an independent practitioner to create a media relations strategy to help position AWWT and EC technology as a viable solution for environmental engineers and municipalities, among others, and help contribute to the building of their business through PR. Key industries with applications for EC technology were identified including oil/gas, fracking, food and beverage, paper mills and sewage, among others. Research about current water treatment processes within key verticals, competitors and larger scale water demand issues was also conducted to anchor pitches and all content for these articles. Williams interviewed key spokespersons at AWWT, conducted all research and wrote all contributed articles with final approval from AWWT. A news release was also written and distributed as a component of this campaign to attach the company to these issues within search engines, with the main focus of the campaign being a series of targeted, individual and wellresearched pitch outreach to select reporters/editors at trade and regional media outlets. Without actual clients as case studies or news, Williams chose to focus its content on the innovative technology and on the impact of not taking action with respect to demand on our water supply and the massive amounts of water most industrial processes require. Its focus was on news topics with high water demand and key applications for EC technology. For this campaign, sample topics meeting that criteria included hydraulic

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

In addition, Williams launched phase one of a Twitter strategy to amplify select content connected to AWWT or wastewater issues/news.

S I LV E R Lippe Taylor for Helping IKEA Go LED by 2016 Lippe Taylor was charged with generating media coverage and excitement surrounding IKEA’s announcement to go 100% LED in the US by fiscal year 2016—meaning the company would only sell and use LED lighting in their stores. The PR team knew the announcement would need to give consumers the reasoning behind the LED initiative, which provides an opportunity for consumers to work with IKEA to make a more sustainable choice for their lives at home.

There was one problem: Knowledge of LEDs was low, and the product was more expensive than your average light bulb. Lippe Taylor needed agenda-setting media to educate consumers about the long-term benefits of using LED lighting, both for their household budgets and the planet.

To better understand how US consumers felt about light bulbs, protecting the environment and LED lighting in general, the agency organized an omnibus survey with Wakefield Research. After reviewing the survey results, they recognized that knowledge of LED lighting and its benefits was low and identified the “light green” trend that says consumers want to do something that’s good for the planet, but want to make easy changes. This presented a real opportunity for IKEA, as the leader in life at home, to help make sustainability easier.

8

B E S T G R E E N C A M PA I G N Lippe Taylor positioned IKEA as an authority on educating consumers, influencers and the media on ways for Americans to go “green” with minimal effort. The overall approach included creating straightforward messages to make a complicated story seem easier. For example, they framed the LED bulb as “the light bulb that lasts for 20 years.” They also educated media and consumers on value proposition of LED and key differentiators.

Lippe Taylor cast a wide net for coverage. Instead of looking at the issue narrowly as a sustainability or business story, the PR team reached out to business, lifestyle, consumer and sustainability media. In addition, they positioned the announcement as yet another bold sustainability move from the same company that led the push to “ban the plastic bag.” By referencing other sustainable milestones, they helped increase the perceived importance of LED To maximize reach and impact and to shape all subsequent coverage, Lippe Taylor offered an advance to the Associated Press to break the story. They tapped into the “Light Green” consumer trend and used the survey findings both to support initial media pitching and to extend the coverage window throughout the launch week. The team also jump-started coverage by sending an IKEA LED light bulb to priority media to coincide with the announcement. They then used both the head of IKEA US and head of global sustainability as spokespeople and pitched longand short -ead media outlets, including environmental and business editors, daily and weekly newspapers, broadcast media and regional publications in all IKEA markets, as well as relevant websites and blogs. Green influencers and bloggers were integral to increasing awareness of IKEA’s sustainability practices, as was the appearance of IKEA’s head of sustainability at the BSR Conference.

All in all, Lippe Taylor secured 1,170 placements, generating over 912 million impressions. The Associated Press article featured an exclusive interview with IKEA sustainability head Steve Howard, which led to broad pickup across the country. Coverage included key messaging, and quality in-depth stories were also placed with broadcast and digital outlets including The New York Times, AOL Daily Finance, CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” and The Street.com.

Online coverage included over 900 million impressions with feature placements on Huffington Post, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, ABC News, Washington Post, CNN Money, Philly.com, Bloomberg Business Week and many others.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

9

B E S T I N T E G R AT I O N O F P R A N D I R I N A B U S I N E S S C A M PA I G N

GOLD Zillow for “#ZEarnings” Zillow (NASDAQ: Z) made social media history by launching an integrated social media and investor relations campaign designed to solicit questions via social media during its earnings call. On April 2, 2013, the SEC announced new disclosure rules allowing companies to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets to disclose material information. Zillow saw this regulatory change as a timely opportunity to extend the company’s commitment to information transparency and to add social DNA to the investor relations strategy.

Following the announcement, Zillow designated Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as the company blog, as channels for posting information that is important to investors. Taking full advantage of the new rule, the social media, investor relations, legal and public relations teams worked together to develop a communication plan offering unprecedented engagement with investors and the public during our earnings call on May 7, 2013, naming the campaign #ZEarnings. The selection for the #ZEarnings campaign name, and subsequent hashtag, was a strategic decision, leveraging Zillow’s NASDAQ stock ticker symbol “Z”. Its hashtag is also evergreen, enabling the company to use it for each quarterly call.

The heart of the campaign was to turn complex, hard-to-digest financial data into actionable, clear, simple statements—in 140 characters or less. Because of the new format of the call, it was imperative to have the right balance between technical and consumer-friendly messaging. To do so, Zillow worked closely with its in-house design team on a series of compliment infographics that communicated three, predetermined themes. Another key strategy for the event was to cultivate and select the most valuable questions from social followers that would be interesting to both the investor community and broader public. The goal of this strategy was to receive questions from a broader financial community and to offer the vocal minority an opportunity to be heard. Additionally, this allowed us to communicate key messages to a broader financial audience. Lastly, Zillow intentionally kept all campaign efforts in house.

The Zillow PR team worked on two media pushes that resulted in significant media coverage in over 10 major outlets. The first included a focus around the financial aspect of the Zillow earnings call and the success of the company’s quarter. The second focused around the innovation of the call and the use of Twitter and #ZEarnings. This strategy gave Zillow a twofold opportunity for coverage while building sensation around the earnings call.

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff addressed a total of 9 questions from 7 unique accounts on the conference call. However, in an effort to extend the conversation following the earnings call, two additional questions were selected from Twitter and were answered in a follow-up post on the Zillow Blog. This drove traffic back to Zillow while furthering conversation about Zillow’s successful quarter.

One of the biggest wins from the campaign was bringing increased transparency and a fresh new approach to Zillow’s earnings calls. Zillow also saw a spike in followers to both Facebook and Twitter on the day of the call, due to media coverage and buzz around its channels. The campaign also resulted in major media coverage within top outlets writing on both the earnings call and the social innovation of #ZEarnings. Outlets that covered the call include CNBC, USA Today, Xconomy, Forbes and “The Street.” The campaign also positioned Zillow as a thought leader within the social IR industry.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

10

B E S T I N T E G R AT I O N O F P R A N D I R I N A B U S I N E S S C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R Lambert Edwards & Associates for SNAK Attack: Record-Breaking Growth through Innovation and Tasteful Execution Phoenix-based Inventure Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNAK) is a growing, innovative, $185+ million snack food marketer and manufacturer of specialty food brands in better-for-you and indulgent categories under a variety of Company owned and licensed brand names.

Lambert, Edwards & Associates (LE&A) has been Inventure Foods’ (SNAK) agency of record for investor relations (IR) and public relations (PR) since 2009, providing ongoing media relations across more than a dozen of SNAK’s brands, along with proactive IR initiatives to positively impact SNAK’s stock. However, by every measure, 2013 was a standout year of innovation, execution and record-breaking results for SNAK and LE&A. In 2013, LE&A was challenged with supporting existing SNAK products as well as the launch of 10 new product introductions across five of SNAK’s brands, including Boulder Canyon Natural Foods, Jamba and Seattle’s Best Coffee. At the same time, LE&A led SNAK’s corporate communications and IR efforts with the financial community through two major corporate acquisitions.

The PR strategy was two tiered: First was to make a splash with new product introductions, and second was to identify and highlight existing products that could tie into new trends. Outgoing pitches and well-crafted press materials provided the initial dialogue, and timely press kit/product samples followed to advance the story, all the while touting relevant content via social media. The integrated approach generated news coverage, and online chatter helped promote the introductions, while programs with bloggers also put a new spin on existing products within each product line.

For example, LE&A capitalized on the unexpected debut of Boulder Canyon chips on one of America’s most popular television shows’ season finale, “Breaking Bad,” by reacting immediately on social media, responding to fans who were tweeting about the cameo of the chips. National media outlets then covered the cameo and highlighted the social media dialogue/tweet from Boulder Canyon.

In the case of Seattle’s Best Frozen Coffee Blends, SNAK looked at the success of the Jamba at-home smoothie kits and replicated that within the coffee space, creating the first-ever make-at-home frozen coffee beverage. This was more than a just a new product announcement but rather a new category launch that was received well within traditional and digital media spaces. This effort included a blogger campaign that featured custom kits (various toppings/flavors) that resulted in more than 20 unique video

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

reviews which LE&A repurposed via social media properties.

LE&A wovethis positive PR momentum into SNAK’s strategic IR messaging, effectively articulating SNAK’s investment appeal as new product innovations and corporate transactions were highlighted. The hallmark of LE&A’s IR strategy was proactive outreach to the financial community to continually educate and stimulate interest in the “SNAK story.” High-priority investors and sell-side analysts in top-tier investment markets were targeted first.

To ensure the financial community had accurate information and timely insight into management’s vision for the company, outreach and IR efforts were timed to coincide not only with routine quarterly earnings results, but also with acquisition activity, new product/category introductions and key awards, LE&A’s integrated “SNAK Attack” approach to PR and IR resulted in 299 earned media placements, yielding nearly 94+ million impressions, more than 1,200 sponsored placements, providing another 21+ million impressions, 32,953 new page “likes” on Facebook across four brands in six months, 20 social media contests with 362,438 entries, and more than 118 meetings between Inventure executives and financial community representatives. SNAK reported record-breaking revenue growth in every quarter of 2013, and its trailing 12-month stock price increased more than 105%.

BRONZE Strategic Public Relations Group for Setting the Stage for a Retail Pioneer Established in 1991, IH Retail is the largest housewares retail chain in Hong Kong, Singapore and Macau. The company operates over 300 stores, the majority of which are in Hong Kong, and the Group offers quality houseware products under renowned retail brands. The operating environment for retailers in Hong Kong is challenging and highly competitive. During the second half year when IH Retail sought to list, a number of listed retails stock were performing below market expectations and even issued profit warnings. Despite a weak IPO market and underwhelming performances of its peers, IH Retail—with the help of Strategic Public Relations Group—became the first housewares retail chain to successfully list on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (“SEHK”).

A variety of PR tools were used at specific stages of IH Retails’ listing exercise to create maximum impact. Pre-listing, media

11

B E S T I N T E G R AT I O N O F P R A N D I R I N A B U S I N E S S C A M PA I G N training was conducted to help management prepare for the floatation; crisis management guidelines were developed; site visits and interviews were arranged at IH Retail’s shops; and advertisements were employed based on different themes. At the time of the global offering, exclusive meetings with stock commentators and columnists were arranged, and favorable information was released though PR channels, such as IH Retails’ excellent performance. After the listing, the PR team generated media coverage, with particular focus on its outstanding share performance, as it reflected the investment community’s immense confidence in IH Retail. They also arranged interviews for the management and secured top tier coverage from TVB and Cable TV to further promote the company’s expansion plans in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Throughout the campaign, Strategic Public Relations Group employed a strategy of intensive engagement between IH Retail and different stakeholders, including the media, institutional and retail investors and the general public. They promoted Lau Pak Fai and Ngai Lai Ha, co-founders of IH Retail, as local self-made entrepreneurs who were among the first to introduce the “HK$10” store concept to Hong Kong, which was reinforced by IH Retail’s “Housewares Products Expert” position. This drew parallels with IH Retail as a product of Hong Kong’s own success, thus helping to gain goodwill, which would benefit its IPO. Via a corporate video, the team highlighted the location of IH Retail’s shops, especially those in the basement level, 1st floor and non-prime locations to showcase the company’s flexibility in choosing store sites owing to its strong brand name, thus allowing it to alleviate rising rental pressure in Hong Kong. They also added distinctive elements to the routine activities of an IPO exercise, such as recreating shop settings at IH Retail’s media conference and investor presentation to draw positive associations of the client and take coverage away from other IPOs. Different country flags were also used to label the source of its products, reinforcing the Group’s diverse product mix and significant competitive advantages in both product quality and pricing.

As a result of this brilliant effort, IH Retail was successfully listed on SEHK, receiving overwhelmingly positive market response and outperforming other newly listed companies that were launched during the same time period. Despite the fact that 23 IPOs were launched during the same time frame in Hong Kong, IH Retail was among the most successfully listed with its stock price rising by 6%.

Effective PR and IR activities further consolidated IH Retails’ No. 1 position in Hong Kong’s housewares retail industry, helping raise its exposure and differentiate it from its counterparts. What’s more, the PR team successfully conveyed the potential growth story in Singapore.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

12

BEST USE OF BROADCAST VIDEO/INTERNET – BUSINESS/CONSUMER

GOLD Kaplow Communications for The Video that Connected the World Around Reading – Kaplow, Kstudio and Skype How do you bring renewed attention to a program that has touched the lives of children worldwide? While Skype in the classroom is much loved by the educators who use it, it is not a new program and Kaplow Communications needed to find a fresh way to bring media attention to it. The PR team created a video that tugged at viewers’ heartstrings—and ended up garnering over 2.4 million views, exceeding benchmarks by 300%.

The creation of Kaplow’s 360-degree holistic campaign ensured they hit print, broadcast and social media editorially, while paid distribution guaranteed they hit coveted demographics. As a result, Kaplow and Skype were able to drive affinity towards Skype and its free Group Video Calling offer for teachers enrolled in the Skype in the classroom community.

The team researched charities and non-profits to see if there was a complementary organization that had an upcoming media moment where leveraging the power of Skype would be beneficial to both parties. LitWorld, a non-profit literacy organization that fosters resilience, hope and joy through the power of story, was chosen. Knowing how reading is the key to education, Skype teamed up with them to promote the organization’s World Read Aloud Day program. This partnership helped Skype leverage the news cycle and introduce free Group Video Calling for registered teachers in a less commercial way.

To further engage the media, Skype and Kaplow researched tech-savvy celebrities and influencers to see who had publicly supported our nation’s schools and/or literacy campaigns in general. Twenty-four newsmakers were selected, and to help celebrate World Read Aloud Day, they committed to reading a story to students in a classroom of their choosing, anywhere around the world, via Skype video calls. Kaplow then leveraged relevant Read Alouds to drive consumer media coverage of Skype in the classroom. To build further buzz around World Read Aloud Day, with the goal of underscoring its free Group Video Calling offer for teachers, Skype researched schools and teachers who were currently involved in Skype in the classroom and set up a call with an elementary school in NY, an elementary school in Maine and Ingrid Law, a well-known children’s book author.

One week before World Read Aloud Day, the video was sent to media outlets and was distributed through a paid campaign to top websites and blogs in four verticals – news, parenting, education and tech. Kaplow and Skype combined traditional media relations (earned), branded digital content (owned) and digital distribution across top parenting, education, news and tech sites (paid) to create awareness and drive sign-ups for Skype in the classroom and usage of the Group Video Calling feature amongst educators.

They issued a pre-announcement with an SXSWedu panel, pitched tech and consumer media and distributed a blog post via 3BL, a CSRfocused newswire. To bring Skype’s Group Video Calling feature to life, they shot original content illustrating how it could be used as an educational tool in a classroom setting. This video was shared with broadcast media and seeded across online media sites through Kaplow’s paid distribution network.

Finally, to increase engagement, Kaplow drafted multiple blog posts about the promotion and disseminated related content on Twitter using the #ReadAloud hashtag. We also asked for the celebrities participating in the Read Alouds to amplify the news via their own Twitter handles. Elisa Steele, Skype’s CMO and program ambassador, tweeted thank-yous to each participant.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

13

BEST USE OF BROADCAST VIDEO/INTERNET – BUSINESS/CONSUMER

S I LV E R PMK-BNC for Audi of America: The Challenge In the fall of 2012, the launch of the new Audi S models—including the all-new Audi S7—represented a pivotal moment for the brand: For the first time, Audi had a full line of sport performance cars. Six months into the launch cycle, Audi needed to sustain visibility for the all-new Audi S7 while clearly stealing attention and perception from the long-standing leader, the Mercedes-Benz CLS550. The Audi/Mercedes-Benz rivalry has been heated for years, and Audi wanted to continue to harness the spirit of competition to show how the cars stacked up in terms of technology, design and performance. Audi tapped PMK-BNC to spearhead the effort.

Audi wanted to create a video that compared the Audi S7 with the Mercedes-Benz CLS550 in a way that would capture the attention of an audience beyond the typical automotive enthusiast. A typical car comparison video is rooted in statistics and data, like horsepower, torque, 0-60 mph, etc.—a video that tends to live primarily in the automotive space, in buff books, auto enthusiast sites and fan blogs.

So, how would Audi reach the rest of us? How does Audi compare the S7 with the Mercedes-Benz CLS550 in a way that would capture the attention of an audience beyond car fan sites?

Furthermore, how does Audi increase brand awareness and visibility for the Audi S7 without a paid media budget? When the PR team set out to compare the Audi S7 with CLS550, they took a look at what already existed in the marketplace. Research revealed that views of Audi versus Mercedes-Benz vehicle comparisons lived primarily on buff book sites and had relatively low activity with little to no shares at all. In addition, the comparison videos of any make or model vehicles similarly received minimal views, shares and comments. Furthermore, research shows that people visiting these types of sites usually are already informed about cars and/or are proactively seeking automotive content. Audi wanted to reach a broader audience of consumers that may not actively be searching for cars.

This signaled to PMK-BNC that there was a much-needed paradigm shift in the way they approach vehicle comparisons. The overall goal was to create a product comparison that was entertaining, shareable and designed for the masses. Their objectives were to reach a larger audience than traditional product comparisons, secure consumer media attention without spending a penny on paid distribution and generate social media buzz. The approach: Make the product comparison part of the pop-culture mainstream.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

The solution: a digital short, “The Challenge,” starring Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy, two of the biggest names in sci-fi.

In the video, the established icon—Nimoy and the Mercedes-Benz CLS550—versus the emerging icon—Quinto and the Audi S7—set off on a race to see who could reach a destination first. Through humor and dialogue written specifically to rile the sci-fi community, a passionate and engaged audience, the video showed that with superior technology, speed and design, the Audi S7 was the clear winner.

The video was released on Audi’s YouTube channel. To maximize engagement, they also distributed the video widely to reporters and editors of media sites that appeal to mass audiences as well as via Audi’s social media channels. To reach an even wider audience, they leveraged celebrity and influencer relationships and encouraged them to share the content via their respective social channels.

BRONZE Toyota for Toyota Meals Per Hour People are often surprised to learn that techniques developed on an automobile assembly line are helping non-profits optimize the way they work, but that is exactly what is happening at Toyota’s TSSC division. TSSC is a not-for-profit within Toyota that shares the company’s production know-how with non-profits to help them improve operations and do more with less. However, TSSC was not well known outside of Toyota, and the company was in search of a better way to let key stakeholders know about this unique way it was helping nonprofits extend their impact on their communities and improve lives. At the same time, Toyota was focused on increasing trust in its brand and inspiring people to see the company as more than just one that made great cars.

The challenge was devising a creative way to distill and communicate the relatively complex process of TSSC in a simple way. The solution was the “Meals Per Hour” campaign, which was anchored by a compelling video that told the TSSC story. Toyota decided to showcase a TSSC partnership with Metro World Child, a mobile food pantry serving New Yorkers in need in the Far Rockaways. By focusing on relief efforts for people affected by Superstorm Sandy, the company was able to tap into a cultural moment that had already captured the attention of millions. Meals Per Hour’s main strategy was to prioritize great story telling. To that

14

BEST USE OF BROADCAST VIDEO/INTERNET – BUSINESS/CONSUMER end, the company commissioned renowned filmmakers Supermarché to follow the partnership and create a six-minute video that documented the process from start to finish.

Additionally, Toyota made the decision to donate one meal to Metro World Child’s umbrella organization, Food Bank for New York City, for every view of the documentary. This provided an emotional incentive for people to view and share the video with their social networks, and also prompted wide media interest. Many Meals Per Hour supporters shared the video with others, encouraging their peers to watch and noting how easy it is to “make a difference.”

For two months, Toyota sent members of its TSSC team to assist staff at Metro World Child in making small, incremental changes to its emergency meal distribution system. The progress and results were captured in an inspiring video that was easy for Toyota’s target audience to understand, relate to and share. The video was promoted via a new blog (MealsPerHour.com), local online influencers and a supporting media relations campaign, led by RLM Finsbury. This included several press releases throughout the project, tailored pitches and aggressive outreach to relevant media, including community blogs, local New York City media and top-tier national publications. The earned media coverage, including a feature story in The New York Times, helped drive views of the documentary and in turn drove awareness of Toyota’s history of supporting non-profits in unique ways.

Overall, the Meals Per Hour video was viewed over 1 million times.

Media coverage surfaced in over 100 outlets, including a feature article in The New York Times, as well as stories on CNN, Huffington Post, Mashable and Bloomberg. The campaign generated over 10,000 posts in social media, and, most importantly, the video helped Toyota enhance trust with consumers and created a positive shift in perception.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

15

B E S T C R I S I S C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

GOLD Havas PR North America for Making a Difference for a Newtown Family When Havas PR North America (@havaspr) discovered on the day after the massacre in Newtown, Conn., that a former colleague is cousin to Alissa Parker, mother of slain 6-year-old Emilie, they offered their help pro bono. The family was overwhelmed not only by grief but also by an influx of requests from media worldwide. Plus, they were overwhelmed by two other groups: People wanting to help and hateful conspiracy theorists. The PR team needed to quickly save the Parkers from additional trouble or heartache and facilitate their natural tendency to be open and benevolent.

Havas PR North America stepped in to this national tragedy and major international news story and used its power of influence and social media savvy to heal. The PR team initially based its work on crisis experience rather than a formal strategic-development process. They were strategic in the way they communicated to media, family and friends and the general public who craved information about the children and families involved. The first agency on the scene, Havas used all its resources, from design to in-house video editing to media relations, to manage the early part of the crisis swiftly.

The PR pros began by focusing on the word “movement.” First was moving the family off the screen; Emilie’s father held a very moving press conference the day after the shooting, but he needed to turn his focus elsewhere. They then moved the family’s communications to statements and to the WordPress site they created, emilieparkerfund.com. @havaspr has managed all solicitations from and conversations with media from the start, designed and published the website for communication, helped promote a Facebook page started by family friends and shielded the Parkers from the Internet trolls who homed in on Emilie as a proof point for their warped theories.

Havas provided several family-issued statements to handpicked local and national outlets including NBC News and CNN, plus local media in Utah, where the family is from. They also arranged for Emilie’s aunt and uncle to give an interview to Piers Morgan on the one-month anniversary of the shooting and placed a lengthy interview with Alissa and Robbie with CBS at the 100-day anniversary for the network’s cross-platform special report. Although many of these interviews began on television, they live now online. @havaspr scrupulously monitors all comments on emilieparkerfund.com, keeping an eye out for any potentially threatening, harassing or illegal posts, most of which are generated by conspiracy theorists. @havaspr contacted the FBI in Connecticut and local branches of law enforcement to report the potential online threats.

Havas PR’s opening and promoting of the social communications channels helped family and friends process the loss of Emilie. The Facebook page has 318,000 likes, and more than 1 million people saw the most popular post through sharing (it had more than 249,000 likes and 17,000 shares). The website has garnered more than 154,000 unique visitors (surging after 100-day-anniversary broadcasts) and more than 855 comments. Now that some time has passed, Havas PR’s plan involves developing ideas for how the Parkers can make a difference forever and turn the tragedy into Emilie’s legacy. The family has relied on the agency to arrange strategic positioning of the launch of the Emilie Parker Art Connection online.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

16

B E S T C R I S I S C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

S I LV E R NYU Langone Medical Center for Unprecedented Natural Disaster in NY (Hurricane Sandy) When Hurricane Sandy hit the New York City region, 15 million gallons of water surged into the lower levels of NYU Langone Medical Center’s main campus. Over the next 13 hours, 322 patients, including 20 babies from the neonatal intensive care unit, were safely evacuated and transferred to one of 14 area hospitals.

However, one of the animal research facilities was severely compromised and resulted in the loss of research animal life. This case is an example of a situation where communications were essential to help maintain the reputation of a world-class medical center during an unprecedented crisis situation in New York City.

27th to announce the NYU Langone’s phased reopening, with nearly all services to resume less than two months after Sandy. The PR team created b-roll and a fact sheet. Since October 29, 2012, NYU Langone has been featured in hundreds of Hurricane Sandy stories in national and local media and wire service stories. The stories form a narrative arc beginning with factual reporting about the storm itself; questions about what went wrong; heroics of doctors and nurses; damage caused by the storm and lack of preparedness; damage to research; effects on other hospitals; questions about when the hospital will reopen; lessons from the storm; impacts on public health and policy; bond ratings/finances, and help from the NIH. Efforts were successful in meeting the strategic goals of the hospital, and further reaching the goals of being proactive in communications with both media and the general public.

In preparation, the PR team collaborated with Human Resources to create messaging for inclusion in communications to faculty and staff. Press releases were also shared with media leading up to the storm informing them of changes in services. For five days during the event, press statements were drafted and read to one off-site staff member who got messages to the press. Two team members managed the press outside the medical center, providing information about where patients were being sent and addressing press follow up questions the next day. Using PR experts to do so rather than the leadership team allowed key hospital personnel to focus on evacuation efforts and the safety of patients. Strategic interviews were conducted to provide updates about the evacuation and later on the state of the medical center.

The PR team worked with its PR agency to type and distribute statements as needed. The agency was consulted for crisis communications and helped to set up an interview with the Associated Press. Two statements were selectively used regarding the loss of emergency power and research facilities because of the sensitive and complex nature of these messages. They also secured two exclusive interviews with The New York Times.

In the recovery period, the team secured an interview with CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen to display the speed at which NYU Langone was recovering. Two weeks after the storm, the NIH came to visit, an exclusive visit with the Associated Press and WABC-TV was secured and they interviewed two researchers whose labs had been damaged. While the main website was down, an emergency website was created and regularly updated with information about ambulatory services as they came back online.

A press conference was held with elected officials on December

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

17

B E S T C O M PA N Y P O S I T I O N I N G / B R A N D I N G

GOLD Ameriprise with RF|Binder Partners for Branding Ameriprise as Retirement Leader Ameriprise Financial has developed a reputation as a trusted provider of financial advice and services related to financial planning, retirement and investments for the last century. Today, the Minneapolis-based company has a nationwide network of approximately 10,000 financial advisors providing guidance on how Americans can grow and protect their wealth, achieve their financial goals and secure their futures, especially in one of the most important life stages: Retirement.

Nearly 10,000 Baby Boomers are retiring each day, which means Ameriprise needs to communicate to this group that its financial planning services can help prepare for this major life change. Research shows that Americans struggle to set aside enough money for retirement; instead, their paychecks go to paying the bills, financing their homes and putting their kids through college. This is an ongoing problem, as Ameriprise research shows that less than half of Americans feel extremely or very confident that they will be able to afford the essentials in retirement. Even fewer believe that they will be able to afford extras like traveling or pursuing hobbies. Together with Koski Research, RF|Binder and Ameriprise dug deeper into this alarming trend by conducting field research and analysis to better understand Baby Boomers’ hopes, concerns and expectations when it comes to retirement. Ameriprise commissioned the Retirement Check-In® survey to explore the disconnect between Baby Boomers’ expectations about retirement and the actions they are taking to prepare financially and the Retirement Derailers® survey to identify the unanticipated life events, or ‘derailers,’ that had seriously impacted boomers’ retirement savings.

RF|Binder and Ameriprise launched a public relations campaign to position the company as an expert in the retirement-planning needs of Americans, particularly Baby Boomers. The team worked with Suzanna de Baca, VP of wealth strategies, to promote her as a thought leader and empowering her to articulate messages that bring to life the campaign. She focused and harnessed her expertise on family finance, women’s issues and the LGBT community. The team leveraged the advisor’s expertise to support the public relations campaign with her editorial byline series and a targeted pitching strategy to promote various important topics such as retirement, taxes, healthcare and estate planning. They also organized print media tours, radio media tours and satellite media tours and produced a YouTube series that showcased the expertise of advisors like Suzanna de Baca.

In addition to securing opportunities for the thought leaders in national print, online and broadcast outlets, RF|Binder helped Ameriprise host a media luncheon on the topic of women and money. Suzanna de Baca led a financial advisor panel that engaged influential reporters to elevate the media dialogue about empowering women financially. RF|Binder also counseled Ameriprise Financial on the announcement of Ameriprise’s exclusive Confident Retirement® approach launch.

All in all, the PR pros secured top-tier media coverage in publications like The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, Time Magazine, CNBC and CNNMoney, and coverage increased 29 percent over 2012 results. Retirement Derailers was syndicated in 96 broadcast stations, and the research was mentioned on MarketWatch Radio, TheStreet.com TV, WSJ Radio Network and by a host of other outlets via an RMT campaign. The campaign was also successful in increased visibility of the company’s retirement research, improving the quality of coverage and enhancing the company’s reputation as a thought leader in the retirement space.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

18

B E S T C O M PA N Y P O S I T I O N I N G / B R A N D I N G

S I LV E R Jennifer Connolly PR for Royal Bank of Canada Builds Brand in the U.S. In the United States, Royal Bank of Canada Wealth Management (RBC) operates as a division of RBC Capital Markets, LLC. Founded in 1909, RBC Capital Markets, LLC is a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, and other major securities exchanges. The firm has over $227 billion of assets under administration and nearly 2,000 financial advisors operating in 200 locations in 42 states. Despite this entrenched standing in the American financial industry, RBC was not a highly recognizable US brand amongst financial industry leaders and the high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth investors—both targets RBC was eager to reach. They turned to JCPR, one of the financial industry’s leading communications agency, to strengthen the brand stateside, and increase awareness of the brand as a whole.

It was clear to both JCPR and RBC that leveraging RBC Wealth Management-USA CEO John G. Taft (JGT) as the face of the brand was the most critical way to position RBC as a US “player” in the competitive U.S. market. JGT, the great-grandson of President Taft, was also the author of “Stewardship: Lessons Learned from the Lost Culture of Wall Street,” a book which is centered on restoring the financial system as a force for good in greater society in the shadow of the financial collapse.

In addition to JGT’s legacy, heritage and over-arching good-guy style, JCPR leveraged JGT’s role as spokesperson for RBC’s Blue Water Project, RBC’s philanthropic commitment to help protect the world’s most precious natural resource: Fresh water. Additionally, JCPR added an “everyman” element to JGT’s public profile by maximizing his support of the Washington National’s baseball team and its use of his grandfather as a ‘racing president’ mascot. Last but not least, the campaign strategy included positioning RBC Wealth Management-USA as a trustworthy, honorable resource that is “above the noise” of the negative press that plagues the financial services industry in the post-financial crisis age.

Throughout the campaign, JCPR promoted JGT’s charismatic, approachable style, knowing it would appeal to a range of audiences, most of whom are eager to know that there are, quite simply, some good, honest people who work in finance. JCPR activated several projects that would elevate awareness and respect for the RBC brand stateside with LinkedIn Influencer and Huffington Post blogs, regular guest appearances on Bloomberg Surveillance TV and a keynote speaking engagement at the Harvard Club. JCPR

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

also leveraged the 5-year anniversary of the financial crisis in September 2013 with a high-impact LinkedIn Influencer post from JGT entitled Five Years After the Reserve Fund Meltdown, which has been viewed over 3,200 times on LinkedIn. In addition to aggressive coverage in all of the financial trade media outlets, JCPR has increased awareness of RBC by acquiring media hits in influential mainstream outlets including CNN (where he appeared on Piers Morgan), The New York Post and the Washington Post. The firm links the positive profile that the RBC brand has built stateside directly to its engagement with JCPR. Additionally, RBC Wealth Management US continues to lure top talent from the likes of Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan Securities into its ranks. With JGT’s second book coming soon, JCPR will continue to showcase JGT’s approachable, honest manner in the banking and economic sector— which is not known for either—and RBC will continue to reap the rewards of the relationship.

BRONZE Texas Instruments and GolinHarris for engineeringchange (tm) During the summer of 1958, a determined, young engineer at Texas Instruments (TI) single-handedly invented a device that forever changed the face of electronics. The engineer: Jack Kilby. The invention: The integrated circuit. Now, nearly every electronic device in our modern lives requires an integrated circuit. For more than 50 years, Kilby’s ethos, character and attitude have been the driving force behind every innovation and invention at TI. Kilby was then what every next-generation engineer wants to be now— an inventor of game-changing technology.

Today, the most significant threat to TI’s continued success is the scarcity of millennial engineering talent entering the cut-throat, competitive technology marketplace. TI was at a crossroads: It needed to inspire the most driven and creative millennial engineers to choose TI. Yet many of these students were unaware of the impact TI’s products have on the world today and how TI technologies will shape the innovations of tomorrow. If they didn’t make TI their top pick, the next Jack Kilby could be creating a revolutionary invention with a TI competitor.

GolinHarris conducted global research on the millennial engineers’ mindset, needs and desires and found that millennial engineers' single most important driver is this: They want to leave a lasting impact. If only they knew the real TI—a place where engineers color outside the lines and refuse to accept the impossible. Yet, research uncovered that most millennial engineers did not know much about

19

B E S T C O M PA N Y P O S I T I O N I N G / B R A N D I N G TI and its life-changing impact on the world. They perceived TI as the "old guy”, commonly (and mistakenly) known as a calculator company, lagging behind its more publicly visible competitors.

Armed with these findings, GolinHarris developed a holistic, ambitious campaign that would change the perception of TI among the innovators of tomorrow. Enter engineeringchange. Through this campaign, the PR team showed aspiring engineers why and how TI is the future and what it’s really like to work for a company of true pioneers and mavericks. They humanized the brand through stories of real‐-ife millennial engineers working in TI’s labs, factories and on ground-breaking research projects to create revolutionary technologies.

The engineeringchange campaign embodied the spirit of Jack Kilby and succeeded in shifting the perception of TI in the eyes of the engineering dreamers, radicals and disruptive thinkers that want to make a meaningful difference in the world. The campaign included digital hub of activity at the center of the program—the new ti.com/students website—which housed content about jobs, including ‘Day in the Life’ videos showcasing what it would be like to have a career at TI, as well as global contests and university research. They established a solid brand voice on the engineeringchange student website, in a campaign overview video, in recruiting and university marketing collateral, on careers and university websites, social media and the TI corporate blog, ‘Around TI.’ An integrated approach to engagement that surrounded young engineers with a paid, earned, owned and shared media strategy through videos, customizable content for worldwide social media channels, school papers and even educators as a communications channel to reach students. The campaign reached students through a promoted Twitter contest; an engineeringchange Facebook tab highlighting content, such as videos and live feeds; and a cuttingedge visual identity system.

The stellar campaign increased positive TI brand perception among engineering students. Specifically, it increased global student job applications by 101 percent, and improved brand perception among students at TI’s target engineering schools—moving from the 31st to 25th rank among Universum’s Ideal Employers for Engineers. The campaign also drove students to central online locations. Combined global visits to the new worldwide and China student websites reached 33,265 visits since launch, and global visits to the TI careers site increased by 175 percent. What’s more, social media followers and engagement across TI social media properties reached an all-time high during the campaign, and media placements included a best hit in EE Times. Media impressions totaled 67,144.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

20

B E S T E D U C AT I O N / P U B L I C S E RV I C E C A M PA I G N

GOLD Spelman College Office of Communications for Spelman College Commencement 2013 Founded in 1881, Spelman College is a highly selective, liberal arts college widely recognized as the global leader in the education of women of African descent. Each year more than 10,000 Spelman College students, faculty, staff, trustees and community members take part in the College’s commencement ceremonies. During commencement season, Spelman, along with thousands of colleges and universities across the country, announce a commencement speaker and valedictorian, vying for the attention of national and local media outlets.

Spelman’s office of communications developed a comprehensive integrated communications plan for the 2013 commencement that included media relations, College digital and print communications, and social media. The overall plan focused on publicizing the 126th Commencement speaker, US Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin, baccalaureate speaker, honorary degree recipients, National Community Service award recipient, co-valedictorians, Kristie and Kirstie Bronner, and salutatorian, Shay Johnson.

To gain visibility and build media buzz for Spelman’s commencement among a competitive news landscape, the media relations component of the communications plan concentrated on Kristie and Kirstie Bronner, the first identical twins in the history of Spelman College to be named co-valedictorians. The story of their journey to becoming co-valedictorians was newsworthy, compelling and inspiring because of their dedication to their studies, their commitment to their faith and their desire to help their peers achieve academic success.

The campaign generated national and local pre-, on-site and post-commencement media coverage about Kristie and Kirstie Bronner. The PR team would position Kristie and Kirstie Bronner as “Generation Z” role models for academic excellence and build upon Spelman College’s reputation as the premier educational institution for women of African descent. They would also broaden engagement with media outlets by maximizing the College’s social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook.

The communications department brokered an exclusive interview with WSB-TV (ABC affiliate) to be the first media outlet to interview Kristie and Kirstie Bronner. After the segment aired on WSB-TV, it was picked up by ABC News and aired on other ABC affiliates across the country.

They also developed a press release and email content to announce co-valedictorians. The release and email were pitched to national, regional and local media in metro Atlanta via direct email, PRWeb.com and follow-up telephone calls to select outlets. An in-depth article was developed about the co-valedictorians for the College’s digital magazine, Inside Spelman, which was pushed out using the College’s Facebook and Twitter, e-newsletter, and website.

The extraordinary effort earned more than 185.7 million media impressions and received extensive coverage in more than 230 local, national and international media outlets. The team managed pre-, on-site and post-commencement interview and/or photo requests from 25 media outlets including “Fox and Friends,” ABC “Evening News with Diane Sawyer,” NBC “Nightly News with Brian Williams,” BET.com, Essence, TheGrio.com, Yahoo.com, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, WSB-TV, WXIA-TV and WVEE-FM. The Bronners were interviewed live, instudio in New York by “Fox and Friends” host Gretchen Carlson, and the resulting video landed on the FoxNews.com homepage. The Bronner twins were also featured as “Persons of the Week” on ABC “Evening News with Diane Sawyer” and were included in a “Salute to the Class of 2013” on NBC “Nightly News with Brian Williams” (taped on site following the conclusion of the commencement ceremony), earning national coverage. Finally, Essence magazine profiled the Bronners’ academic accomplishments.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

21

B E S T E D U C AT I O N / P U B L I C S E RV I C E C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R MM2 Public Relations for MoneyGram Educates Consumers to Spot and Stop Fraud MoneyGram is a global leader in the money transfer industry, moving billions of dollars around the world every day. The company’s primary users are “unbanked” consumers— individuals with no bank accounts, many of whom are working in countries other than their own and who use MoneyGram’s wire transfer service to send money back to their families on a regular basis.

When MoneyGram was under investigation by the US Department of Justice for failing to detect and stop the fraudulent use of its services by criminals, the company brought in MM2 Public Relations to reposition the company as an advocate for consumers and to demonstrate to government regulators that the company was serious about identifying and preventing fraud.

From an operational standpoint, MoneyGram was working with IBM to develop what would become the industry’s most sophisticated fraud detection system. But the company knew that consumer education would play an important role as well. MM2 was charged with building a comprehensive, integrated consumer education program to inform consumers about how to spot a scam and report fraudulent activity to MoneyGram and law enforcement authorities.

MM2 first worked with the business intelligence group at MoneyGram to evaluate research that would identify the top 10 scams that are attempted using the company’s money transfer service. Typically, certain types of scams increase at certain times of the year when consumers are more vulnerable—for example, “romance scams” occur every year around Valentine’s Day, preying on lonely individuals.

MM2 led a redevelopment of MoneyGram’s existing website focused on fraud prevention, making the site more interactive with educational games, quizzes, information and resources. The agency then took the redesigned website and created a complementary Spanish-language website. To ensure that MoneyGram’s message would be easy to remember and to serve as a rallying cry for the program, MM2 also created a short tagline: “Recognize. React.

Report.” The tagline encouraged consumers to recognize fraud, react by stopping any transactions they suspected were fraudulent and then report suspected fraud to appropriate officials.

Working with MoneyGram’s head of corporate communications, the agency identified an internal spokesperson—the company’s SVP of global investigations—to serve as a media spokesperson. The

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

agency then provided media training to prepare her for this role. The agency also evaluated third-party candidates to serve as a national broadcast spokesperson and contracted with a former NYPD detective to serve in this role. The agency provided media and message training, as well as a full “orientation” into MoneyGram’s business, to prepare him for interviews.

The core of the ongoing media relations program focused on the top 10 scams. In addition to the “romance scam,” the “tax scam” was centered around April when taxes are due, and the “travel scam” was centered around summer. The agency also leveraged issues in the news when possible. The agency also monitored news coverage about money transfer scams continuously and engaged immediately with local media reporting on incidents that referenced MoneyGram. The agency provided additional fraud prevention information for the reporting outlet’s viewers, which was frequently added to the media outlet’s online coverage along with a link to MoneyGram’s fraud prevention website.

After the first year of the consumer awareness and education campaign, the program recorded significant gains in key areas.

Media materials and outreach resulted in nearly 4,000 media placements during 2012 and 2013, all of which provided MoneyGram’s consumer education message through spotlights on the top 10 scams. Traffic to the site experienced a 10-fold increase during the year, and consumer fraud reporting experienced a marked increase during the latter part of 2012 and early 2013.

A full-year analysis of anti-fraud focused media coverage for MoneyGram and its competitors showed that anti-fraud messaging attributable to MoneyGram’s efforts was four times that of its largest competitor. What’s more, as MoneyGram worked on a settlement with the Department of Justice, federal regulators cited positively MoneyGram’s proactive stance in educating consumers about fraud.

BRONZE MWW Group for NJEDA: Making “Stronger Than the Storm” A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy For NJ Shore Businesses And Communities The New Jersey Shore comprises the largest portion of the state’s $38 billion tourism industry, is a major direct and indirect employer, and accounts for a significant share of state GDP. After Superstorm Sandy hit the coast of NJ in October 2012, the stakes were high.

22

B E S T E D U C AT I O N / P U B L I C S E RV I C E C A M PA I G N Could the perception of visitors be rehabilitated in time for the summer, a critical time for the tourism dollars that support Shore businesses and communities, or would the iconic image of the Seaside roller coaster swept out to sea be forever burnished in the minds of vacationers, seasonal renters and day trippers, taking them and their tourism dollars to an alternate destination in the summer of 2013?

user-generated content, asking visitors to share their photos and videos throughout the summer using hashtag #STTS. MWW also distributed collateral at community events and worked with local elected officials and DMOs to best support their communities. An emphasis on broadcast ads allowed the team to create a multisensory impression using new, post-Sandy shore imagery to demonstrate recovery.

To change these misperceptions, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) hired MWW to help tourists from in and out of state move beyond the pervasive imagery of stormrelated destruction and get the word out that the Jersey shore is open for business and ready for the summer. NJEDA, working with FEMA and other federal authorities, marshaled resources to restore, rebuild and renew the shore. But they knew physical re-building wasn’t enough. MWW needed to change the perception of the traveling public that the shore they loved was gone and would not be available for them this summer.

The program was a success on every level. A survey conducted shortly after the launch of the program demonstrated that the slogan, song and high-impact advertising and events had an immediate and dramatic impact on the public perceptions of the shore: 79% believed the campaign was persuasive in the decision to visit the shore this summer, and 1 in 4 shore visitors cited the campaign as their inspiration for coming. Within a six-month period, MWW built several successful social communities from the ground up and saw hotel occupancy and tourism increase. The PR team also garnered 1.16 billion total media impressions from 1,746 placements and 412 million impressions for broadcast.

From a macro perspective, the campaign’s target was everyone who witnessed the devastation of Hurricane Sandy and had a negative perception about the state of the shore going into summer 2013.

More specifically, the target audience was likely shore visitors like families, adults and millennials.

MWW was hired less than two months before the official “launch” of summer and was tasked with devising a program strategy, including broadcast quality television and media planning, to be on-air and active on the ground support of our communities in just four weeks.

Their strategy was to tap into the pride and “toughness” of New Jersey and create a rallying cry, “Stronger than the Storm; replace images of destruction from Superstorm Sandy with iconic images of the shore; create a series of events; develop a robust, active online community; and work in partnership with the DMOs to translate changes in perception into “butts in seats”—beach tags sold, boardwalk visits, hotel stays and restaurant meals. MWW developed a media plan and an aggressive media buy strategy to help spread the message, in partnership with NJ ad agency Brushfire Advertising. The advertising campaign was accompanied by an original song, “Stronger than the Storm,” with strategically designed lyrics and music to permeate the consciousness of our audiences and replace negative perceptions.

The program kicked off with the World’s Largest Ribbon Cutting—over 20 simultaneous ribbon cuttings up and down the coastline—by a live “Today Show” broadcast from Seaside Heights. A series of events over the course of the summer were developed to inspire a steady flow of activity and traffic to NJ’s shore communities. MWW also created the website, strongerthanthestorm.com, and kept digital channels fed with fresh content. MWW focused efforts on

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME23

23

B E S T F O O D & B E V E R AG E S C A M PA I G N

GOLD Hunter Public Relations for JELL-O Makes the Taste of Football Defeat Sweet JELL-O, one of America’s most iconic and beloved brands, has always been rooted in families and fun. However, in recent years, the brand began focusing only on adults, and in doing so, moved away from its core family consumer. JELL-O needed to return to its roots and remind families that JELL-O is “food for fun.” To reinforce this message, JELL-O kicked-off a new marketing campaign, “Fun Things Up” and decided to be the first company to celebrate the football team and its city that didn’t win the Super Bowl with a “Pudding Surprise”—a delivery to the second-place city of thousands of JELL-O Pudding Cups. Following the Super Bowl XLVII broadcast (San Francisco 49ers vs.

Baltimore Ravens), JELL-O ran a national post-game “Pudding Surprise” TV spot celebrating the team that didn’t win—the San Francisco 49ers—and followed up with the promise of making the taste of football defeat sweet with the JELL-O “Pudding Surprise.”

Hunter Public Relations was tasked with driving national and local media awareness and consumer excitement of this event, while still maintaining the element of surprise, since the brand wanted to keep most of the activities under wraps until after the game – as necessitated by not knowing who would win the game. In order to build media buzz and consumer excitement, while still maintaining the element of surprise since JELL-O wanted to keep activities under wraps until after the Super Bowl, HPR needed to coordinate efforts in two media markets—Baltimore and San Francisco, not knowing who would win the Super Bowl. In advance of the game, aggressive national and local media relations were conducted, under embargo, to tease the campaign for post-game coverage. The day before the game, an exclusive interview ran with ESPN.com discussing the ad without sharing full creative, helping to set the stage. Immediately following the ESPN article publication, we continued our aggressive media outreach to national online, sports and advertising/trade outlets, and distributed a press release teasing the new ad and Pudding Drop.

After the TV spot aired, HPR distributed a multi-media press release and conducted national and San Francisco media relations. Media and consumers were driven to FunThingsUp.com to watch the spot, see a teaser video showing the truck being loaded with Pudding, learn about Pudding Drop locations and receive a coupon. San Francisco fans could also download a browser plug-in to block any gloating about Baltimore’s win in news stories. Additional digital tactics included social seeding on BuzzFeed and AOL to drive increased engagement and sharing of the teaser video. Geo-targeted promoted posts were also set up to specifically reach the San Francisco audience.

On the Tuesday morning following the big game, truckloads of JELL-O Pudding Cups were delivered to residents in San Francisco, reminding them to celebrate their team’s accomplishments and smile. HPR helped to create a post-game, media moment-in-time by lining up Hall of Famer, six-time Super Bowl champion and former San Francisco 49er, Ronnie Lott, to act as a media spokesperson and help distribute JELL-O Pudding Cups in key high-traffic locations throughout San Francisco. HPR conducted aggressive media relations both locally and nationally to draw attention to this unique pop culture event.

More than 115.1 million media impressions and 200 placements resulted. Noteworthy placements include ESPN.com, CNN Newsroom, San Francisco Chronicle, MSN Now, Huffington Post, YAHOO! Sports, FOX Sports Radio with Pat O’Brien, and every local San Francisco TV station. FunThingsUp.com garnered more than 147K visits, and Pudding Drop generated more social buzz than any previous JELL-O campaign, with more than 17K mentions.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

24

B E S T F O O D & B E V E R AG E S C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R Hunter Public Relations for Grape-Nuts’ “What’s Your Mountain?” Campaign Post Grape-Nuts has been a part of a rich history at the breakfast table since 1897. In recent years, the brand has been challenged to reconnect with its core consumers and focus on ways to show its efficacy in providing a nutritious, energizing breakfast or snack. In 2013, the brand refocused on a relevant portion of its heritage, as part of the first ascent of Mount Everest sixty years ago. During Sir Edmund Hillary and climbing partner Tenzing Norgay’s trek up Mt. Everest, Hillary kept his pockets filled with Grape-Nuts, eating handfuls of the crunchy nuggets throughout the climb to provide him with the protein and fiber-fueled energy needed to reach the top of the historic peak.

Hunter Public Relations launched the “What’s Your Mountain?” public relations campaign to reintroduce original Grape-Nuts as well as to introduce a new variety— Grape-Nuts Fit. This adventurefocused campaign encouraged consumers to conquer their everyday mountains or obstacles by starting their day with GrapeNuts and Grape-Nuts Fit. The campaign engaged outdoor and fitness enthusiasts in their environments—rock-climbing walls, tower races, hiking clubs and even mountaintops— before culminating with celebratory activities on the historic anniversary, May 29th, 2013.

chance to receive Grape-Nuts gear, a $500 grant and Grape-Nuts Fit samples to be distributed while summiting the mountain of their choice. The program was promoted through a radio media tour with Sir Hillary’s son, Peter, blogger outreach and outreach to outdoors clubs. Experiences were shared on the Grape-Nuts Facebook page and with local media. Climbers brought Grape- Nuts Fit to Everest Base Camp, Yellowstone National Park, and Big Bend National Park.

The “What’s Your Mountain?” public relations 60th Everest anniversary stunt successfully distributed 26,800 Grape-Nuts Fit samples throughout the year and empowered 60 brand advocates through the Summit Sampler program where consumers took Grape-Nuts Fit to mountaintops across America and beyond, including the Adirondacks, Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone and even to Everest Base Camp. The effort also created a clear connection between Grape-Nuts and the 60th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary’s summit of Mt. Everest. 210 climbers conquered the rock wall in Herald Square, and 20,000 commuters received Grape-Nuts Fit samples and anniversary information in New York City. Live radio promotions on 92.3 NOW FM on-site in Herald Square added extra fodder for commuters, and 70 placements were garnered including a campaign feature in The New York Times, climber photos on Yahoo News and in am New York and event information on 1010Wins radio, in Time Out New York and on NY1 online.

BRONZE

The Grape-Nuts 2013 PR campaign helped more than 300 target consumers and influencers reach the top of their mountains— literally. Year-long tactics included a rock-climbing event for top editor influencers and partnerships with tower races. The week of May 29th, Grape-Nuts reached great heights across the world, including through a brand ambassador grants program encouraging hikers to emulate Sir Edmund Hillary and a huge 60thanniversary celebration in New York’s Herald Square. Following a series of adventure-focus tactics, the Grape-Nuts campaign culminated across great heights on May 29th. In New York City, consumers scaled a 30-foot rock-climbing wall in Herald Square where they declared a goal, or “mountain” on a summit flag they placed at the highest point they reached. More than 20,000 samples of Grape-Nuts Fit were distributed to passersby, and the event itself garnered media coverage in The New York Times, am New York, on Yahoo News, and on 1010 WINS radio, among others.

Beginning as a gelateria with RF|Binder as its only agency partner, Talenti Gelato & Sorbetto has become the world’s best-selling packaged gelato with a highly devoted and passionate fan base.

Talenti’s fans believe Talenti gelato to be much more than just ice cream: Tempting, delicious, luxuriously soft and creamy, it has a more intense flavor with less fat, and consumers can taste the difference. To bring these passionate consumers online and to capture conversations already taking place in the social space, RF|Binder has worked to establish and grow an online community to foster these conversations where fans discuss their love for Talenti.

Across the globe, climbing enthusiasts also celebrated Hillary’s historic anniversary. In March, the PR team invited adventurous consumers to become Grape-Nuts “Summit Samplers.” Outdoors enthusiasts applied via GrapeNutsSummitSampler.com for a

As Talenti quickly grew to a $50 million business, it became important to update the look and feel of the brand in a way that reflected its simplicity and playfulness while capturing the inevitable smile that comes with each spoonful. On March 7, Talenti

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

RF|Binder Partners for Talenti Gelato & Sorbetto Share & Reveal Campaign

25

B E S T F O O D & B E V E R AG E S C A M PA I G N announced the rebranding effort at the Natural Products Expo West Conference, as well as introduced four new flavors to its line of gelatos and sorbettos. As part of a larger public relations program including a press release to tease the campaign, Talenti challenged RF|Binder to innovatively support the re-branding effort online because of the strong and loyal community the team had helped them build.

new branding. As a result, Talenti received 9,339 social interactions by 7,155 unique users, making 1,987,429 impressions on Facebook and Twitter alone.

To achieve success, campaign messaging and activations focused on delivering messaging that reflects the playful and simplistic nature of the brand and creating an interactive experience for fans to play a main role in helping Talenti reveal the new branding and flavors while earning a digital coupon to try the products. The PR team identified incentives to encourage sharing for fans to invite their network to be a part of the reveal and an opportunity to save on Talenti purchases.

The campaign concept was this: Talenti fans don’t necessarily like to “share” their Talenti pints with friends or family, but they do like to “share” opportunities to win free Talenti, news about the brand and share their experiences consuming and indulging with Talenti often.

Thus, fans and followers’ first share qualified them to receive a $1 off digital coupon and revealed one piece of the new branding and flavors within the blurred imagery. Each share revealed an additional piece of the new branding and flavors within the featured blurred imagery.

RF|Binder created the “Share & Reveal blurred cover photos and social assets to feature the new branding across platforms to boost awareness of the tab, which appeared blurry throughout the campaign. The team also developed messaging guidance and response plan for use by community manager and created the Share & Reveal Facebook tab and microsite, with sharing functionality, containing a “Share” button, Terms & Conditions and social plugins available for users to share out the full experience.

Between April 2 and April 15, the Share & Reveal campaign was promoted across all digital and social channels, with Facebook being the primary driver to users entering via a custom tab. The major success of the campaign relied heavily on word of mouth, in addition to branded content distributed on multiple platforms. On April 15th, the final section of the blurred image revealed the new branding and flavors. Once announced, the full re-branding effort was propagated simultaneously across all of Talenti’s digital platforms. The full reveal included Talentigelato.com, the Talenti Facebook cover photo, profile picture and tab images redesigned to match the re-branding, the redesigned @Talentigelato Twitter background, header image and profile picture, and the Talenti YouTube Channel. “The Scoop,” newsletter was redesigned and delivered the digital coupon to fans’ inboxes to further reinforce the

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME26

26

B E S T G E N E R A L B U S I N E S S C A M PA I G N

GOLD Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems for Protecting America with Raytheon’s Blimp-Borne Radar Talks of sequestration spread across the nation in early 2012. The scheduled slashing of government funds clouded the future of thousands of federally run initiatives, including Raytheon’s JLENS radar program—a critical defense asset needed by the military to protect against today’s ever-evolving threats. JLENS, short for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, is a system of two aerostats, or tethered airships, that float 10,000 feet in the air. The aerostats, each nearly as long as a football field, carry powerful radars that can look deep into enemy territory.

Declining defense budgets in 2011 forced the Department of Defense (DoD) to continue development of the JLENS system while curtailing production. However, in 2012, the DoD decided to take a “try-before-you-buy” approach with JLENS, consequently ordering the Army to have Raytheon finish building and testing JLENS. The system was scheduled to be deployed for its first field test in 2014. Upon completion of the multi-year evaluation, the DoD will decide whether to restart the production of Raytheon’s radar-carrying blimps. While Raytheon’s technical experts remained focused on continuing to develop the JLENS system, the communications team focused on supporting the DoD to ensure that the field evaluation would take place.

The team began by conducting extensive research to identify target audiences and their interests. Research indicated that the identified target audiences rely heavily on digital/social media as a primary source of information. As one trade press reporter mentioned, “The first place I go to look when I want to find something out is Google.” Thus, the team developed key creative integrated digital campaign tactics and a content-rich landing page that clearly articulated the threat faced by the military and JLENS’ unique value proposition. Digital news announcements aligned with the new messaging strategy, and digital press coverage amplified by linking to the JLENS landing page.

The communications team sent out tweets highlighting JLENS-related media coverage to Raytheon’s followers and initiated a digital advertising campaign that premiered on websites frequently visited by the target audiences. A compelling call-to-action directed readers to the media rich landing page. A visually appealing infographic and video brought the threat narrative to life, while sharing on Raytheon’s social channels increased traffic back to the landing page. New imagery, including never-before-seen photos of JLENS, was featured on Raytheon’s Facebook page and other owned-media channels. To top it off, a strategic search engine marketing campaign included Google keywords associated with the revised messaging. To increase visibility, all digital content—both earned and owned—was shared with the Raytheon Government Relations and DoD customer engagement teams, enabling those teams to send critical assets to constituents within the Executive and Legislative branches of government.

As a direct result of the tactics listed above, the JLENS landing page saw an increased Google Relevance score as well as the coveted #1 Google search result for relevant keywords. The JLENS landing page has received 25,000 visits since the start of this year, and digital advertising tailored to the D.C. area, resulting in +3.6M impressions. The campaign received extensive digital media coverage, including placements in Popular Mechanics and Politico.com. Perhaps more importantly, the campaign has sparked conversation among key military and government leaders and defense analysts and Reuters reported that the DoD decided to formally announce that JLENS would deploy to the Washington, DC region.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

27

B E S T G E N E R A L B U S I N E S S C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R

BRONZE

Fireman's Fund Insurance Company for Fireman Fund’s for 150th Anniversary

RF|Binder Partners for Tupperware Brands: Leveraging an innovative global business to showcase brand evolution

In Q1 of 2013, Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company kicked off a marketing and PR campaign to celebrate their 150th anniversary.

This campaign included a traveling museum featuring artifacts from the company’s rich history and an online timeline used as a visual display of that history. A 150th anniversary, although an impressive feat for a business, is not “newsworthy” on its own. Because of this, Fireman’s Fund used its expansive history insuring the nation’s milestones as leverage for news angles to share their story. Some of these milestones include insuring the Golden Gate Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, and historic and current films.

The PR team behind the campaign sought to secure as much media coverage as possible for Fireman’s Fund 150th anniversary by segmenting relevant story angles to each market included in the traveling museum tour. They would also leverage a digital “timeline” to make it easy for reporters to review relevant assets with the goal of securing national and local recognition of Fireman’s 150th anniversary celebration.

Fireman Fund’s media relations manager, Janet Ruiz, led the PR effort and enlisted her agency, Harden Communications Partners, to gain extensive media coverage throughout the yearlong nationwide campaign. Together, the team researched historical documents and company artifacts to develop custom stories for each market.

The PR campaign resulted in interviews with local and national media outlets ranging from Marin Independent Journal to Bloomberg News. The PR activities complemented the key markets of the exhibit tour with special emphasis in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago resulting in 24,313,382 media impressions, and an estimated ad value of $263,100.

The most profound media hit was the three-page article in the Los Angeles Times featuring Fireman’s Fund as the leader in film insurance. The interview for this piece took place over the Labor Day weekend. Fireman’s Fund and the outside agency were forced to communicate the entire holiday weekend to ensure that the reporter could write his story by the deadline. This article gained over 35 million impressions with $160,289 in ad value.

Since the 1940s, Tupperware Brands has had a place in our homes to help busy families save time and money. As families are increasingly on the go and parents look for savings in household spending, as well as opportunities to get their children more involved in creating healthy meals or afterschool snacks, Tupperware has evolved to meet those needs. RF|Binder was tasked with creating a media event on October 3, 2012 in New York City to showcase the company’s innovations that make products fun and easy to use when making healthy recipes, while also highlighting their commitment and support of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BCGA).

What do you get when you pair innovative kitchen products with a former NBA great alongside a CEO who has an advanced free throw shooting average? The “Kitchen Playground Challenge” campaign.

RF| Binder sought to partner with a celebrity who would not only catch the attention of media, but would have the ability to serve as a spokesperson for both the BGCA and Tupperware Brands.

Shaquille O'Neal was chosen for his background in youth leadership and his strong relationship with the BGCA. RF|Binder also recognized the strong interest Tupperware’s relationship with the BGCA would garner among both local and national media.

Having the National Youth of the Year and other Regional Youth of the Year winners join former BGCA member Shaquille O’Neal at the event and participate in the day’s activities would not only highlight a great program, but show firsthand the impact Tupperware has on the lives of youth today through this partnership.

The RF|Binder team conducted aggressive media relations to support the event, with a focus on national and local broadcast, dailies, entertainment, family and parenting, Hispanic and general consumer lifestyle publications, both in print and online. Outreach occurred both before and immediately following the event to secure guests and coverage. Upon their arrival, guests were given time to enjoy refreshments and mingle.

A short presentation by CEO, Rick Goings was given to kick-off the event and focus on the importance of the BGCA, where he spoke briefly about the Youth of the Year leaders and their accomplishments. After the BGCA members spoke about the impact BGCA has had on their life, Shaq was introduced.

Swapping their traditional roles, Rick Goings tried his luck at the

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

28

B E S T G E N E R A L B U S I N E S S C A M PA I G N free throw line while Shaq tested his cooking skills by creating delicious recipes using various Tupperware products. Then, a challenge was issued: For every smoothie Shaq made and for every free throw shots Goings made, Tupperware Brands would commit $1,000 to O’Neal’s former Boys & Girls Club in Newark, NJ. When the challenge ended both talents had done their part and a $25,000 total donation had been generated.

A pre-event appearance by Shaq and the three BCGA youth representatives on the 4th Hour of the “Today Show” with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb drove national buzz the morning of the event. Due to RF|Binder’s outreach, the “Today Show” used this appearance as its first “Nice Guy of the Week” segment, honoring Shaq. Editors and writers from 44 media outlets attended the event, including Latina, Real Simple, ESPN, Weight Watchers’, Whole Living, Fox Business, Essence, Daily Candy, Diets in Review and am New York. Post-event interviews were conducted with a variety of media outlets, including Bon Appetit, The Daily Meal, Food Republic and Parenting.

Interviews with Rick Goings and Shaq by the CNBC television crew resulted in coverage later that evening following the event.

Approximately 90 percent of the event coverage focused on key messages and themes surrounding the charitable donation to BGCA and Tupperware products. Social media buzz by attending media and Shaq helped to amplify the event on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram beyond the venue.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

29

B E S T G E N E R A L C O N S U M E R C A M PA I G N

GOLD Hunter Public Relations and Hasbro for Monopoly “Save Your Token” Campaign As the home of the MONOPOLY brand, the world’s favorite family gaming brand, Hasbro, Inc. is continuously tasked with finding ways to make the game relevant to today's consumer. While the brand enjoys a rich history dating back to the 1930s, high global brand awareness, a Facebook community of more than 11 million fans, and successful digital versions of the game, Hasbro saw an opportunity to reignite the Monopoly brand and elevate it within media and pop culture.

In 2013, to drive consumer engagement with the brand and help create an incentive to buy the classic MONOPOLY game, Hasbro launched a worldwide fan vote on Facebook, inviting fans to make a permanent change to the game. The MONOPOLY “Save Your Token” campaign asked consumers to vote to save their favorite token from being removed from the game—top hat, Scottie dog, wheelbarrow, iron, battleship, shoe, racecar and thimble. They would also vote for one new token—diamond ring, robot, cat, guitar and helicopter—they'd like to see added in. The classic token to receive the least votes would be retired forever, and the new token to receive the most would replace the ousted game piece.

The Hunter PR team was tasked with developing/executing a plan to support this worldwide vote to generate excitement and interest in the game. PR sought to tap into consumers’ emotional attachment to the classic eight tokens in order to drive interest in the vote across broadcast, print, online and social media.

Knowing that USA Today and Mashable articles often lead to broader news coverage, Hunter PR secured exclusive stories with both to launch the vote on January 9, 2013. USA Today’s coverage included a front-page masthead takeover, and LIFE section front-page feature.

Tweets by both outlets generated significant social buzz. To encourage campaigning for individual tokens, media contacts were given propaganda-style posters and b-roll, images, token history, and information about the MONOPOLY Golden Token Edition game.

The team determined the key to sustaining media and social media attention during the month-long vote was to focus on the individual tokens. They conducted wide-scale outreach to targeted companies and individuals such as Nine West, Duracell and the US National Champion, to support their favorite.

Finally, after weeks of voting, the world chose the cat to replace the iron token in the game. Hunter PR arranged for an exclusive reveal of the winning token on NBC’s “Today,” two days before Toy Fair in New York. Following “Today’s” reveal, the AP released an embargoed story and the team began widespread pitching. Six months after the reveal, the cat was introduced on store shelves in the classic MONOPOLY game. To celebrate, Hunter PR created a “thank you” mailer to send to media who covered the vote in January/February.

When all was said and done, Hunter PR scored more than 2.2 billion total media impressions in the US, garnered from nearly 5,000 placements. Exclusives were placed with USA Today, NBC’s “Today,” Mashable.com, and the story was featured on the front page of USA Today twice, along with many more print, broadcast and online media wins. More than 20 different companies/organizations campaigned on behalf of a token, and beginning in August 2013, all games of MONOPOLY sold around the world began featuring the cat token, as selected by fans following the widely publicized MONOPOLY “Save Your Token” campaign. As reported by Hasbro, MONOPOLY board game sales in the U.S. were up in the first nine months of the year. The first run of the MONOPOLY Golden Token Edition game at Target sold out.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

30

B E S T G E N E R A L C O N S U M E R C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R SuccessFactors, an SAP Company for HR Beat: A Survey on the Pulse of Today’s Global Workforce SuccessFactors, an SAP Company, provides the leading cloudbased Human Capital Management (HCM) Suite, which helps HR drive business execution with solutions that are complete, beautiful and flexible enough to start anywhere. With the growing importance of attracting and retaining the best talent, smart companies are investing in truly flexible and targeted employee engagement programs and talent retention strategies. SuccessFactors understands the need for HR leaders to access strategic HCM software to align their workforce with their business strategy and get their people working on the right tasks. This is why SuccessFactors builds the products that allow companies to track the latest trends in attracting and retaining the best and brightest employees, helping them outsmart their competition.

But to truly utilize HCM software in a way that is uniquely advantageous to an organization, HR executives must understand how to optimize employee performance across their organization through identifying the right new hires and working to make them great. For this reason, SuccessFactors commissioned an international survey through Dimensional Research to gather compelling HR-specific global and local data points from key regions.

Many high-profile HR events are in September and October each year, and SuccessFactors strived to up-level its concurrent product release key messages, increase the company’s reputation as a thought leader across HR topics and beat out the noise of its competitors. SuccessFactors commissioned its first-ever third-party international survey, timed with three international events: HRIZONS in Sydney, Australia, HR Technology US in Chicago, IL and HR Technology EMEA in Amsterdam, NL. The objective of the survey was to identify the social media, recruiting and performance perceptions across countries, gender and age groups by questioning HR leaders and managers responsible for hiring across the US, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia. The survey results were localized for each region to provide country-specific data that are relevant and timely.

The team conducted an integrated communications campaign that leveraged multi-media channels to maximize exposure and recognition among key audiences. The campaign’s assets included a media exclusive, international landing pages and hero banners tied to a lead generation campaign, luggage tag giveaways

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

displaying data points that drove traffic to the website, an infographic pitched to media and promoted on social channels, press pre-briefings and pitching, blogs and social media outreach.

The entire campaign was created and executed in the span of one month.

The HR Beat results were announced through PR Newswire distribution and targeted media outreach. The team offered an exclusive to Diana Samuels at the Silicon Valley Business Journal and pre-briefed and pitched top publications. They launched international landing pages and hero banners aligned with a lead generation campaign offering a download of the full survey results in the English-language report. The PR team also created and posted an infographic on the SuccessFactors blog and drafted blog posts for SuccessFactors blog featuring the infographic and promoted blog post on SuccessFactors' social channels. They created SuccessFactors-branded luggage tags, conducted social media outreach on Facebook and Twitter and recruited and prepped spokespeople to push the survey message out to regional audiences.

These spokespeople participated in media pre-briefing and contributed to the press release.

The HR Beat survey outreach resulted in 54 international hits. Top coverage across all regions included Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post and Fox Business. Social media efforts also resulted in huge spikes in engagement, as did the HR Beat landing page.

BRONZE Hollywood Public Relations for Using an Event & Spokesperson to Milk Publicity As the only BPA-free baby bottle on the market, Born Free had the first-to-market claim. But, as use of BPA in bottles became obsolete, Born Free came to compete with other premier bottle brands. Hollywood Public Relations was tasked with highlighting the bottle’s “fuss free” attributes and identified March as Colic Awareness Month. The campaign empathized with the target—new and expecting moms—and offered a solution to what seems to be an incurable problem to those who experience it.

Once Colic Awareness Month was established as an official observance with Chase’s Calendar of Events, the team turned to identifying an appropriate spokesperson. Appreciating the strong sentiment towards breastfeeding for optimal health, supported by

31

B E S T G E N E R A L C O N S U M E R C A M PA I G N the American Academy of Pediatrics and the self-proclaimed “Lactivist” community, the advancement of a campaign advocate had to be carefully considered. Among the celebrities who fit the narrowly focused profile of new mom, Giuliana Rancic of “E! News” and Style Network's “Giuliana & Bill” arose as the right and only choice. Rancic, whose struggle with breast cancer and surrogate pregnancy left her with no choice but to bottle-feed son Duke, also happened to be a fan of the brand. Rancic’s endorsement would mollify the debate regarding bottle vs. breast and let the focus remain on the product’s key attribute of reducing colic.

While the agency’s effort focused on media relations, the strategy included earned, owned and paid media. To provide the team with pitch-worthy fodder for a news release, a survey was conducted with 125 new and prenatal moms on their experience with colic.

The results generated rich stats such as 66% of moms with colicky babies reported a moderate or significant impact on their relationship with their spouse. Paid opportunities included a co-op satellite media tour and a mat release.

Social media promotion included a DropGift, in which 300 Born Free bottles were gifted by moms to moms, in less than a minute.

Through the promotion, Born Free acquired more than 5,000 new Facebook likes in a single evening. A Twitter party conducted with Dr. Harvey Karp and Pregnancy Awareness Month reached an estimated 216,751 accounts totaling more than 2 million impressions and generating 1,500 tweets.

The program’s pinnacle, however, occurred during a Big City Moms consumer event for more than 500 new and expectant moms.

Hollywood PR enlisted Rancic to make an appearance at the Born Free booth to sign autographs and take photos with fans. The Hollywood PR team secured media coverage around Rancic’s appearance at the Born Free booth and in front of a branded step & repeat. These media outlets included OK!, People.com, “E! News,” Wet Paint, Celebrity Baby Scoop, SheKnows.com, Examiner.com, and US Weekly. The media impressions totaled over 47 million.

In addition, Hollywood PR coordinated a staged paparazzi shot with Giuliana and Duke to secure photos for media. A sampling of the photos are below, which were picked up by publications including Star, InTouch, and Life&Style. Online outlets that featured the image include Babyrazzi.com, omg! from Yahoo!, and Celebrity Baby Scoop. Most importantly, the client realized a double-digit bump in sales immediately at the end of March, demonstrating how a successful PR program can lead directly to increased sales. Got milk?

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

32

B E S T H E A LT H , M E D I C I N E & F I T N E S S C A M PA I G N

GOLD Allison + Partners “Other” Marathon: ASICS LA Marathon In a town not known for keeping secrets, Los Angeles had a big one: The LA Marathon. The second-largest city in the US is host to a worldclass marathon and one of the largest road races on the globe with over 24,000 participants. The LA Marathon is a signature event for Southern California, yet it pales in comparison to the notoriety surrounding its peers in New York, Honolulu, Boston, Chicago and Washington DC. ASICS believes in relentless dedication, motivation and inspiration to athletes and sport. It’s a brand for runners, elite and everyday. They support running events around the nation, and they’re based in LA. Enter the hometown hero to elevate the LA Marathon to its rightful level, and the ASICS LA Marathon—along with the PR mavens at Allison+Partners—was off to the races.

ASICS had both a unique opportunity and responsibility. Unlike car companies that sponsor other marathons, ASICS is a company at the very essence of running. Sponsorship entitled them to “own” the promotion. The flip side of this was that ASICS needed to celebrate the spirit of the runner, not just put up its name and cash. Their role in elevating a persona for the LA Marathon was to create engagement with the people who live it, love it and support it.

To achieve the objectives of breaking the visibility barrier, doing it with the authenticity of a runner’s sponsor and within time constraints, the strategic approach was to partner with and equip stakeholders to tell their stories of the LA Marathon from their vantage points and leverage a PESO-style model of media activation for efficiency.

Allison PR implemented a program that invited them to not just cover the race but do so by quite literally “walking—or running—several miles in a Marathoner’s shoes...LA style.” They provided activations to participate in and experience race components and then involve them in amplifying awareness through their own storytelling.

ASICS engaged reporters by supporting a media running team to run a full marathon or half-marathon relay. Reporters from local and national TV (FOX, KTLA), and consumer magazines (Shape, Fitness, Health, SELF) trained for two-and-a-half months in ASICS footwear and apparel and followed ASICS Ambassador and LA Roadrunners’ Official Coach Andrew Kastor’s tailored running plan.

Next, ASICS turned The Grove, an upscale shopping and entertainment complex located next to the landmark LA Farmers Market, into an experiential haven for fans and runners. Activations were featured to give consumers an understanding of the passion and commitment it takes to run 26.2 miles. Activations included an immersive audio experience that allowed consumers to trigger various “sounds of the marathon,” a photo display where consumers could pose as if they were at the finish line of the marathon and the chance to send personalized video and text messages directly to competitors during the race.

ASICS-sponsored athletes, including Deena Kastor and Ryan Hall, offered tips on racing, nutrition, clothing and footwear as well as insight into the mental and physical aspects of the race to runners, spectators and media. ASICS Ambassador and LA Roadrunner Official Coach Andrew Kastor generously shared his training experience directly to marathoners, and through social and traditional media. Finally, the campaign included a limited edition lime green St. Patrick’s Day-inspired shoe. The sneaker was backed by significant media and influencer relations efforts locally and nationally.

In a mere 45 days, the ASICS LA Marathon campaign delivered on ambitious goals for the brand and the race. Over 100,000 people interacted with the activations at The Grove, and advertising and marketing efforts generated approximately 405K impressions. Engagement on social platforms resulted in thousands of photos uploaded on Instagram and extreme spikes in engagement on Twitter.

ASICS sponsorship of the marathon was well received by media and, unlike other sponsors, the brand has an organic tie to runners, allowing the messaging to fit perfectly in-line with the event. Allison+Partners generated national coverage in outlets not known for covering the race—CNN “Showbiz Tonight,” Men’s Journal, Chicago Tribune, Complex—by leveraging the “cool” factor of the limited-edition marathon shoe. CNN’s host even called ASICS “the sneaker king” when talking about the marathon shoe.

In total, more than 37 million media impressions were secured in target outlets including Los Angeles Times, CBS Los Angeles, Orange County Register, RunnersWorld.com, KCBS, KABC, KTLA and KTTV, among others.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

33

B E S T H E A LT H , M E D I C I N E & F I T N E S S C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R MSLGroup Boston for Epocrates Bugs + Drugs: Breaking Superbugs Out of the Hospital According to a report recently issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every year more than two million people in the US contract antibiotic-resistant infections and at least 23,000 people die as a result. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria or “superbugs” such as resistant E. coli are of great concern because they are increasingly impervious to typical antibiotics or may not respond to common treatments.

Unfortunately, unless a physician works inside a hospital, they are not aware of drug-resistant bacteria in their area, as that information has only been available in hospitals and is only updated quarterly. This significantly impacts the quality of care for millions of Americans who either suffer through multiple courses of different prescriptions, or have their health endangered.

Epocrates, a leading provider of medical reference and clinicaldecision support software for use by physicians on their mobile devices and online, set out to change this. The company, in conjunction with its parent company, athenahealth, created Epocrates Bugs + Drugs, the first app to provide actionable insight for treating superbugs outside of the hospital setting. It anonymously links lab results from athenahealth’s cloud-based EHR database of 15 million patients into geo-targeted data to help physicians identify common and uncommon bugs in the communities where their patients live.

The challenge was to develop and execute a public-relations campaign that would reach physicians and break through the clutter of the app store. This was an app with narrow, but important appeal. To raise awareness, Epocrates would have to vie for attention with pregnancy and weight-loss apps aimed at consumers. Additionally, Epocrates had to move fast to be one of the first iOS 7 apps to market, which meant the PR campaign couldn’t use the traditional beta period to secure testimonials and references. MSLGROUP Boston’s task was to raise awareness of the issue, drive app downloads and highlight how the app can help.

tech-savvy healthcare professionals.

MSLGROUP issued a release announcing the availability of the software and highlighting the new functionality and key messages.

This was an omnichannel release, leveraging imagery and going out over all of Epocrates’ and athenahealth’s social channels.

MSLGROUP also identified and contacted key influencers on Twitter and Apple and medical bloggers to provide them more information on the Epocrates Bugs + Drugs iPhone app as well as unique pictures and access to doctors who could comment on the software.

Many Epocrates doctors do not read the technology trade publications, so the PR team had to customize its outreach to be of interest to the physician publications and had to focus on healthcare tech online media and blogs to drive the initial spike of downloads that could raise Epocrates profile in the App Store and maintain download momentum.

What’s more, to capitalize on events, when “Frontline” ran a special on Superbugs the week prior to the app launch, MSLGROUP monitored the media that covered the story and added them to the outreach and influencer list. Beyond the initial splash, MSLGROUP also reconnected with the media with download milestones and support with athenahealth blog posts.

The Epocrates Bugs + Drugs app launch was an overwhelming success and helped Epocrates drive adoption and conversions with its target demographics. MSLGROUP and Epocrates met or exceeded all objectives and realized some unexpected benefits.

Public relations was the main download driver for the new Epocrates app. The app had more than 100,000 downloads in the first 30 days. To put this in perspective, there are approximately one million physicians in the U.S., so this translates into more than 10 percent market penetration in just one month.

Additionally, Epocrates Bugs + Drugs quickly became one of the top-three medical apps in the AppStore, which helped lead Apple to feature it to further promote the app. The media and social media relations around the app generated more than 30 articles. By contacting key people via social media, Epocrates reached more than 65,000 additional technology influencers. Later on, MSLGROUP capitalized on ongoing opportunities, including the 100,000 download milestone to secure a second, broader wave of coverage that included News.com and IDG. It is also using superbug stories to drive local and national trend stories.

Time was tight, and MSLGROUP Boston realized it needed to take a multi-pronged approach to convince the media to profile the new app. Traditional media would not be enough and they needed a blend of influencers to help drive the discussion. Additionally, they had two distinct channel targets—those focused on healthcare and those on technology/iOS7 that could help spread the message to

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

34

B E S T H E A LT H , M E D I C I N E & F I T N E S S C A M PA I G N

BRONZE PadillaCRT for Making the Sunscreen Grade – Protecting the Skin of Tomorrow’s Generation Melanoma among US children is increasing at an alarming annual rate. And, nearly a quarter of a person’s lifetime sun exposure occurs during childhood. When two children in Washington state recently returned home from a school field day with second-degree burns due to a sunscreen ban, their story revealed a larger problem: Restricted sun-protection policies in American schools and a nationwide absence of reliable resources to educate families about this risk.

The knowledge gap pointed to a need for leadership. Merck Consumer Care recognized a unique opportunity to do good while differentiating its Coppertone brand in a commoditized consumer category complicated by brand switching and seasonality. To take a stand and help minimize the threat of unsafe sun exposure among US children, Coppertone and PadillaCRT partnered to create and launch a campaign. It would raise awareness around the need for sun protection in schools and year-round, position Coppertone as a leader dedicated to sun-protection education and enhance Coppertone’s reputation.

content in media outreach to drive traffic to the website. They engaged regional media outlets in the 10 markets, leveraging research on local policies affecting sunscreen use. The American Medical Association’s new policy supporting sunscreen use in schools—announced midway through the campaign—offered a timely relevant news hook, as well. Finally, the campaign capitalized on Dr. Ana Duarte’s role as a sought-after media source on pediatric dermatology by utilizing her expert commentary from a syndicated HealthDay article concerning the rise of melanoma rates in children.

Overall, the campaign succeeded in positioning Coppertone as a leader dedicated to sun-protection education. The overwhelming majority of parents reported that they were motivated to start a conversation with school administrators about making sun protection a priority and that the program gave them useful tips for protecting their children. School administrators agreed that the sunprotection guides demonstrated Coppertone’s concern for sun safety among parents and said they would recommend the program to other schools. Overall, an incremental 140,000 parents said they would purchase or recommend Coppertone as a result of the program. The campaign also drove a 17% lift in consumers who believe Coppertone reaches out to the community to educate families about sun protection.

The team launched the “Making the Sunscreen Grade” campaign to tackle the unmet need for sun protection at school. The PR team worked with Kaleidoscope to develop and distribute 500,000 sunprotection guides to parents in 10 US markets, offering steps for understanding sun protection in schools. After learning that 20% of parents in these markets identified as Hispanic, they customized content relevant for the Hispanic audience by developing Spanishlanguage materials, leveraged a Hispanic spokesperson and engaged influential Hispanic media. They also partnered with Miami Children’s Hospital Pediatric Dermatologist Dr. Ana Duarte for media relations and program materials to offer expertise on the effects of childhood sun exposure, discuss school politics on sunscreen usage and begin a dialogue with the Hispanic community.

Coppertone and PadillaCRT developed a digital hub on the Coppertone website, complete with editorial copy, downloadable sun-protection guides and samples letters for parents to bring to school administrators. They also distributed letters and posters to target elementary schools to encourage sun protection for students and partnership among staff, administrators and parents.

The PR team focused on national media outreach during the endof-school and back-to-school seasons and highlighted digital

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

35

B E S T I N V E S T M E N T, B A N K I N G & F I N A N C I A L S E RV I C E S C A M PA I G N

GOLD RF|Binder Partners for NYU Stern School of Business: Global Financial Leadership and Positioning Experts in the Technology Industry The US economic recovery experienced new challenges in 2012, following the destabilization from 2011’s debt ceiling stalemate, and was under constant scrutiny due to the upcoming presidential elections. For RF|Binder and its client, the NYU Stern School of Business, the unsettled and uncertain global economic climate provided a unique opportunity for NYU to leverage their extensive knowledge base in a crowded national conversation, marking a pivotal moment of expediency in their public relations mission.

RF|Binder developed a strategic media relations plan that would outline specific opportunities to insert Stern into the ongoing dialogue and establish the school as an authority-providing compelling opinions and proposals for solutions. The program was centered around a thought leadership platform, proactively addressing upcoming economic indicators and political opportunity, while also reacting to relevant news of the day. As the global economic turmoil developed through 2012, RF|Binder helped professors from various niche expert areas stay in constant contact with high-level business editors at major publications in order to strengthen relationships that would lead to expanded coverage in the media. In an effort to match the success of building recognition for Stern’s finance and economics faculty, the Stern team also turned to RF|Binder to engage the national media on behalf of the school’s information technology faculty.

Media outreach took place largely in response to the swaying of the public debate as well as the forward-looking views of the most outspoken Stern professors. As the global economic unrest developed, RF|Binder worked tirelessly with the NYU Stern communications team and faculty to develop key messages around topics of the moment. Keeping the messaging timely and interesting proved to be a tremendous challenge as the public debate whirled wildly over the past year. RFBinder was able to break down the recommendations into easily digestible insights for the media – key to securing coverage.

RF|Binder developed a comprehensive calendar of major economic indicators, including the Department of Labor employment report, S&P/Case-Shiller Index, U.S. GDP data, weekly jobless claims and the various consumer confidence analyses. Through this calendar, the team was able to be one step ahead of the economic data releases and offer expert sources to national business media for on-deadline commentary, resulting in repeated interviews and continued media coverage surrounding each data release. Additionally, the team counseled Stern faculty in the development of their own blogs, enabling RF|Binder to further showcase the professors’ expertise.

A concentrated effort on high-profile op-eds authored by the faculty would function to solidify the Stern faculty as preeminent thinkers on the global financial reform debate. These op-eds focused on solutions to the financial crisis, critiquing current proposals while offering concrete solutions to solving the most complex problems. RF|Binder placed op-eds for Stern’s faculty in nearly every top-tier financial publication.

Translating professors’ heightened visibility into the school’s brand was an additional goal. RF|Binder worked in conjunction with the Stern team to coordinate a series of high-profile speaking events with both national and international policymakers on campus. These events were designed to visibly draw the connection between the faculty as thought leaders and Stern as a premier business school.

As a result of RF|Binder’s strategic efforts, NYU Stern faculty have been prominently featured in nearly every major media outlet. This resulted in coverage in Bloomberg, CNN “Money,” The Huffington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, among others. Stern’s visible leadership role in the economic, financial and regulatory process established Stern as a prominent go-to source for financial commentary, analysis of prominent technology issues and thought leadership.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

36

B E S T I N V E S T M E N T, B A N K I N G & F I N A N C I A L S E RV I C E S C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R Bankrate, Inc. for Educating Consumers About Personal Finance Public relations is important to Bankrate, Inc. because it drives a considerable amount of consumer Web traffic via “earned media.”

Almost 50% of the traffic to Bankrate.com is organic, and PR is a key component of that via diligent outreach, respected experts and unique proprietary research. PR, managed by four full-time staff members, also plays a significant role in boosting Bankrate’s search engine rankings. This is a big part of the company’s business model. Partly by ranking highly for key terms in mortgage/banking/insurance/credit cards, Bankrate attracts over 13 million unique visitors each quarter.

From January 1, 2013 through October 23, 2013, Bankrate.com earned 184,246 media mentions (including syndication). That is 63% higher than Bankrate.com’s total for all of 2012. The company’s senior financial analyst, Greg McBride, is a prominent source for major media such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Associated Press, CNBC, CNN, NPR, ABC/CBS/NBC News and many others. McBride handled 820 media interviews during the first 10 months of 2013— approximately 20 per week.

While McBride is excellent, the Bankrate public relations staff has made a concerted effort to broaden its bench in 2013. The PR team has elevated the profiles of additional analysts at Bankrate.com and other affiliated websites such as InsuranceQuotes.com and ThePointsGuy.com. These other analysts handled 957 interviews from January 2013 through October 2013, more than doubling McBride’s output and providing an added boost that did not occur in prior years.

A major contributor—and new hire in January 2013—has been Laura Adams, senior insurance analyst at InsuranceQuotes.com.

Laura is the public face of Bankrate’s insurance division, a group that went through some challenging times in late 2012 and early 2013 but has rebounded nicely. Bankrate’s President and CEO, Tom Evans, stated in the company’s Q2 2013 earnings release, “We have made significant progress with our strategic initiatives in our insurance business during the first half of 2013 and are now seeing a clear inflection point.” The 212 InsuranceQuotes.com interviews and 26,053 media placements that the Bankrate PR team assisted with have significantly boosted the insurance division’s awareness and credibility. Notable successes included “The Today Show” (NBC), the New York Times and thousands of local TV and radio stations.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

Bankrate, Inc. compiled a tremendous amount of research in 2013—on subjects included mortgage rates, ATM fees, mortgage closing costs, a monthly Financial Security Index poll which measures consumer sentiment, proprietary information concerning insurance costs and much more. These tools, plus sustained topical trend-based outreach, led to the interviews and media placements which help to cement Bankrate.com and its affiliated properties as go-to resources for consumers interested in finding the best mortgage rates, insurance products and other personal finance advice.

BRONZE Breakaway Communications for Defining the “Grey Charges” Problem; Positioning BillGuard as the Solution BillGuard—a startup personal finance security service that identifies and resolves questionable but not fraudulent credit card charges—solves a significant and widespread problem.

Unfortunately, in mid-2013, few consumers were aware that this problem existed. Grey charges are legal but deceptive charges on credit card bills, such as recurring subscriptions or hidden fees, that can cost consumers hundreds, even thousands, of dollars each year but largely go undetected on credit card statements. In 2012, grey charges totaled over $14 billion in the US alone according to a study commissioned by BillGuard. Breakaway’s challenge was significant and two-fold: To define the problem—grey charges on credit card bills—and then build awareness of the BillGuard service as the solution.

Breakaway started the grey charges education efforts in late 2012 by creating and distributing an educational infographic, which got a lot of pickup in financially focused media, often with a reference to BillGuard. But broadcasters, bloggers and others started lifting data from the infographic, and not crediting BillGuard. The team realized they needed to do something that would definitively link BillGuard with the term grey charges. As they were pondering strategy, BillGuard was working on its first mobile app, which would enable BillGuard to appeal to a much broader range of consumers.

BillGuard’s goal was to push the app into the number-one spot within the financial applications section of the Apple App Store. All of the stars aligned when Breakway commissioned a respected third party, Aite Group, to create the first-ever study to quantify the grey charges problem. Based on BillGuard data, the report’s findings were mind blowing. They determined that it made sense to somehow link this report with the availability of the iOS app.

37

B E S T I N V E S T M E N T, B A N K I N G & F I N A N C I A L S E RV I C E S C A M PA I G N To maximize the value of the Aite Group-commissioned report and also help BillGuard push its upcoming iOS app to the number-one spot within the financial applications sector inside the iOS store, Breakaway cast a broad net, approaching all major national broadcast, financial business, consumer advocate media, technology media and major app review outlets with both the report and its significant results and the soon-to-be-launched application.

They plan was to announce the grey charges study and the BillGuard iOS app on the same day.

For maximum impact, Breakaway used a two-pronged approach.

First, the team identified financial and consumer advocacy writers/producers at major print, online and broadcast outlets and conducted pre-briefings on the grey charges report. They relied on the sizable impact of the charges in terms of people affected and dollars lost to introduce the media to BillGuard and its services.

Second, the availability of the new mobile app gave them another “hook” to build awareness. They pitched both app- focused and major technology media with information on BillGuard’s new iOS app, using the numbers in the report as evidence for why this app was so important to their readers.

Breakway worked hand in hand with internal BillGuard contacts and lead analyst at Aite Group to ensure they had top-line stats that would help generate interest and foster understanding. They developed target lists for different audiences—including financial trades, consumer pubs, broadcast outlets, technology followers and business press—and created customizable pitch templates for each of the audiences. The PR team then worked with internal BillGuard team to ensure screenshots were ready for launch and for those media who agreed to the embargo and leveraged CEO’s travel schedule to schedule broadcast interviews. Finally, Breakaway worked to secure customer references for media and drafted two press releases—one for traditional media and one for those who specifically cover app launches.

Coverage from NBC “Nightly News” and across all other major broadcast networks resulted in pick-up by more than 50 affiliates with a total publicity value of close to $500,000. More than 50 unique articles were scored across major business and tech outlets including Reuters, USA Today, CNN “Money” and TheNextWeb. By day three of the launch, BillGuard’s iOS app had been made the number-one app in the financial apps in the iOS App Store, and coverage went viral with broadcasts, major news articles and app stories being picked up by bloggers, small news organizations and financially focused freelance writers across the country. More than two months after launch, requests were still coming in to speak to BillGuard about the Grey Charges Report and their web and iOS service.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

38

B E S T U S E O F T H E I N T E R N E T / D I G I TA L TO O L S B U S I N E S S

GOLD Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems for Protecting America with Raytheon’s Blimp-Borne Radar Talks of sequestration spread across the nation in early 2012. The scheduled slashing of government funds clouded the future of thousands of federally run initiatives, including Raytheon’s JLENS radar program—a critical defense asset needed by the military to protect against today’s ever-evolving threats. JLENS, short for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, is a system of two aerostats, or tethered airships, that float 10,000 feet in the air. The aerostats, each nearly as long as a football field, carry powerful radars that can look deep into enemy territory.

Declining defense budgets in 2011 forced the Department of Defense (DoD) to continue development of the JLENS system while curtailing production. However, in 2012, the DoD decided to take a “try-before-you-buy” approach with JLENS, consequently ordering the Army to have Raytheon finish building and testing JLENS. The system was scheduled to be deployed for its first field test in 2014. Upon completion of the multi-year evaluation, the DoD will decide whether to restart the production of Raytheon’s radar-carrying blimps. While Raytheon’s technical experts remained focused on continuing to develop the JLENS system, the communications team focused on supporting the DoD to ensure that the field evaluation would take place.

The team began by conducting extensive research to identify target audiences and their interests. Research indicated that the identified target audiences rely heavily on digital/social media as a primary source of information. As one trade press reporter mentioned, “The first place I go to look when I want to find something out is Google.” Thus, the team developed key creative integrated digital campaign tactics and a content-rich landing page that clearly articulated the threat faced by the military and JLENS’ unique value proposition. Digital news announcements aligned with the new messaging strategy, and digital press coverage amplified by linking to the JLENS landing page.

The communications team sent out tweets highlighting JLENS-related media coverage to Raytheon’s followers and initiated a digital advertising campaign that premiered on websites frequently visited by the target audiences. A compelling call-to-action directed readers to the media rich landing page. A visually appealing infographic and video brought the threat narrative to life, while sharing on Raytheon’s social channels increased traffic back to the landing page. New imagery, including never-before-seen photos of JLENS, was featured on Raytheon’s Facebook page and other owned-media channels. To top it off, a strategic search engine marketing campaign included Google keywords associated with the revised messaging. To increase visibility, all digital content—both earned and owned—was shared with the Raytheon Government Relations and DoD customer engagement teams, enabling those teams to send critical assets to constituents within the Executive and Legislative branches of government.

As a direct result of the tactics listed above, the JLENS landing page saw an increased Google Relevance score as well as the coveted #1 Google search result for relevant keywords. The JLENS landing page has received 25,000 visits since the start of this year, and digital advertising tailored to the D.C. area, resulting in +3.6M impressions. The campaign received extensive digital media coverage, including placements in Popular Mechanics and Politico.com. Perhaps more importantly, the campaign has sparked conversation among key military and government leaders and defense analysts and Reuters reported that the DoD decided to formally announce that JLENS would deploy to the Washington, DC region.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

39

B E S T U S E O F T H E I N T E R N E T / D I G I TA L TO O L S B U S I N E S S

S I LV E R

deep understanding not just of the content, but also the targets, their points of view and how they engage their audiences.

Allison + Partners for The Economist: Creating Value In The Land Of The Free

Because of the need to engage consumers directly with the original content, linking back within the other coverage was essential and a goal of 1/3 of placements was set. Real-time monitoring showed if a blogger/online media outlet referred to Economist content, but also assured a link to The Economist was included or added.

As free online content proliferates, convincing people that a digital subscription is a worthwhile investment is the significant challenge of any modern media business. Even for a renowned brand such as The Economist that provides in-depth and varied content and has a world-class journalistic reputation, consumers remain conditioned to believe online = free. Data revealed online subscription conversions occurred only after users had been exposed to The Economist content multiple times. Therefore the campaign’s primary objective was to increase online exposure and interaction with the actual content of The Economist—not just brand or reputation—in other credible online media.

High-profile placements were essential to reinforce the quality reputation The Economist enjoys. However, effort was deployed to preserve and expand link diversity through smaller, mid-tier blogs and digital outlets that focus on niche topic areas. There was also a strong focus on expanding media lists so content is reaching new audiences and fulfilling the goal of being in front of our target on multiple occasions. In addition, it was vital for The Economist to have deep relationships with digital and social influencers. They were included in signature events, culminating with the addition of a special blogger-only roundtable during the annual Buttonwood Gathering; a premier global economics event of the magazine, as well as The Economist’s noted Innovation Forum.

Allison+Partners crafted a six-month digital and social media campaign that would expose users to content by driving online traffic to The Economist, outpace competitors, increase search engine rank by increasing traffic and backlinks and create strong digital media relationships. As a journalistic thought leader, The Economist produces an array of substantive, controversial content that could be leveraged. However, the brand’s biggest asset quickly became its biggest challenge: How to sift through the vast amount of content in real time to best appeal to the right online voices and, ultimately, engage the best potential digital subscriber.

The program succeeded and, in the process, became a leading example of how to combine the power of search and social behavior analysis with deep audience understanding and a critical eye for reactions to global current events. The ability to see this total landscape in real time is a powerful current playbook for highly effective social and digital media relations.

To determine which pieces of content were of the greatest interest to media, Allison+Partners first analyzed existing site engagement, timeliness and search volume by topic. A key indicator was which pieces on The Economist website were already receiving numerous comments and recommendations through social media.

Secondly, they focused on content that aligned to the broader news cycle. Politics, for example, spiked as the 2012 US Presidential Elections dominated global news coverage. Finally, the team designed a system to monitor search volume in the four target topic areas (science and technology, politics, economics and business).

From that, they selected the content that met existing interests and search behaviors of ideal consumers.

Each week, Allison+Partners received the list of probable articles.

Using strategic filters and process, content was ranked according to its strongest appeal to media. When content went live, the team instantaneously delivered it to media and influencer targets. They summarized the content, why it should be of interest to each blogger and how it could be useful to their readers. This required a

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

40

B E S T I S S U E / C AU S E A D V O C AC Y C A M PA I G N

GOLD Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems for Protecting America with Raytheon’s Blimp-Borne Radar Talks of sequestration spread across the nation in early 2012. The scheduled slashing of government funds clouded the future of thousands of federally run initiatives, including Raytheon’s JLENS radar program—a critical defense asset needed by the military to protect against today’s ever-evolving threats. JLENS, short for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, is a system of two aerostats, or tethered airships, that float 10,000 feet in the air. The aerostats, each nearly as long as a football field, carry powerful radars that can look deep into enemy territory.

Declining defense budgets in 2011 forced the Department of Defense (DoD) to continue development of the JLENS system while curtailing production. However, in 2012, the DoD decided to take a “try-before-you-buy” approach with JLENS, consequently ordering the Army to have Raytheon finish building and testing JLENS. The system was scheduled to be deployed for its first field test in 2014. Upon completion of the multi-year evaluation, the DoD will decide whether to restart the production of Raytheon’s radar-carrying blimps. While Raytheon’s technical experts remained focused on continuing to develop the JLENS system, the communications team focused on supporting the DoD to ensure that the field evaluation would take place.

The team began by conducting extensive research to identify target audiences and their interests. Research indicated that the identified target audiences rely heavily on digital/social media as a primary source of information. As one trade press reporter mentioned, “The first place I go to look when I want to find something out is Google.” Thus, the team developed key creative integrated digital campaign tactics and a content-rich landing page that clearly articulated the threat faced by the military and JLENS’ unique value proposition. Digital news announcements aligned with the new messaging strategy, and digital press coverage amplified by linking to the JLENS landing page.

The communications team sent out tweets highlighting JLENS-related media coverage to Raytheon’s followers and initiated a digital advertising campaign that premiered on websites frequently visited by the target audiences. A compelling call-to-action directed readers to the media rich landing page. A visually appealing infographic and video brought the threat narrative to life, while sharing on Raytheon’s social channels increased traffic back to the landing page. New imagery, including never-before-seen photos of JLENS, was featured on Raytheon’s Facebook page and other owned-media channels. To top it off, a strategic search engine marketing campaign included Google keywords associated with the revised messaging. To increase visibility, all digital content—both earned and owned—was shared with the Raytheon Government Relations and DoD customer engagement teams, enabling those teams to send critical assets to constituents within the Executive and Legislative branches of government.

As a direct result of the tactics listed above, the JLENS landing page saw an increased Google Relevance score as well as the coveted #1 Google search result for relevant keywords. The JLENS landing page has received 25,000 visits since the start of this year, and digital advertising tailored to the D.C. area, resulting in +3.6M impressions. The campaign received extensive digital media coverage, including placements in Popular Mechanics and Politico.com. Perhaps more importantly, the campaign has sparked conversation among key military and government leaders and defense analysts and Reuters reported that the DoD decided to formally announce that JLENS would deploy to the Washington, DC region.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

41

B E S T I S S U E / C AU S E A D V O C AC Y C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R European Commission for A World You Like Public support is paramount to maintain ambitious climate policies.

And the European Commission’s research showed a rising concern over climate change among Europeans. But at the same time, many citizens perceived the issue as complex, distant, difficult and costly to address. And in a time of economic crisis, other more immediate concerns tended to prevail for most people. Thus, the Commission set out to rebrand climate action and show that the transition to a climate-friendly society is feasible, affordable and comes with important co-benefits for the individual. The fundamental idea of the campaign was to change the narrative away from melting glaciers and polar bears to focus the debate on the solutions that people and companies can apply in their everyday life—and to encourage citizens and organizations to act by creating a positive and engaging vision. Hence the slogan “A world you like.”

With a budget of EUR 2.3 million, the challenge of reaching a target audience defined as "urban Europeans aged 18-45" was enormous. Add to that a colossal amount of daily operations and other major communication projects. And put on top that three out of five staffers in the communication unit were on leave in the critical development phase of the campaign.

Rather than moral preaching, the team’s approach was to move focus to the solutions and convince the audience to act by demonstrating that the societal benefits achieved through climate action come with benefits for the individual—good shape, improved health, delicious food, low energy bills, etc. No power is stronger than the power of example, so they wanted to base the campaign on concrete cases where climate action and improved quality of life go hand in hand. At the same time, they wanted to go beyond the traditional iconography of wind turbines and power grids and find examples that are original, easily replicable and close to the everyday life of normal people.

The European Commission collected concrete cases from all 27 Member States and turned them into short films that constitute the key component of the content on the campaign website. The cases were important in order to ensure local anchoring of the campaign and also created a first batch of partners with a clear interest to promote the campaign on their own. They also proved very important for media relations as they could generate clippings both about the solution itself, the people behind the solution and the EU Commissioner's visit to the site.

Co-branding and forging alliances with trusted senders closer to the

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

target audience were important ways to spread the message. In total, more than 230 organizations joined the campaign as partners and contributed with concrete communication actions and events.

Under the heading “Visions for a world you like,” dialogue events were also organized in seven Member States supplemented by online chats and twitterviews with the Commissioner.

Finally, the team sought to make online engagement easy and attractive for the target audience. They invited citizens and stakeholders to help build “a world we like” online. By uploading their solutions, contributors participated in a competition to become Europe's best low-carbon project. Over 300 projects registered. Over 230,000 votes were cast. National winners were rewarded in five chosen focus countries and a European winner was celebrated at a major award show with more than 1000 guests hosted by a campaign partner. Again, this triggered significant additional coverage driven by the show host and the winners who published own press releases, news on their corporate platforms etc. The Web platform was supplemented by engagement on social media.

Among the more than 1200 press clippings, hits include coverage on BBC, Le Monde, Il Sole 24 Ore, EFE, Il Publico and national TV in several countries including Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Denmark.

BRONZE M Booth for Walking with the Wounded: South Pole Allied Challenge According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 6.5 percent of veterans were unemployed in September 2013. Additionally, over the last 10 years, more than 16,000 veterans have returned home with life-changing injuries, which often impact their ability to find work and transition into civilian life. Walking with the Wounded (WWTW) is a UK-based charity organization founded in 2010 that raises funds for re-education and re-training programs for wounded and sick military personnel. Their mission is to finance new qualifications, education and training programs, and aid with career transition, and this year it expanded its mission to include the US. Although there are several charities devoted to raising funds and awareness for wounded veteran issues, Walking with the Wounded goes one step further by acting as a beacon of hope and inspiring wounded personnel to push past what they believe is possible, through their inspirational expeditions.

42

B E S T I S S U E / C AU S E A D V O C AC Y C A M PA I G N The South Pole Allied Challenge marks WWTW’s third annual expedition, but for the first time, includes wounded veterans from the UK’s allied countries—the US, Canada and Australia. Teams of wounded veterans made their trek to the South Pole, accompanied

by His Royal Highness and patron of WWTW, Prince Harry. The trek took place from November 30th – December 13th, 2013 but our outreach began in May 2013 in order to garner interest in this expedition.

The US Team is comprised of four wounded veterans (Ivan Castro, Therese Frentz, Margaux Mange and Mark Wise), whose wounds vary from amputations, burns and blindness, to invisible injuries such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Bell’s Palsy.

The objective is to demonstrate the resilience and fortitude of the wounded by taking on extreme treks that push the limits and expectations of what our wounded service members are capable of achieving.

It was up to M Booth to raise the national and international profile of Walking with the Wounded and its mission, raise awareness about veteran issues and position Walking with the Wounded as a leader of wounded veteran issues advocacy. To achieve success, messaging and communications activities focused on: Statistics regarding wounded servicemen; what the funds raised by Walking with the Wounded help to achieve; delivering a message not of despair, but of hope and inspiration; and shedding light on invisible injuries, which are often overlooked.

The PR team assisted Walking with the Wounded in developing key messaging and identifying and developing media events and opportunities. M Booth developed a national press release announcing the inclusion of US veterans in the charity’s South Pole expedition and a national press release announcing the addition of “True Blood” actor, Alexander Skarsgard, to the US Team. They also reached out to local and national broadcast producers, and pitched features on the US Team Members and reached out to local and national military/veteran affairs reporters and pitched feature profiles on the US Team Members.

All in all, the campaign effort secured top-tier print coverage with People Magazine, US Weekly and USA Today, as well as a major Associated Press feature on the US Team’s training in Telluride Colorado, which was picked up by more than 40 outlets. The team also secured a 5.5 minute US Team profile with “CBS This Morning” and secured top-tier online coverage with The New York Times at War Blog, People.com, E! Online, US Weekly, USA Today, The Miami Herald, The Denver Post, Airforce Times and Military Times. Reach totaled more than 89.5 million people through campaign, in advance of the expedition launch.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

43

BEST USE OF THE INTERNET – CONSUMER

GOLD Hilton Worldwide for Hilton Hotels & Resorts Cures Vacationitis In today’s fast-paced work environment, many working professionals neglect the time they need to unplug and relax. The traditional work week and typical annual or seasonal vacations have evolved as people are working more than ever before. Hilton Hotels & Resorts recognized an opportunity to connect with overworked professionals by engaging them with fun content and playful workforce humor while growing leisure hotel stays.

As working professionals are often most familiar with Hilton through business travel, the brand saw an opportunity to focus on leisure travel and conceived “Hilton Urgent Vacation Care Center.” The interactive website aims to drive incremental leisure travel revenue and build brand awareness through a humorous campaign alerting consumers to a global outbreak of “Vacationitis,” a fictitious disease affecting overstressed workers around the world incapable of taking long- or short-term breaks. The Vacationitis campaign was a relevant way to introduce Hilton as a champion of breaks and vacations to the brand’s core demographic.

Hilton Urgent Vacation Care Center launched in January 2013 to support leisure travel to Hilton Hotels & Resorts properties among a key audience of working professionals in the U.S., U.K. and Latin America. This group is often aware of Hilton through business travel and Hilton aimed to increase their awareness of the brand’s leisure offerings by engaging them with fun content. The PR team also sought to build enrollment to the HiltonVIP Newsletter, drive traffic to hilton.com, strengthen brand social engagement and support wider brand efforts for leisure packages and promotions and enable each of the brand’s properties to promote tactical revenue-generating offers.

The campaign required design and launch of a new hilton.com website, www.vacationcarecenter.hilton.com, and leveraged existing Hilton social media platforms and customer touch points. The key message of this campaign was to encourage working professionals to find time to take breaks and vacations while engaging them with humorous content that is relatable to their daily work tasks as well as to highlight Hilton as a champion of leisure destinations.

The Vacationitis campaign aimed to target working professionals as Hilton looked to convert business travelers to leisure guests to help make vacations a priority and to maximize the value of each guest’s personal time. This included individuals who are success driven, hightech efficient and young professionals.

Hilton conducted a survey of 2,000 U.K. residents on their professional and vacation habits and paired it with archived research of previous Hilton leisure campaigns. From the findings, Hilton Urgent Vacation Care Center was developed—an interactive website that features a quiz and rates consumers need for a break and provides personalized vacation prescriptions. The site was supported by a partnership with satire news organization, The Onion, a social media campaign and consumer messaging through in-room video, Hilton VIP Newsletter and Hilton HHonors Monthly Statement. The campaign also hinged on a consumer sweepstakes, a media exclusive in The New York Times and consumer activations—a pop-up stunt in London and a Vacation Care Center Mobile Unit used for events.

Messages across consumer and media platforms captured the attention of the target audience. From January 14, 2013, through July 31, 2013, Hilton Urgent Vacation Care Center saw tens of thousands of site visits, completed quizzes, entrants to the sweepstakes, visits to hilton.com from the site and HiltonVIP Newsletter sign ups at the Hilton Channels. Vacationitis content was the most actioned item in all HiltonVIP editions of 2013, and the campaign played a key role in helping Hilton reach 1 million Facebook likes. The effort also garnered 274,804,109 impressions and more than 100 media placements in 22 countries.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

44

BEST USE OF THE INTERNET – CONSUMER

S I LV E R Zapwater Communications for Perfect Circle: A Call for Everlasting Love In March 2012, Jewelers Mutual Insurance Company, the only insurer that specializes exclusively in protecting jewelry and jewelry businesses in North America, launched Perfect Circle® Jewelry Insurance, a brand dedicated to personal jewelry protection. With the brand still in its infancy, there was a huge opportunity to educate newly engaged and married couples on the unique benefits of a personal jewelry insurance policy, while leveraging the trusted leadership and 100 Year Anniversary of Jewelers Mutual. Jewelers Mutual hired Zapwater Communications to do just that via a strategic communications campaign.

The “Everlasting Love” contest was born as the cornerstone of the campaign. People were encouraged to share their stories of everlasting love at PerfectCircleInsurance.com/EverlastingLove for a chance to win $11,000 Erica Courtney® platinum diamond earrings. Zapwater worked with Jewelers Mutual to secure Erica Courtney as a national jeweler partner and directed creative development and content on the contest microsite, while directing users back to www.PerfectCircleInsurance.com following successful entry where they could learn more about personal jewelry insurance and apply for a free estimate.

Zapwater partnered with nationally renowned celebrity wedding planner Mindy Weiss to offer authentic, third-party credibility and encourage brides to include personal jewelry insurance on their wedding checklist, while supporting jewelry insurance as a key trend for the 2013 wedding season. From the contest launch blitz to campaign rollout, Zapwater also leveraged multiple channels—paid, earned and owned—to tell a cohesive and powerful story and drive maximum traffic to the website.

contest rounded out the launch media efforts and was picked up on 355 outlets. Following launch-day events, the six-week promotion further integrated a paid, owned and earned media rollout spanning bridal media and wedding blogger partnerships, a radio promotion and Facebook ads to drive awareness for the Everlasting Love contest. Five top wedding bloggers, reaching more than 500,000 unique visitors per month, encouraged readers to enter the contest.

Zapwater also provided contest-related content on key bridal media channels and utilized a previously purchased NAPS mat release package from Jewelers Mutual to draft content promoting the contest entry period and benefits of a personal jewelry insurance policy for post-entry period education. The release generated 2,084 print and online stories. Zapwater also renegotiated Jewelers Mutual’s annual Clear Channel promotion and reached 634,000 listeners during the entry period. While Mindy taped a “2013 Wedding Trends” segment prior to the campaign launch, the segment aired online following the contest winner announcement.

Mindy positioned jewelry insurance as her No. 1 trend and encouraged viewers to visit PerfectCircleInsurance.com for more information. The segment alone reached 12 million viewers.

The contest generated 289 qualified entries, 1,658 new users or “hopeful” policy holders and drove more than 20,000 users to the contest website. Targeted social content, engagement and digital ad buys contributed to a 12.9% increase in Facebook “likes” and a 49.2% increase in Twitter followers over the six-week contest period.

From a media perspective, the campaign secured more than 40 unique, earned media placements and 55 million media impressions.

The “Everlasting Love” contest launched in New York City via a coast-to-coast media and digital blitz with Mindy Weiss in tow, who executed a five-hour satellite media tour, live Facebook chat and a “2013 Wedding Trends” media luncheon attended by 18 top bridal, travel and lifestyle media. Timed to the countdown to the 2013 wedding season and just prior to the two busiest wedding months, Mindy revealed her last-minute wedding checklist and top three tips to make sure the big day would go as smoothly as possible. By incorporating jewelry insurance as a “must do” as part of the wedding countdown to ensure the symbol of a couple’s love is fully protected, Mindy invited viewers to enter the Everlasting Love contest for a chance to win..

The campaign was a smash hit. A press release announcing the

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

45

B E S T N OT- F O R - P RO F I T / A S S O C I AT I O N / G OV E R N M E N T C A M PA I G N

GOLD US Holocaust Memorial Museum for 20th Anniversary National Tour & Tribute to Holocaust Survivors and World War II Veterans As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum completed its second decade, it faced a very different world than it did on the day the Museum opened in April 1993. At a time when the world faces rising Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism, hate and continued genocide, the Museum is losing its most powerful teachers—Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans. The institution was at a critical turning point. Never was there a more important time to honor survivors and veterans, to ensure the permanence of Holocaust memory, to raise awareness of the Museum and its work, and to inspire a new generation of supporters to carry the Holocaust’s powerful lessons forward.

Working with PR partner Edelman and event planning partner AgencyEA, the Museum created a multi-faceted, multi-channel awareness campaign that ensured its 20th anniversary would be much more than a single moment in time. Anchored by a two-day National Tribute in Washington, DC, and featuring a powerful four-city national tour, the campaign married the Museum’s historical roots with powerful relevance for the future. All of this was done with the goal of inspiring audiences, both current and new, to engage with the Museum and to commit to the promise of “Never Again.”

The Museum’s concept for the cornerstone of the 20th anniversary was a four-city national and two-day national tribute in Washington, D.C. The tour and tribute were designed to take the Museum’s “daily work”—educational programming, collections, archiving, research and resources—to their core communities to highlight the range and breadth of the Museum’s work, and engage individuals on both a local and a national level. An engaging, actionable and inspiring platform was needed. The Museum teaches that evil alone did not cause the Holocaust—that indifference has consequences and individual actions can shape the future. Drawing on that and from their motto—What You Do Matters—the Museum shaped a 20th platform: “Never Again. What You Do Matters.”

To raise the Museum’s visibility in key markets and to ensure that those who could not travel to Washington, D.C. for the national tribute could be part of the 20th, the national tour took place in the four cities with the highest survivor populations—Boca Raton, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago—and featured a full day of free, educational programming. In April, on the Museum’s anniversary, a two-day National Tribute in D.C. served as a capstone. Additional highlights included an ad campaign that leveraged big, thought-provoking questions, to inspire audience engagement, launched with a New York Times profile piece, a first for the institution; an online hub featuring 20 actions that individuals could take to carry the lessons of the Holocaust forward; securing President Bill Clinton and Elie Wiesel, both of whom were at the opening in 1993, to participate in the National Tribute ceremony in D.C.; a robust media engagement program resulting in local media saturation and national coverage; day-of programs, from speakers and topics to graphic design and AV, for each event; and video vignettes for each tour and tribute with support of Blue State Digital.

The campaign was successful in raising awareness of the Museum and its educational outreach and genocide prevention. The Museum secured 654 print and broadcast media placements, including 56 pieces locally in Florida, 68 in Los Angeles, 34 in New York and 41 in Chicago. The coverage carried the Museum’s key messages about the need to pass the torch to a new generation and ensure the ongoing relevance of the Museum’s work. The Museum engaged nearly 35,500 new individuals who have taken almost 116,000 “actions” on the Museum’s website. The Museum also evaluated 207 new collections of Holocaust-era artifacts for donation to the Museum while on the tour and raised more than $70 million since launching the 20th Anniversary marketing campaign. In addition, over 10,550 people attended the national tour and tribute events, where the Museum honored more than 2,100 survivors and veterans across the country.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

46

B E S T N OT- F O R - P RO F I T / A S S O C I AT I O N / G OV E R N M E N T C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R European Commission for A World You Like Public support is paramount to maintain ambitious climate policies.

And the European Commission’s research showed a rising concern over climate change among Europeans. But at the same time, many citizens perceived the issue as complex, distant, difficult and costly to address. And in a time of economic crisis, other more immediate concerns tended to prevail for most people. Thus, the Commission set out to rebrand climate action and show that the transition to a climate-friendly society is feasible, affordable and comes with important co-benefits for the individual. The fundamental idea of the campaign was to change the narrative away from melting glaciers and polar bears to focus the debate on the solutions that people and companies can apply in their everyday life—and to encourage citizens and organizations to act by creating a positive and engaging vision. Hence the slogan “A world you like.”

With a budget of EUR 2.3 million, the challenge of reaching a target audience defined as "urban Europeans aged 18-45" was enormous. Add to that a colossal amount of daily operations and other major communication projects. And put on top that three out of five staffers in the communication unit were on leave in the critical development phase of the campaign.

Rather than moral preaching, the team’s approach was to move focus to the solutions and convince the audience to act by demonstrating that the societal benefits achieved through climate action come with benefits for the individual—good shape, improved health, delicious food, low energy bills, etc. No power is stronger than the power of example, so they wanted to base the campaign on concrete cases where climate action and improved quality of life go hand in hand. At the same time, they wanted to go beyond the traditional iconography of wind turbines and power grids and find examples that are original, easily replicable and close to the everyday life of normal people.

The European Commission collected concrete cases from all 27 Member States and turned them into short films that constitute the key component of the content on the campaign website. The cases were important in order to ensure local anchoring of the campaign and also created a first batch of partners with a clear interest to promote the campaign on their own. They also proved very important for media relations as they could generate clippings both about the solution itself, the people behind the solution and the EU Commissioner's visit to the site.

target audience were important ways to spread the message. In total, more than 230 organizations joined the campaign as partners and contributed with concrete communication actions and events.

Under the heading “Visions for a world you like,” dialogue events were also organized in seven Member States supplemented by online chats and twitterviews with the Commissioner.

Finally, the team sought to make online engagement easy and attractive for the target audience. They invited citizens and stakeholders to help build “a world we like” online. By uploading their solutions, contributors participated in a competition to become Europe's best low-carbon project. Over 300 projects registered. Over 230,000 votes were cast. National winners were rewarded in five chosen focus countries and a European winner was celebrated at a major award show with more than 1000 guests hosted by a campaign partner. Again, this triggered significant additional coverage driven by the show host and the winners who published own press releases, news on their corporate platforms etc. The Web platform was supplemented by engagement on social media.

Among the more than 1200 press clippings, hits include coverage on BBC, Le Monde, Il Sole 24 Ore, EFE, Il Publico and national TV in several countries including Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Denmark.

BRONZE Development Counsellors International for Chattanooga Rights Iron Man's Wrongs The city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, has undergone massive transformation in recent decades. Just 45 years ago, Chattanooga was a fading foundry town that relied heavily on the pollution-heavy manufacturing and smokestack industries, prompting Walter Cronkite to declare Chattanooga America’s dirtiest city on the “CBS Evening News.” Chattanooga’s leaders, including those at Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, realized they needed to drastically change the city’s economic ecosystem and infrastructure in order to revitalize. After much work, Chattanooga today is a worldclass mid-sized city.

Part of Chattanooga’s transformation included the development of the country’s first city-wide gigabit (“gig”) fiber network. Since the gig network was deployed in 2010, Chattanooga has become the nation’s city with the highest concentration of gigabit users, while all residents receive minimum Internet speeds of 100 megabits per

Co-branding and forging alliances with trusted senders closer to the

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

47

B E S T N OT- F O R - P RO F I T / A S S O C I AT I O N / G OV E R N M E N T C A M PA I G N second (the average American’s Internet speed is 5 megabits per second, making Chattanooga’s Internet up to 200 times the national average).

On May 3, 2013 the highly anticipated “Iron Man 3” movie opened in theaters nationwide. The third installment of the Iron Man franchise raked in nearly $175 million during its first weekend in theaters and was watched by approximately 48 million Americans, making it the second-highest opening weekend for a film of all time. Prior to the movie’s release, Chattanoogans were excited to learn that their city would be making a cameo appearance. For many in Chattanooga that excitement turned to concern when they saw the film. While Chattanooga’s appearance in the movie is brief—about five minutes or so—the scene portrays Chattanooga as a small, backwater town and a place where the movie’s main character, Tony Stark, an ingenious engineer, struggles with slow Internet service.

Given the ironic juxtaposition between the movie Chattanooga and the real Chattanooga, the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce sought a creative way to set the record straight. Specifically, they sought to clarify, through earned media placements, that the movie Chattanooga is not the real Chattanooga; educate reporters, moviegoers and those unfamiliar with the city on Chattanooga’s gig network; reinforce the fact that Chattanooga was the first city to implement a city-wide gig network; and position Chattanooga as a world-class mid-size city.

First, the PR team identified false representations of Chattanooga in “Iron Man 3.” They then developed a concise, three-sentence email pitch asking moviegoers to keep an eye out for “inaccurate depictions” of Chattanooga and included fun “Fact vs. Fiction” factoids. Within a week following “Iron Man 3’s” release, they pitched major national tech, trade and entertainment reporters.

The PR pros secured same-day media coverage in Business Insider, PC Mag, CNET, San Francisco Chronicle, Tech News Daily and Muckrack. They also secured coverage in Forbes, Yahoo! Movie Talk, Mother Nature Network and Chattanooga Times Free Press. Within one day, these and the aforementioned articles had been picked, and the story had gone viral with more than 200 outlets having published mentioned, mentioned or shared on social channels a variant of the story. The team received an invitation from Wired.com for Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce spokesperson to write a post on the topic on its “Innovation Insights” blog. The post also ran within the week after “Iron Man 3” premiered. Atlantic Cities posted a praising article day-of, titled “Genius ‘Iron Man 3’ PR Tie-In of the Day: Chattanooga Wants to Remind You Its Internet is Awesome.” Overall, the effort secured 54,581,040 impressions from original reporting, as well as pickup from more than 200 outlets.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

48

BEST NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH – BUSINESS

GOLD Lippe Taylor for FaceCake Virtually Makes Over the Media FaceCake Marketing Technologies is a pioneer in personalized interactive marketing and virtual “try-on” technologies that is bridging the gap between the virtual world and brick-and-mortar stores. Their anchor technology, Swivel, is a 3D virtual dressing room allowing customers to view clothing and accessories on their own image in real-time. The challenge for Lippe Taylor was to position FaceCake Marketing Technologies as a leader in personalized interactive marketing technology by introducing their exciting new signature platform, Swivel and Swivel Close-Up, a virtual make-up and accessories try-on “mirror.” Although the technology was innovative and exciting, Swivel was new for 2013 and only available for consumers to try for a limited time in select retailers and during trade shows. Therefore, the team was tasked with finding creative ways to build awareness and buzz amongst consumers, who could not try the technology for themselves, and also help the brand gain interest from possible retail partners.

As part of the PR team’s objective to launch FaceCake as a major player in the technology space and add creditability to the claim that Swivel was a “one of a kind” technology, they knew they had to win the hearts and minds of key influencers and media by allowing them to try out the technology first-hand. So, they made sure to launch Swivel at the first big technology event of the year—CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in January 2013. Lippe Taylor took advantage of their presence and made appointments with media to meet with them in their hotel room or even in the hotel lobby off-site. As a result of its presence at CES, the team was able to begin a relationship with key technology guru and media maven Katie Linendoll—which paid off in a big way with a segment on the “Today” show. They also made sure FaceCake had a memorable presence at other events where possible retail partners and trade press would be present including NRF (National Retail Federation) and AdTech.

To build demand and excitement around Swivel and demonstrate how easy the technology is to use, Lippe Taylor leveraged “Clueless,” the movie, to win the hearts and minds of fashionistas, millennials and chick-flick lovers everywhere. Through a pitch to fashion and consumer media, they spread the word about how the iconic “Clueless Closet”—a computer with a database of all of Alicia Silverstone’s character’s clothing that puts together outfits for her and projected them onto an image of her body in the film—had come to life. They then partnered with three designers at Austin Fashion Week to allow attendees to virtually try on runway looks right after the show. Finally, Lippe Taylor made sure the brand was present at key industry events like the National Retail Federation’s annual conference (NRF) and the top event where advertisers and technology collide, AdTech. At NRF, they leveraged FaceCake’s partnership with Microsoft, and after the conference, they created pitches targeted to key business media around how FaceCake was a small business with big ideas and the ability to change the retail landscape.

The PR team’s approach to media outreach resulted in over 371 million media impressions from January 1, 2013 to December 14, 2013.

The appearance at CES and resulting relationship with technology guru Katie Linendoll, resulted in a placement on the “Today” show where FaceCake’s Swivel virtually made over the anchors live during the show garnering over 14.7 million impressions. By leveraging relationships with producers at one of the top entertainment shows, “E! News,” fashion contacts at the Style Network and business producers at PBS’s “Nightly Business Report,” Lippe Taylor reached an additional 1.3 million viewers. With 18 placements in top technology media including Mashable and AOL Tech, FaceCake’s cache as a technology innovator was seen by almost 110 million people and placements on WSJ.com, Forbes.com and “MarketWatch” brought FaceCake to the forefront of the marketing world. Other results included the media blitz among top consumer, lifestyle and fashion outlets including The Huffington Post Style Section, Yahoo! News, Refinery29.com and USAToday.com. Finally, the team leveraged our relationships with “Good Morning America” and placed FaceCake’s Swivel and Swivel CloseUp in their own standalone segment with FaceCake’s CEO, Linda Smith, about the futuristic Clueless closet, which brought the technology into another 4 million living rooms and garnered an additional 34 million impressions.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

49

BEST NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH – BUSINESS

S I LV E R SAP for Global Launch of SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA Historically, SAP has always been known as an enterprise applications company and most notably for offering customers large ERP (enterprise resource planning) software systems. Starting in 2010, SAP began a transformation to move beyond being just an ERP vendor in order to stay competitive and ultimately forge into new markets. The cornerstone of the transformation was for SAP to build a new in-memory database platform, SAP HANA. SAP HANA put SAP squarely into the database market and opened up many opportunities for SAP to compete where it never had before. SAP HANA has helped changed the face of SAP. In early January 2013, SAP was ready to make a bold statement to the market by announcing it was ready to run its flagship ERP Business Suite on its real-time, in-memory platform, SAP HANA. The announcement signified an important move for SAP, mixing traditional business with a new and innovative platform and providing a new convergence point for all of its technologies. Cited

by Chris Kanaracus of IDG, the announcement stood “to open new frontiers of competition with the likes of Oracle, IBM and Microsoft.”

The SAP communication team explored ways to tell the story with incredible impact beyond just a product announcement. They needed to communicate to the market that these new innovations were ready for prime time, that they were no longer just an applications company and that they were ready to take on the biggest vendors in the industry in a deeply entrenched database market. The January announcement served as the culmination of a company transformation and most importantly a confident message to Fortune 500 customers that they could successfully move their mission critical SAP applications onto the SAP HANA platform.

Leading up to January 10, 2013, SAP conducted media outreach to ensure positive global coverage. Three prominent cities were selected to host live concurring events— Palo Alto, New York and Frankfurt—and were connected via satellite.

While a large number of influencers attended the events in person, SAP also made the event accessible via Webcast for non-local journalists to ensure they had access to the news and could post once the embargo lifted.

Media outreach had to be clearly defined and coordinated both internally and with external agency support to expand beyond traditional friendlies and demonstrate the business importance. A strategic embargo was implemented that gave attending press a

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

sneak peek of the news to provide incentive for day-of coverage.

Advertising of the event was restricted until the launch date to ensure confirmed attendance. The launch was a massive coordination across regions and all lines of the company.

Top executives were in all three cities to host each event to tailor the in-person experience and select stakeholders, partners, press and analysts were invited to attend to hear the story of the Business Suite on SAP HANA. The PR team developed a global executive presentation via live video streaming and coordinated schedules for 32 executives across all three locations, including arranging one-on-one briefings post event.

Total in-person attendance across all geographies reached 235. The U.S. had about 100 top-tier journalists, analysts and influencers in attendance, and the European event in Frankfurt equally saw strong attendance. A day-of comprehensive online and social platform was also in effect to encourage participation via SAP’s social channels— live streaming video, social feeds, Twitter, viewable via Facebook.

The numbers proved to be astounding; more than 5,000 attendees watched the event via webcast and close to 38,000 tweets posted, resulting in a reach of nearly 16 million. Additionally, #SAPonHANA became the number-one trending topic on Twitter in the U.S. at the time of the event.

SAP secured a total of 173 meetings with 193 attendees globally.

In addition to the main event, 43 press, analysts and mentors attended dinners in New York and Palo Alto in support of the announcement. Moreover, there was a surge in positive coverage with both European and North American press with more than 140 unique articles posting globally within the first week including a live CNBC broadcast from the Palo Alto event with Jon Fortt interviewing SAP chairman and co-founder Hasso Plattner.

BRONZE MasterCard for Mastering Mobile World Congress with MasterPass According to Forrester Research, more than two-thirds of respondents planned to use mobile phones for holiday shopping last year—an indication that mobile commerce adoption was on the rise. Yet, another study showed only 51 percent of U.S. consumers had awareness and understanding of a major mCommerce tool: Digital wallets. Further, the market was already saturated with competitive digital wallet solutions from mobile providers and payment companies. This was the environment MasterCard faced as it prepared to launch MasterPass—its digital wallet solution that provides consumers, merchants, and issuers with a simpler, faster, and safer shopping experience.

50

BEST NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH – BUSINESS The challenge was considerable: MasterCard needed to break through the competitive digital wallet noise and combat low consumer interest. To do this, MasterCard looked for a moment in time that could support the launch and attract potential retailers to sign on, while establishing the company as an innovator and thought leader on the topic. Enter Mobile World Congress (MWC), the largest annual mobile event, and one that MasterCard had attended previously. In years past, other payments companies had dominated the conversation within their industry; however in 2013, buoyed by the news of MasterPass, MasterCard was determined to dominate the crowded mobile payments dialogue.

the shopping experience evolution dialogue at MWC, achieving 60 percent of the share of traditional media and press release pick-up coverage during the conference. Equally as important was establishing MasterCard as a technology innovator. Although many still view MasterCard primarily as a payments company, the team was able to engage with reporters from top tech blogs including Gizmodo, TechCrunch, CNET, The Verge, and ComputerWorld, which featured MasterPass prominently in MWC coverage.

With its exhibitor and attendee list including leading companies across the mobile ecosystem, business and technology press, and mobile influencers, MWC was the perfect venue to unveil MasterPass to build broad awareness and educate target audiences. It also provided the opportunity to reinforce MasterCard’s position as a leading technology company. The team devised a strategy to own the shopping experience transformation discussion at MWC through hands-on exhibitions and experiences, traditional and social/digital media, and influencer and consumer engagement. Additionally, the company planned to sponsor a daylong symposium including panel discussions featuring both MasterCard executives and mobile partners.

The goal for MasterCard’s presence at MWC was business based: secure new retailers to begin accepting MasterPass by targeting them directly and through media and third-party influencers, and educate consumers about the benefits to help increase consideration and usage. It also sought to provide financial institution partners a source for digital payments.

MasterCard’s presence at MWC and launch of MasterPass exceeded the company’s goals. The venue provided an unparalleled opportunity for visibility of MasterPass and ultimately garnered significant business and technology coverage. Further, MasterCard was able to “own” the conference by achieving a higher share of voice than its competitors. In addition, 20,000 merchants— including J. Crew, LivingSocial, American Airlines, and Rakuten—have signed on to MasterPass since the launch at Mobile World Congress.

MasterCard’s biggest goal was to secure new partners, and it has signed on more than 20,000 merchants for MasterPass. In the U.S., the number of issuers signed on to support MasterPass increased tenfold in 2013. The campaign garnered nearly 1,500 print, broadcast and online placements around the world—reaching an audience of nearly 175 million in the U.S. This included CNBC live on the floor of the show guided by a MasterCard executive and feature stories in The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Wired, Gizmodo, and Financial Times. The campaign also attracted more than 3,000 page views of MasterPass content on MasterCard’s newsroom and more than 10,000 views on the MasterPass animation posted to YouTube. MasterCard succeeded in dominating

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

51

BEST NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH – CONSUMER

GOLD Hunter Public Relations and Hasbro for Monopoly “Save Your Token” Campaign As the home of the MONOPOLY brand, the world’s favorite family gaming brand, Hasbro, Inc. is continuously tasked with finding ways to make the game relevant to today's consumer. While the brand enjoys a rich history dating back to the 1930s, high global brand awareness, a Facebook community of more than 11 million fans, and successful digital versions of the game, Hasbro saw an opportunity to reignite the Monopoly brand and elevate it within media and pop culture.

In 2013, to drive consumer engagement with the brand and help create an incentive to buy the classic MONOPOLY game, Hasbro launched a worldwide fan vote on Facebook, inviting fans to make a permanent change to the game. The MONOPOLY “Save Your Token” campaign asked consumers to vote to save their favorite token from being removed from the game—top hat, Scottie dog, wheelbarrow, iron, battleship, shoe, racecar and thimble. They would also vote for one new token—diamond ring, robot, cat, guitar and helicopter—they'd like to see added in. The classic token to receive the least votes would be retired forever, and the new token to receive the most would replace the ousted game piece.

The Hunter PR team was tasked with developing/executing a plan to support this worldwide vote to generate excitement and interest in the game. PR sought to tap into consumers’ emotional attachment to the classic eight tokens in order to drive interest in the vote across broadcast, print, online and social media.

Knowing that USA Today and Mashable articles often lead to broader news coverage, Hunter PR secured exclusive stories with both to launch the vote on January 9, 2013. USA Today’s coverage included a front-page masthead takeover, and LIFE section front-page feature.

Tweets by both outlets generated significant social buzz. To encourage campaigning for individual tokens, media contacts were given propaganda-style posters and b-roll, images, token history, and information about the MONOPOLY Golden Token Edition game.

The team determined the key to sustaining media and social media attention during the month-long vote was to focus on the individual tokens. They conducted wide-scale outreach to targeted companies and individuals such as Nine West, Duracell and the US National Champion, to support their favorite.

Finally, after weeks of voting, the world chose the cat to replace the iron token in the game. Hunter PR arranged for an exclusive reveal of the winning token on NBC’s “Today,” two days before Toy Fair in New York. Following “Today’s” reveal, the AP released an embargoed story and the team began widespread pitching. Six months after the reveal, the cat was introduced on store shelves in the classic MONOPOLY game. To celebrate, Hunter PR created a “thank you” mailer to send to media who covered the vote in January/February.

When all was said and done, Hunter PR scored more than 2.2 billion total media impressions in the US, garnered from nearly 5,000 placements. Exclusives were placed with USA Today, NBC’s “Today,” Mashable.com, and the story was featured on the front page of USA Today twice, along with many more print, broadcast and online media wins. More than 20 different companies/organizations campaigned on behalf of a token, and beginning in August 2013, all games of MONOPOLY sold around the world began featuring the cat token, as selected by fans following the widely publicized MONOPOLY “Save Your Token” campaign. As reported by Hasbro, MONOPOLY board game sales in the U.S. were up in the first nine months of the year. The first run of the MONOPOLY Golden Token Edition game at Target sold out.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

52

BEST NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH – CONSUMER

S I LV E R Citizen Relations and Princess Cruises for Princess Cruises Makes its UK-based Royal Princess Debut/Christening a Royal Affair Stateside In 2013, Princess Cruises launched its newest and most innovative ship to date, Royal Princess. In preparation for her christening/naming ceremony, the brand engaged Citizen Relations to execute a two-pronged approach to secure mass media awareness for Princess Cruises and Royal Princess in the U.S. and Canada. The first media pulse took place in April, where it was announced worldwide that the Duchess of Cambridge would serve as the ship’s Godmother at the christening. On June 13, the Duchess officially named Royal Princess and led the longtime maritime tradition of breaking a champagne bottle on the bow of the ship. While the world’s media watched the Duchess perform one of her last Royal duties before going on maternity leave, Citizen Relations employed a series of strategic activities to ensure Princess Cruises and Royal Princess received positive inclusion in resulting coverage.

On April 9, Citizen aggressively pitched that The Duchess would christen the Royal Princess in late spring. The team leveraged a Palace-approved press release, images and brand spokesperson quote to secure positive and generous U.S. coverage for the brand.

As part of a global effort to secure coverage for Princess Cruises, Citizen Relations developed and executed a media strategy to promote the June 13 Royal Princess Naming Ceremony. Outreach to targeted U.S. and Canadian media outlets incorporated all Palaceand Princess Cruises-approved media assets, as well as custom pitches and special offers. Citizen pitched and coordinated ceremony attendance for correspondents from People, Us Weekly and OK! Magazine. The Southampton media experience including a pre-event VIP tour of the ship, participation in the press sailing, invitation to the Gala, attendance at the ceremony, and inclusion in the global press pit.

The days leading up to the event, the Citizen team prepped key media for the upcoming availability of real-time event assets from the ceremony, including livestream video, press release and fact sheet, b-roll and still images of the ceremony and The Duchess’ tour and Princess Cruises spokesperson interviews. To reach local media in key cruising markets and national targets not traveling to Southampton, Citizen developed and coordinated delivery of custom “Royal Princess Christening-in-a-Box” media kits, featuring Princess Cruises-branded champagne flutes, Moet Imperial champagne, a

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

tiara and press materials.

The extraordinary effort resulted in 1,673,965,772 total program impressions and 948 total program placements. The Godmother announcement scored 114 placements, and the naming ceremony garnered 253 placements. The Royal Princess hashtag generated 16,300,000 impressions. Finally, Citizen helped win feature segments on No. 1 and No. 2 morning shows—“Good Morning America” and “Today Show”—as well as coverage in every weekly celebrity publication following the event.

BRONZE Zapwater Communications for Everpurse: Kickstarter to Fashion Week Star Dubbed “the bag as powerful as you are,” Everpurse merges technology and fashion into an innovative women’s accessory. Each Everpurse clutch is equipped with a special pocket that charges your smartphone on the go. Created by husband and wife duo, Liz and Dan Salcedo, Everpurse launched on Kickstarter in the fall of 2012 and quickly surpassed its initial fundraising goal of $100,000 in just one week. After reaching their goal on Kickstarter, media inquiries began flooding Liz’s and Dan’s inboxes. Like other entrepreneurs and start-ups, they faced an immense challenge to take a great product and make it a both commercial and media success. In April 2013, Everpurse retained Zapwater Communications to manage the public relations around their product’s primary launch and consumer roll out. Everpurse understood that the launch could make or break their business, and they only had one chance to make a great first impression.

Faced with a limited budget and number of product samples, Everpurse turned to Zapwater Communications for help. Zapwater was tasked with executing a strategic public relations campaign that would garner significant national media exposure, drive consumer awareness, boost industry credibility and build loyalty among the fashion and tech elite.

To stand out in the highly competitive market, Zapwater touted the innovative concept and mass appeal of the product through a mix of traditional pitching, formal press releases and media sampling.

Top-tier media, editors and high-profile bloggers began to quickly take notice. National media including CNN, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, E! News, Huffington Post, Forbes, Mashable, NYLON Magazine, USA Today and Telemundo all praised the uniqueness of the product and their excitement for its availability.

53

BEST NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH – CONSUMER With buzz quickly building, Zapwater convinced the brand to make a high-profile press visit to New York in time for long-lead holiday gift guide consideration. While in Manhattan, the team met with more than ten top-tier media outlets and went on to receive additional features in publications like Glamour, Daily Candy National and Star Magazine. Everpurse would also receive future placement in the holiday gift guides for Ok! Magazine, American Airline’s Celebrated Living and Time Magazine as a direct result from the national media trip orchestrated by Zapwater. In fact, the bags were receiving so much attention and demand that shipments were delayed a month in order for production supply to keep up. Zapwater then worked in tandem with the brand using social media as the preferred channel to manage consumer feedback and expectations directly.

After not one but two appearances on “The Today Show,” Katie Couric’s producer felt that Everpurse was the perfect candidate to feature as one of Katie Couric’s Mothers of Invention. The Mother of Invention segments on Katie invite entrepreneurs from all over the country to pitch their product for feedback from top industry professionals. Liz was flown out to New York again and given the chance to pitch Everpurse to ABC’s most notorious entrepreneur elite, the sharks of “Shark Tank.”

The results of Zapwater’s efforts between April 2013 and December 2013 have been significant. Total media impressions stand around 41.7 million with an ad value of more than $2.3 million. Zapwater secured more than 70 local, regional and national placements over the course of eight months.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

54

BEST ONLINE NEWSROOM BUSINESS/CONSUMER

GOLD Porter Novelli for The Green Build’s Newsroom Takes Off In 2013, San Diego International Airport was preparing to open the largest project in its history. Called “The Green Build,” the $900 million expansion had been under construction for four years and was highly anticipated by the San Diego community. Throughout construction, travelers had tolerated major inconveniences, including a parking lot closure and fewer dining and shopping options. Now, they would finally be able to take advantage of the benefits, including more security lanes, resulting in shorter wait times; more spacious gate waiting areas with electrical outlets at each seat; a dual-level roadway, reducing traffic in front of the airport; and more dining and shopping options.

A week of festivities was planned leading up the official public grand opening on August 13, including a “sneak peek” media day with a behind-the-scenes tour, VIP gala, employee barbecue, 2-day community open house and an official ribbon-cutting ceremony. Given the scale of the opening, Porter Novelli knew that the news would draw not only local, but also regional and national media attention. It was critically important to capitalize on every ounce of media interest around the grand opening. But the airport’s small internal PR team had finite resources and time to dedicate solely to media relations and follow-up. To address this challenge, Porter Novelli (PN) worked with the Airport Authority to develop a dedicated online newsroom for the grand opening. They needed to make reporting on the opening as easy as possible for the media, so there would be reduced demand of the Airport Authority’s staff time. PN was tasked with a not-to-exceed budget of $15,000 for the two-month project.

PN designed the online newsroom (http://sandiegoairport.porternovelli.com/) and drafted all materials for media consumption in the weeks leading up to the grand opening events. The online newsroom was designed to make the media’s job as easy as possible by creating a one- stop shop to help them produce stories. Resources were organized by category with one main landing page to navigate from, so media didn’t get lost in pages of information. PN kept visuals front and center, as they were eye-catching and compelling.

Resources on the newsroom included a news release about the historic opening of The Green Build expansion; video gallery with b-roll footage of new features including dual-level roadway, 10 new gates, expanded waiting areas, security checkpoint and the expanded, 9,200 square-foot concessions area called Sunset Cove; a photo gallery; an archive of past news releases for key project milestones; a fact sheet; FAQ; fun facts; infographic; a “tweetsheet” of potential tweets the media could use; sustainability fact sheet; concession development fact sheet about shops and restaurants in the expansion; small business profiles about local jobs and contracts for small businesses; public art fact sheet about the new pieces in the expansion; and quotes from business leaders praising the airport and The Green Build, including the local chamber of commerce, economic development corporation, board members, construction partners and local tourism organizations.

Once the online newsroom was created, PN needed to make sure they got the word out and drove reporters there. The online newsroom link was included in all materials, including media alerts, news releases and fact sheets. The team shared the link via social media. And they provided the link to media in-person at Media Day, and followed up with attendees afterwards to provide the link via email.

PN exceeded its objectives for The Green Build public relations campaign, with the online newsroom serving as a key tool in the team’s success. PN secured 188 broadcast, print and online placements in local and national publications for the grand opening. The newsroom saw 1,400 visitors in the month of August. Site visits peaked at nearly 500 visitors on the official grand opening day. The Green Build key messages were included in 100% of all media coverage. Moreover, the newsroom was a key component of the grand opening’s successful media relations outreach, saving time and money and ensuring that the project’s key messages reached our target audience. PN came in under budget for designing the online newsroom, drafting media materials, producing b-roll and coordinating quotes from third-party spokespeople.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

55

BEST ONLINE NEWSROOM BUSINESS/CONSUMER

S I LV E R Wieck for NissanNews.com Re-launch The PR pros at Wieck were called upon to replace the aging NissanNews.com with a new multi-brand, multi-market, multi-lingual system that allowed this Nissan Americas property to leap-frog other OEMs’ media websites. Wieck has been providing media relations technology, strategy and solutions since they signed their first content syndication client, The New York Times, back in 1991.

Wieck’s media relations and content syndication expertise was particularly valuable to Nissan Americas for this long-term project.

Nissan Americas wanted to up their game in the online newsroom space. Their existing site was slow—really slow. It was built on 10year-old technology. The automotive media complained of not being able to find specific content. The media were passing up the site, even though it was the official site for content directly from Nissan Americas. Usage was down and content was painfully difficult to maintain. Nissan’s goals were to bring back the automotive media users who had left but they wanted to grow the audience significantly and bring more users to the site. They wanted to make the interface faster and more robust. The search needed to be better. Content needed to be easy to maintain and organize. Most of all, the site needed to be fast. The media need to get in, get what they need and move on. They have a job to do and that job doesn’t include wandering around a media site all day trying to find the content required for the next edition. Nissan Americas selected Wieck to help them meet these goals. With the re-launch of NissanNews.com and its sister site, InfinitiNews.com, Wieck brought the latest in technologies together for a multi-market, multilanguage, hemisphere-wide news site with a goal of making the journalist's life much easier.

Wieck deployed a custom version of its class-leading newsroom platform that included multi-market, multi-lingual access to media and marketing information throughout the Americas Region. With features like basket, broadcast-quality video downloads, social media integration/sharing and high-resolution photo downloads, the new platform delivers on the goals. Thousands of images, videos, specifications, special reports and news releases reside on the platform and are updated and added to by Wieck staff and Nissan Americas staff alike. Everything the journalist wants is right there at their fingertips inside the intuitive interface.

Starting development in early 2012 and launching the first version of the site in April, 2012, the team has continuously improved on the site throughout 2013 with a front page refresh in January and a

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

complete all-market refresh finishing up in July of 2013.

Traffic on the re-launched site has grown from just over 90,000 unique visitors per month in April 2012 to just under 574,000 visitors in the latest month. Those visitors are comprised of both registered media users and non-registered guests. A guest can do everything on the site that journalists can except download broadcast-quality video or publication-quality images. Journalists downloaded more than 85,000 of those high-quality assets in that same month.

BRONZE Cisco Systems for Cisco’s The Network Brand journalism has exploded over the past several years. More and more brands—B2B and B2C alike—are finding unique ways to insert themselves into the storytelling scene. Cisco Systems was a trendsetter in this sense when they began their online technology news site, The Network, back in 2011. Since then, Cisco has recognized the need for constant innovation with its online newsroom. The demand for content that was more visual, more tailored to specific verticals and less brand-focused continued to grow, and Cisco sought out ways to leverage its already existing brand journalism site to reinstate the brand’s place as a storyteller in the technology news space.

With more people consuming mobile content than ever, text articles and press releases are seeing fewer clicks and content such as videos, infographics, and sharable posts are thriving. Consumers and businesses are also looking to connect with and buy from brands that understand the spaces they’re in—whether they are directly related or linked to broader industry trends. In order to meet this demand for news-related content, Cisco launched multiple campaigns using its online newsroom as the host and launch pad for a thought–leadership-based initiative to bring unbranded news to readers and consumers.

The Cisco communications team sought to continue The Network’s reputation as the ultimate online destination for the latest technology news, trends and Cisco insights. Cisco wanted to appeal to both those seeking specific Cisco updates as well as readers looking for more general information about the technology industry and the growth of social media. The team also sought to foster a “take, share, engage” campaign with more sharable content to increase industry share of voice.

56

BEST ONLINE NEWSROOM BUSINESS/CONSUMER Cisco created a content calendar of more visual, sharable posts than in the past that included infographics, themed content and videos around news trends such as data center, core networks, video, collaboration, cloud, mobility and especially “Internet of Everything”—Cisco’s key initiative. The PR team recruited top media veterans to curate articles and generate content around newsworthy tech and social subjects. They also continued execution around the online video campaign, My Networked Life (MNL). MNL was one of the most viral campaigns that came out of The Network to date.

Cisco planned and launched FOCUS, an online magazine that would highlight one new tech trend each month. The first issue went live in August 2013. FOCUS lives on The Network and topics change each month. Content ranges from articles and blogs to infographics and video campaigns highlighting connectivity and unique uses of technology. In addition, the team developed and launched a Connections Counter, a real-time widget that tracks the number of people, processes, data and things that are connected to the Internet. They integrated this widget into The Network to highlight in real-time the global growth of the Internet of Everything.

The Network continues to be a precedent for B2B involvement in brand journalism. This online newsroom produces widely shared and respected content in conjunction with top-tier journalists and bloggers. Between January and July 2013, the site accumulated more than 730K unique visitors, with a total of just more than 1 million overall site visitors during the specified time period. The site growth continued to improve to the point that 70% of those 1 million total visitors were new to The Network. This spike in new visitors compliments the viral nature of the content, and shows that media outreach efforts, amplification across social channels and media mentions are helping to drive new traffic to the online newsroom.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

57

BEST USE OF PERSONALITY/CELEBRITY

GOLD Zapwater Communications for A Call for Everlasting Love In March 2012, Jewelers Mutual Insurance Company, the only insurer that specializes exclusively in protecting jewelry and jewelry businesses in North America, launched Perfect Circle® Jewelry Insurance, a brand dedicated to personal jewelry protection. With the brand still in its infancy, there was a huge opportunity to educate newly engaged and married couples on the unique benefits of a personal jewelry insurance policy, while leveraging the trusted leadership and 100 Year Anniversary of Jewelers Mutual. Jewelers Mutual hired Zapwater Communications to do just that via a strategic communications campaign.

The “Everlasting Love” contest was born as the cornerstone of the campaign. People were encouraged to share their stories of everlasting love at PerfectCircleInsurance.com/EverlastingLove for a chance to win $11,000 Erica Courtney® platinum diamond earrings. Zapwater worked with Jewelers Mutual to secure Erica Courtney as a national jeweler partner and directed creative development and content on the contest microsite, while directing users back to www.PerfectCircleInsurance.com following successful entry where they could learn more about personal jewelry insurance and apply for a free estimate.

Zapwater partnered with nationally renowned celebrity wedding planner Mindy Weiss to offer authentic, third-party credibility and encourage brides to include personal jewelry insurance on their wedding checklist, while supporting jewelry insurance as a key trend for the 2013 wedding season. From the contest launch blitz to campaign rollout, Zapwater also leveraged multiple channels—paid, earned and owned—to tell a cohesive and powerful story and drive maximum traffic to the website.

The “Everlasting Love” contest launched in New York City via a coast-to-coast media and digital blitz with Mindy Weiss in tow, who executed a five-hour satellite media tour, live Facebook chat and a “2013 Wedding Trends” media luncheon attended by 18 top bridal, travel and lifestyle media. Timed to the countdown to the 2013 wedding season and just prior to the two busiest wedding months, Mindy revealed her last-minute wedding checklist and top three tips to make sure the big day goes as smoothly as possible. By incorporating jewelry insurance as a “must do” as part of the wedding countdown to ensure the symbol of a couple’s love is fully protected, Mindy invited viewers to enter the Everlasting Love contest for a chance to win..

The campaign was a smash hit. A press release announcing the contest rounded out the launch media efforts and was picked up on 355 outlets. Following launch day events, the six-week promotion further integrated a paid, owned and earned media rollout spanning bridal media and wedding blogger partnerships, a radio promotion and Facebook ads to drive awareness for the Everlasting Love contest. Five top wedding bloggers, reaching more than 500,000 unique visitors per month, encouraged readers to enter the contest.

Zapwater also provided contest-related content on key bridal media channels and utilized a previously purchased NAPS mat release package from Jewelers Mutual to draft content promoting the contest entry period and benefits of a personal jewelry insurance policy for post-entry period education. The release generated 2,084 print and online stories. Zapwater also renegotiated Jewelers Mutual’s annual Clear Channel promotion and reached 634,000 listeners during the entry period. While Mindy taped a “2013 Wedding Trends” segment prior to the campaign launch, the segment aired online following the contest winner announcement. Mindy positioned jewelry insurance as her No. 1 trend and encouraged viewers to visit PerfectCircleInsurance.com for more information. The segment alone reached 12 million viewers.

The contest generated 289 qualified entries, 1,658 new users or “hopeful” policy holders and drove more than 20,000 users to the contest website. Targeted social content, engagement and digital ad buys contributed to a 12.9% increase in Facebook “likes” and a 49.2% increase in Twitter followers over the six-week contest period. From a media perspective, the campaign secured more than 40 unique, earned media placements and 55 million media impressions.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

58

BEST USE OF PERSONALITY/CELEBRITY

S I LV E R MWW Group for Zumba® Nightclub Series Ft. Lil Jon & Gina Grant Zumba® is a global lifestyle brand that fuses together entertainment, culture and fitness into an exhilarating dance-party workout. As Zumba looked to further grow its business and expand into new territories, the brand’s leadership identified nightclubs as a significant space through which Zumba could grow. With their preexisting dance floors and built-in sound systems, nightclubs would provide the perfect location to host Zumba classes during hours the clubs don’t usually operate. To help showcase the opportunity that existed with nightclubs, MWW partnered with well-known DJ and multi-platinum producer Lil Jon, to create the Zumba® Nightclub Series ft. Lil Jon & Gina Grant, a celebrity Zumba instructor. This four-city, six-show tour brought the Zumba nightclub experience to Boston, Pittsburgh, Queens and Cincinnati, and featured a Zumbathemed workout song entitled “Work” produced by Lil Jon, who also acted as an on-site DJ and media spokesperson for the national launch and each of the four tour stops.

MWW developed a strategy that focused on generating higherquality media exposure that not only covered the launch of the Nightclub Series, but also painted a picture of the exhilarating experience of taking in a Nightclub atmosphere. The team aimed to secure media coverage in advance of each of the live tour stops, followed by media attendance at each tour stop that would result in stories detailing reporters’ first-hand personal experiences. This strategy would drive overall attendance, generate national and regional media exposure for the campaign/brand, communicate its key messages and create excitement around the concept as a whole. In each market, the team identified select reporters who received a VIP Nightclub experience and be among the very first to experience Zumba in the nightclub. This included VIP party bus transportation with Zumba instructor chaperones; VIP on-site treatment with media ushered to a private area; and VIP backstage access.

While the strategy anchored around securing media to experience the Zumba® Nightclub Series, the execution also included pre- and post-elements to help drive advance ticket sales and ensure that post-event coverage was placed. To help drive advance ticket sales and seed awareness and excitement for the event, the team conducted a pre-event outreach campaign to national media and in each of the four cities. Reporters were sent multi-dimensional kits that included Zumba apparel and accessories, press materials and

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

an advance copy “Work.” A select number of media were granted also advance interviews with Lil Jon. To secure media attendance at every stop, the team employed the “Experience Zumba in the Club” strategy and made each show a major media event. MWW worked directly with more than 20 reporters from the following outlets to garner coverage. The on-site experience was amplified via social media activation that included real-time promotion on Facebook featuring videos and still images of the Nightclub experience and live tweeting from every site and dissemination of the hashtag #ZumbaNightclubSeries so that ZIN instructors could spread the message.

The PR team employed a post-event strategy of keeping the “Experience” alive by employing an aggressive outreach campaign to every reporter who attended the events and by providing them with all information/materials needed to capture the Zumba Nightclub experience in their articles, including video (raw or pre-packaged) and images from every event, statistical information and follow-up interviews (if requested).

The Zumba® Nightlcub Series was a major victory for Zumba and opened the door for the company to expand into the Nightclub space, creating an entirely new growth channel for Zumba and its instructors. Additionally, tickets at every event were sold out, and more than 185 MM total media impressions were secured through 80 placements on the local and national level, including “Today,” Billboard, Huffington Post, OK!, BET, Star, Radar Online and In Touch Weekly, among numerous others. With the Zumba® Nightclub Series ft. Lil Jon & Gina Grant a business and media success, the company is now looking to expand its business in the category to include programs both in the United States and abroad.

BRONZE ShopPR for George Foreman Grills Weight Loss Challenge George Foreman® Grills was seeking to reinvigorate core consumers and engage new consumers. Anchored by George Foreman Grills’ fat reduction claim of 42%, the brand created the George Foreman Grills Weight Loss Challenge through collaboration with weight loss consultants and registered dietitians. ShopPR launched the “George Foreman Grills Weight Loss Challenge” to provide a weight loss plan that incorporates sustainable changes to diet, budget and schedule. As U.S. obesity rates continue to climb, causing chronic diseases and increased healthcare costs, George

59

BEST USE OF PERSONALITY/CELEBRITY Foreman Grills was seeking to provide consumers with balanced meals and support for a sustainable eating plan with a high likelihood for compliance owing to simplicity and tasty meals.

The George Foreman Grills Weight Loss Challenge is a free, 12-week weight loss program that includes a kit with 28 days of balanced meals and snacks including mouth-watering recipes developed by celebrity chef Gina Neely and Registered Dietician Sarah Berndt for the George Foreman Grill. The kit also includes strength and cardio workouts as well as a calorie calculator, grocery shopping cheat sheet, food tracker and restaurant guide. The challenge ran five times throughout 2012-2013 with two winners selected for each challenge.

As part of the campaign, ShopPR conducted extensive research for a George Foreman Grills Weight Loss Challenge spokesperson and chose to partner with Gina Neely, chef, cookbook author and Food Network personality from “Down Home with the Neelys” to launch the “George Foreman Grills Weight Loss Challenge”—the brand’s first ever weight loss program; Gina lost 20lbs and 12 inches in 12 weeks. ShopPR developed key messages for Gina Neely and conducted media training and coordinated a before-and-after photo shoot to showcase Gina Neely’s weight loss to media and consumers. Gina Neely also created 15 recipes for especially for the George Foreman Grill, which were leveraged for media outreach George Foreman Grills and ShopPR hosted top national health, lifestyle, nutrition, and beauty editors in NYC for the launch of the challenge and weight loss reveal of spokesperson Gina Neely.

ShopPR conducted aggressive media outreach surrounding the challenge details, Gina Neely’s transformation and key products and distributed a press release launching the partnership with Gina Neely. In addition, ShopPR conducted three media days with Gina Neely securing wide spread coverage on the George Foreman Grills Weight Loss Challenge and the partnership; an exclusive cover photo shoot, a feature story and a satellite media tour.

ShopPR secured notable coverage for the launch of the George Foreman Grills Weight Loss Challenge and partnership with Gina Neely in broadcast, print and online media garnering over 200 million media impressions. The partnership coverage has helped raise awareness for George Foreman Grills, increased sign-up participation for each challenge by 25%, and prompted consumers to purchase new grills or trade up as evident by online and in-store sales of the grill. Top national placements included The New York Times, omg! Insider, Woman’s World and People.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

60

P R I N N OVAT I O N O F T H E Y E A R

GOLD Mullen for Century 21 Real Estate Moves into SimCity Social The way people buy and sell real estate has drastically changed over the last few years. Today's homebuyers start their search online and share listings with their social networks before they even seek the help of a real estate professional. With the home buying and selling process becoming more social than ever before, Century 21 and Mullen over the last few years have been focusing their efforts on reaching this new generation of home buyers and sellers in an innovative yet relative way. In fact, last year, the brand delved into the gaming space with its first-ever award-winning in-game integration with ngmoco’s mobile game, We City. Given the success of that campaign, the brand wanted to further explore the possibilities within the space.

Mullen sought to drive awareness and brand preference among the target audience of consumers between the ages of 25 and 34, representing the largest share of homebuyers, according to the National Association of Realtors, in an innovative and valuable way. They would engage with the new generation of socially savvy homebuyers by delivering the virtual dream of homeownership to millions of the brand’s target consumers. The campaign would also drive Facebook “likes” of Century 21 Real Estate LLC and support the brand's “Smarter. Bolder. Faster.” marketing campaign by driving views of its advertising and securing top media/blogger coverage in the social media, real estate and overall branding press.

Century 21 and Mullen identified an opportunity to partner with the largest game provider, EA Games, on the most popular social network—Facebook. With more than 10 million Facebook players, the majority of the gaming brand’s SimCity Social players fall within the 25-to-34-year-old age group, representing the largest share of homebuyers. The alignment between audiences and the nature of the game—creating and maintaining your own real estate empire for virtual profit—produced a unique opportunity the client/agency team couldn't ignore. What’s more, according to Simmons Research, 95 percent of people playing games do not multitask, making them a captive audience for brands like CENTURY 21 looking to deliver the dream of homeownership to millions who are intent on investing in real estate virtually, and eventually, in reality.

The team provided unique, in-game value to players by creating a branded structure—a CENTURY 21 Office Building—that players could build in their city to earn virtual currency, helping them grow their cities by buying new homes, businesses and land, while interacting with the brand in a seamless and relevant way. The CENTURY 21 Facebook page included a tab where players were directed by in-game ads to claim their CENTURY 21 Office. Players also had the option to perform “friend or foe” actions on neighbors’ CENTURY 21 Office Buildings to earn additional merits in the game. In addition to adding the branded structure to their city, users were able to earn a free energy boost by watching an in-game, branded CENTURY 21 Smarter. Bolder. Faster. advertisement. Mullen conducted public relations and social influence outreach that positioned CENTURY 21 as the Smarter, Bolder Faster brand in real estate by connecting with their target homebuyer within the social gaming space.

Once all the pieces of the campaign were in place, Mullen issued a multimedia news release on launch day and aggressively pitched toptier online and print media outlets, including social sites as well as the marketing and real estate trades. A blog post was also featured on the @C21 Home Matters and the news was shared with the brand’s fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter. Along with promoting the campaign to the 1.4 million member community on SimCity Social’s Facebook page, in-game ads directed SimCity players to a tab within the official Century 21 Facebook page where they could claim their CENTURY 21 Office. Once the Office was placed in their city, players could collect SimCity currency, Simoleons, from the CENTURY 21 Office, and well as interact with their Office, and the Office within their neighbors’ cities, to earn additional in-game merits which are necessary for game play.

The campaign generated awareness and interaction on a massive scale. From a media relations perspective, Mullen secured 28 placements including Forbes.com, Business Insider, Adweek, MediaPost’s Marketing Daily, PR Week, Inman News and SmartBrief, resulting in 53,430,670 media impressions. Nearly 192,000 branded structures were placed, all of which will remain in the game until the user chooses to remove them, providing ongoing brand engagement and awareness. In fact, according to a post-campaign third-party ComScore study, players who redeemed the branded building were 65% more likely to name CENTURY 21 when thinking of real estate brands and 109% more likely to name the brand first, compared to those unexposed. In addition, according to the same study, those who redeemed the CENTURY 21 office were 27% more likely to consider and 30% more likely to recommend the brand to others.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

61

P R I N N OVAT I O N O F T H E Y E A R

S I LV E R MasterCard for The MasterCard Conversation Suite The Conversation Suite is MasterCard’s Web-based analytics tool supported by a global team of social experts that monitor, analyze, and engage in conversations around the world—in real time, 24/7.

The data mining and analysis serve as a foundation for communications decision making, helping set the communications roadmap, enabling active response and engagement, and serving as a barometer and resource to the business. It is also a physical space with hubs at corporate headquarters in New York, as well as in Miami, Mexico and Brazil, along with a mobile version. The physical space also, comprises a 40-foot LED screen that features a live look at conversations shaping the brand and provides a creative venue for discussion and ideation around the MasterCard story.

To move beyond traditional “listening,” MasterCard created the Conversation Suite—a dynamic, global insights and engagement engine that shifted the company from monitoring social and traditional media to applying purposeful listening to inform business decisions and foster more impactful communications.

Further, MasterCard built a number of content-led social channels to support its social engagement objectives and establish a more distinct, accessible voice and online brand identity to interact with consumers in the online community.

The Conversation Suite’s centerpiece is a sophisticated automated and human coded tool that can analyze the conversations taking place online for tone and trending topics. It can identify key influencers around a topic or a geography and provides a real-time engagement tool. The Conversation Suite itself spans beyond this tool to include an innovative workspace. Regular “Social Jam” events are held in the Conversation Suite with employees and partners to leverage the data and insights and infuse social business throughout the organization. The Conversation Suite is now a coveted workspace and venue to hold both internal and external events related to social media.

A Partner Plus program was implemented this year, which is designed to bring MasterCard investments in social media technology, insights and expertise to issuers and merchant partners.

The program includes the development of a portfolio of campaigns and assets that are designed to advance co-branded campaigns, loyalty programs and issuer platforms via social.

Conversation Suite data and insights aid in execution of communications campaigns in real time – whether in identifying

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

and responding to an issue or in facilitating creative opportunities to position the brand with media, influencers and consumers alike.

Media results include placements in ClickZ.com, Bank Systems & Technology, The Financial Brand, DigiDay.com and Social Media Today.

BRONZE Havas PR North America for Going Digital Native to Fill the Voids in Social Media Consulting Holes in the social media consulting space have created unprecedented levels of dissatisfaction among marketing professionals. They’re unhappy with the pace and results of their efforts at social branding—as much a reflection of the practitioners as the practice. It takes digital-native millennials to bring radical new thinking to social media marketing, and that’s what Havas PR North America did in August 2013 when it launched SocialProvidence and boldly put two 22-year-olds in charge. Rooted in analytics, SocialProvidence grows future-forward social concepts for clients that are strategic at the core, built with measurement in mind and aimed at a global-local mix to make meaningful gains in paid, earned and owned media. The agency is sponsoring this startup because PR and clients need new analytical approaches in the evolving real-time environment in which news is crafted and influence is created.

Havas chose VFA fellows Mike Cunningham (University of Pittsburgh ’13) and Giuseppe Crosti (Duke University ’13) as co-general managers. Entrusting two millennials with such a monumental task took a lot of courage, but the business imperative was clear, the partnership with VFA made sense, and Havas management recognized and appreciated the adage about great reward involving great risk. As for home base in Providence, RI? It is a fast-paced hotbed for startups, having already hatched dozens and serving as home of the esteemed Betaspring startup accelerator program, and it is one of VFA’s revitalization zones.

The standalone operation recognizes that to establish and extend its business profile and reputation, it must become its own best case. To that end, SocialProvidence has established a transparent, real presence on every major social channel and built a comprehensive editorial calendar as an overall guide to building its own spreadable messaging. The fundamental challenge to SocialProvidence’s success is the continued emphasis on what

62

P R I N N OVAT I O N O F T H E Y E A R makes it different from and better than other social media consultants. Those tangible points of difference reside in its leadership, profile (built within the SoMe landscape, it is who and what it preaches) and products.

The process can be broken into three main steps: 1) Providing a snapshot of the client’s social media presence, establishing key performance indicators and initial indications of success on social channels; 2) Developing social media objectives based on the client’s needs; 3) Generating daily social media optimization strategies and implementing them through management of the client’s social media networks or consultation with its social media specialist. The widget gives real-time optimization and response strategies in harmony with the continually changing SoMe landscape. The reports will offer deeper insight for longer-term trends that might not be as apparent through dashboard and widget data. The dashboard is the hub where customers log in and see the big picture of their brand’s or campaign’s presence on SoMe platforms. Emphasis is on ROI, whatever that metric might be for the given campaign; metrics are pulled from existing competing platforms, recommendations and customers’ wants or needs, and current trends in social media analytics—where SocialProvidence’s innovation and competitive edge come to light.

Engagement is at the core. Work for clients has ranged from designing social media campaigns and growing personal brands to undertaking social media audits, providing social media listening and strategy, and raising awareness for causes. We want to spot trending topics, identify people driving conversations about brands, drive followers to become customers, get involved with issues and more.

The startup’s new-business video is a six-second Vine that cost the equivalent of not even one Red Bull. Their new-business process is an email and lattes, which has yielded projects and pitches. They have gotten the agency thinking about how many letters of the alphabet PR pros abuse to tell stories. They are a laboratory, a place to test hypotheses about what’s next so that clients can monitor now and pay for it in fractions of today’s dollars (and then tell colleagues and followers about their increased brand awareness and boosted sales, resulting in more work for SocialProvidence).

And they are telling stories and having stories told about them in a variety of media, including The Holmes Report, the Huffington Post, “MarketWatch,” Providence Journal, PRWeek and Yahoo! Finance.

Four months after launch, Havas had already met the first objective of securing five clients—actually, more—proving the stickiness of the idea and the need for it. SocialProvidence has also, for the most part, met the second objective of breaking even and is on track to be a million-dollar annualized office in its first year.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

63

BEST RESPONSE TO BREAKING NEWS

GOLD Affect for Radware: Media Relations Campaign Radware is a global leader of application delivery and security solutions for virtual and cloud-based data centers. Its portfolio of products and services ensures business-critical applications, maximum IT efficiency and complete business agility. Radware’s solutions empower more than 10,000 enterprise and telecom carrier customers worldwide to adapt to market challenges quickly, maintain business continuity and achieve maximum productivity while managing costs.

A critical component of the company’s lead generation and sales activities is a strong media presence relative to its competitors. In this fiercely competitive landscape, Radware found itself losing hold of its ideal target of 25 percent share-of-voice in the media’s reporting of the industry. In September 2012, Radware approached Affect to help increase awareness and recognition of its security products among decision-makers in target verticals, particularly information/network security, financial services, healthcare and retail.

The Affect team quickly identified a valuable Radware asset with the potential to drive high-quality media coverage—Radware’s Emergency Response Team (ERT). The ERT provides immediate support to customers experiencing cyber attacks or malware outbreaks. In the opportune moments when these attacks occur, the ERT’s thought-leading insight would be crucial for reporters covering these rapidly developing incidents.

To successfully connect reporters with the Radware ERT when news of cyber attacks break, Affect developed the following strategies and tactics to position Radware as a go-to insider on security issues as they progress. The PR team mined for and developed compelling content and intelligence from the ERT for media attention; leveraged executives, customers and other company assets to demonstrate Radware credibility during breaking cyber attacks; built and maintained favorable relationships between Radware and key media; and identified and leveraged Radware’s leaders as experts on breaking cyber attacks.

In order to understand the media landscape, Affect determined reporters active in the space who would report on these types of security breaches; identified the Internet’s most active hacker groups to stay informed about breaking security updates; and compiled a list of websites where hackers typically announce attacks and targets, such as Pastebin and Hacker News. They then tracked activity to spark and drive reporting by monitoring media activity related to network/cyber security topics; leveraging real-time intelligence from Radware ERT to provide proprietary insights to target media and remain top-of-mind relative to competitors; and breaking news from Radware ERT as investigations into cyber hacks progressed to get ahead of the news cycle.

Affect engaged in aggressive story hijacking and trend intervention at key moments in the news cycle and worked to leverage the ERT and its resources with the media and continuously break news based on its investigations of cyber attacks. Affect took this approach on several notable cyber attacks shortly after the start of the program, as cyber attacks struck some of the country's biggest financial institutions. The team sprung into action, offering Radware’s expert commentary on the prevalence and strength of an attack, attack tools and ways companies can protect themselves. The attacks set off a flurry of alarm and speculation in the tech and business communities. Affect saw a huge opportunity to “hijack” the story and insert Radware into the media dialogue—a story in which they otherwise would not have been included. Affect briefed with the ERT about Radware's progress addressing the cyber attacks that had affected their customers and hit the ground running, delivering impactful business results on a modest PR budget.

Affect’s efforts resulted in a steady stream of earned media opportunities, elevating the company's experts as thought leaders within their sector and supporting Radware’s sales team in driving lead generation. From October 2012 to July 2013, Affect maintained an average share-of-voice of 32 percent throughout the campaign, which exceeded Radware’s goal of achieving a 25 percent share-of-voice against its top six competitors. Affect secured a total of 362 articles during the ten-month timeframe, with an average of 36 articles per month, surpassing the initial 10-15 articles per month objective. Relevant and target reporters now come to Radware for insight on related cyber security news or incidents.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

64

BEST RESPONSE TO BREAKING NEWS

S I LV E R Hellerman Baretz Communications for Scripting a Star Turn for Seward & Kissel When it comes to PR strategy, the white-shoe law firms of New York City don’t have a whole lot in common with Hollywood studios. It was little more than a generation ago that firms such as Seward & Kissel shied away from even printing business cards, feeling them too gauche a marketing device. But law firms are modernizing, and Hellerman Baretz Communications is helping them do it. And in the case of Seward & Kissel, some Hollywood magic applied by HBC senior account executive Molly McLeod resulted in very valuable exposure for minimal investment.

From the outset, HBC determined that Seward & Kissel’s media relations strategy should have a well-defined focus. Although the firm has 12 different practice areas, covering everything from employee benefits to taxation, HBC would concentrate its work on two specific areas in which Seward & Kissel has a well-founded reputation for excellence: Investment management and maritime issues. Working with a relatively small budget for the firm’s initial media relations efforts, HBC and Seward & Kissel agreed that the goals of the campaign would be to reinforce Seward & Kissel’s reputation as a leader in those two areas; to broaden the exposure of the firm to a general business audience; and to do so in a way that was creative yet consistent with the highly professional nature of the firm.

HBC delivered fast results for the investment management practice of Seward & Kissel, which formed the world’s first hedge fund in 1949 and remains a leading advisor to such funds today. Although few are familiar with this history, HBC’s Molly McLeod quickly positioned partner Steve Nadel as an authoritative source on the impact that a proposed Securities and Exchange Commission rule on hedge fund marketing, known as the JOBs Act, would have on the future of hedge-fund advertising.

HBC had determined that a similar strategy would be appropriate for the maritime practice. And when Columbia Pictures announced that “Captain Phillips” would be coming to theaters nationwide, Ms. McLeod recognized a big opportunity indeed.

“Captain Phillips” tells the story of an American ship hijacked off the coast of Somalia. With Tom Hanks playing the lead, the film would attract significant media attention. Ms. McLeod decided to leverage that media attention for Seward & Kissel’s benefit, recognizing that it made an ideal fit for the firm. First, the caliber of the actors and director promised that it would be a quality film—

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

one that Seward & Kissel would be comfortable attaching itself to in print. Second, Seward & Kissel partner Bruce Paulsen has reallife experience negotiating with pirates. He has advised on more than 40 piracies, and in 2009 assisted negotiations for a $1 million ransom with pirates who had overtaken an oil tanker, resulting in the release of 28 kidnapped crewmembers.

After confirming Mr. Paulsen’s availability, Ms. McLeod pitched targeted media outlets on the opportunity to speak with him in connection with “Captain Phillips.” Her detailed pitch covered not only Mr. Paulsen’s relevant experience, but also suggested the breadth of legal issues at play in piracy situations. As “Captain Phillips” was rolling out, Ms. McLeod continued to track for relevant stories, and found breaking news of a real-life piracy off the coast of Nigeria. Based on her discussions with Mr. Paulsen, she saw a fresh angle—one that would contrast the tactics and regulations that apply to long-practiced Somali piracy to emerging incidents of piracy off Africa’s west coast. For this breaking news, she drafted a second pitch that helpfully included a quote from Mr. Paulsen.

Both pitches resulted in extraordinary coverage for Mr. Paulsen and the firm. Two major maritime industry trades ran interviews with Mr. Paulsen regarding the “Captain Phillips” movie and his maritime practice, and a third, Tradewinds, sent a reporter to a movie screening with Mr. Paulsen, following which the reporter conducted a six-minute video interview with him. Meanwhile, one of the legal industry’s leading publications, The National Law Journal, ran an extensive Q&A on the topic of Mr. Paulsen’s practice.

BRONZE American Beverage Institute for .05 BAC Release The Berman and Company-managed American Beverage Institute (ABI) is a nonprofit restaurant trade association that works to preserve on-premise alcohol sales. ABI has a long record of opposing policies that target responsible social drinking rather than the hardcore drunk drivers responsible for most drunk-driving fatalities. ABI found the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendation that all states lower their blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limits for driving from .08 to .05 a misguided attempt to reduce instances of drunk driving. Rather than actually deterring the heavily drunk individuals who cause more than 70 percent of all drunk-driving deaths from getting behind the wheel while intoxicated, the new policy would stop social drinkers from ordering a drink with dinner.

65

BEST RESPONSE TO BREAKING NEWS To emphasize the absurdity of such a low legal limit, ABI issued a press release calling the proposal “ludicrous” and listing statistics and research showing that a .05 limit will not make a significant impact on drunk-driving fatalities. To achieve success, messaging and communications activities focused on conveying that the NTSB’s .05 proposal is not an effective way of reducing drunk driving deaths; and educating Americans about the prohibitionist aspect of this proposed government policy.

The PR team worked quickly to be the first organization in the media opposing the .05 BAC limit. They wrote a national press release, developed talking points on the policy’s ineffectiveness in a short time frame and created a media list that included national transportation writers, congressional writers and bookers and producers of every news network. ABI also wrote an op-ed on the issue that could be pitched nationally and pitched specific reporters who wrote about the proposal, but didn’t include ABI in their story.

Because ABI was able to put out a release so quickly, the organization was the first major voice against the proposal, garnering top news coverage in newspapers, on television and in online blogs and publications. The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, New York Post, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune ran several articles featuring ABI’s opposition to a .05 limit. ABI’s position was covered in articles or editorials by nearly every major newspaper, and an ABI representative was interviewed on CBS News, ABC News, CNN, and MSNBC. ABI was also interviewed for a segment that ran on over four dozen local news stations across the country. Op-eds were placed in The Vindicator and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

66

BEST USE OF RESEARCH – BUSINESS/CONSUMER

GOLD Fidelity Investments for Fidelity’s “Five Years Later: From Scared to Prepared” As a leading retirement provider and thought leader on retirement and investment issues and trends, Fidelity Investments is focused on helping investors and families meet retirement and savings goals through innovative products, solutions and guidance. The company is focused on empowering customers across generations to make smart decisions so they can take control of their personal economies and “grow with confidence,” providing guidance, tools and thought leadership so they can take action. The “Five Years Later” campaign was a landmark project in the retirement space, examining the impact of the Great Recession on investor behavior and psyche, and more importantly, offering guidance about what investors should be contemplating as they look to the future. Based on the survey findings, Fidelity highlighted a silver lining from the financial crisis of 2008: That many investors went from “scared” to “prepared” and took dramatic steps to make sure their investing and retirement plans were on track.

The team developed a research questionnaire and analyzed data to extract salient findings and developed internal key messages and Q&A documents for spokespeople, as well as a national press release, executive summary and pitch for media outreach. They then trained multiple spokespeople from the retail, workplace investing and advisor businesses on unified messaging to capitalize on opportunities and created comprehensive briefing books ahead of media interviews.

The team created an infographic and used Fidelity's weekly consumer education guidance newsletters called Viewpoints to develop an article titled "Lessons from the Financial Crisis," offering practical advice and “five steps to help investors take control of their personal economy.” Finally, Fidelity distributed first press release over BusinessWire to lead and drive the five-year-anniversary conversation and distinguish Fidelity from its competitors. Interviews were secured with key influential and top-tier reporters ahead of the official April announcement, and syndicated media channels were targeted to broaden the reach of Fidelity's thought leadership.

The end result: A cross-company thought leadership campaign that helped generate widespread media coverage, providing a platform to share Fidelity’s insights and learnings about the crisis’ implications. Most importantly, the findings served as a springboard to provide guidance about what investors should be thinking about for the next five years and beyond, with key messages related to last-minute IRA contributions before the April 15 tax deadline.

In all, more than 640 stories appeared in print, online, broadcast, radio and trade stories conveying key messages that reached Fidelity’s target audiences. The multi-faceted campaign helped keep Fidelity top of mind and reinforce its leadership and points-of-view during tax season, generating more than 65 million impressions and helping Fidelity to reach a 42 percent share-of-voice in the T1 (January 1 through April 30) timeframe. PR was also credited by business leaders as making significant contributions to help the business achieve record-breaking results.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

67

BEST USE OF RESEARCH – BUSINESS/CONSUMER

S I LV E R Hellerman Baretz Communications for Scripting a Star Turn for Seward & Kissel When it comes to PR strategy, the white-shoe law firms of New York City don’t have a whole lot in common with Hollywood studios. It was little more than a generation ago that firms such as Seward & Kissel shied away from even printing business cards, feeling them too gauche a marketing device. But law firms are modernizing, and Hellerman Baretz Communications is helping them do it. And in the case of Seward & Kissel, some Hollywood magic applied by HBC senior account executive Molly McLeod resulted in very valuable exposure for minimal investment.

From the outset, HBC determined that Seward & Kissel’s media relations strategy should have a well-defined focus. Although the firm has 12 different practice areas, covering everything from employee benefits to taxation, HBC would concentrate its work on two specific areas in which Seward & Kissel has a well-founded reputation for excellence: Investment management and maritime issues. Working with a relatively small budget for the firm’s initial media relations efforts, HBC and Seward & Kissel agreed that the goals of the campaign would be to reinforce Seward & Kissel’s reputation as a leader in those two areas; to broaden the exposure of the firm to a general business audience; and to do so in a way that was creative yet consistent with the highly professional nature of the firm.

HBC delivered fast results for the investment management practice of Seward & Kissel, which formed the world’s first hedge fund in 1949 and remains a leading advisor to such funds today. Although few are familiar with this history, HBC’s Molly McLeod quickly positioned partner Steve Nadel as an authoritative source on the impact that a proposed Securities and Exchange Commission rule on hedge fund marketing, known as the JOBs Act, would have on the future of hedge-fund advertising.

HBC had determined that a similar strategy would be appropriate for the maritime practice. And when Columbia Pictures announced that “Captain Phillips” would be coming to theaters nationwide, Ms. McLeod recognized a big opportunity indeed.

“Captain Phillips” tells the story of an American ship hijacked off the coast of Somalia. With Tom Hanks playing the lead, the film would attract significant media attention. Ms. McLeod decided to leverage that media attention for Seward & Kissel’s benefit, recognizing that it made an ideal fit for the firm. First, the caliber of the actors and director promised that it would be a quality film— one that Seward & Kissel would be comfortable attaching itself to

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

in print. Second, Seward & Kissel partner Bruce Paulsen has reallife experience negotiating with pirates. He has advised on more than 40 piracies, and in 2009 assisted negotiations for a $1 million ransom with pirates who had overtaken an oil tanker, resulting in the release of 28 kidnapped crewmembers.

After confirming Mr. Paulsen’s availability, Ms. McLeod pitched targeted media outlets on the opportunity to speak with him in connection with “Captain Phillips.” Her detailed pitch covered not only Mr. Paulsen’s relevant experience, but also suggested the breadth of legal issues at play in piracy situations. As “Captain Phillips” was rolling out, Ms. McLeod continued to track for relevant stories, and found breaking news of a real-life piracy off the coast of Nigeria. Based on her discussions with Mr. Paulsen, she saw a fresh angle—one that would contrast the tactics and regulations that apply to long-practiced Somali piracy to emerging incidents of piracy off Africa’s west coast. For this breaking news, she drafted a second pitch that helpfully included a quote from Mr. Paulsen.

Both pitches resulted in extraordinary coverage for Mr. Paulsen and the firm. Two major maritime industry trades ran interviews with Mr. Paulsen regarding the “Captain Phillips” movie and his maritime practice, and a third, Tradewinds, sent a reporter to a movie screening with Mr. Paulsen, following which the reporter conducted a six-minute video interview with him. Meanwhile, one of the legal industry’s leading publications, The National Law Journal, ran an extensive Q&A on the topic of Mr. Paulsen’s practice.

BRONZE MWW Group for NJEDA: Making “Stronger Than the Storm” A Self Fulfilling Prophecy For NJ Shore Businesses And Communities The New Jersey Shore comprises the largest portion of the state’s $38 billion tourism industry, is a major direct and indirect employer, and accounts for a significant share of state GDP. After Superstorm Sandy hit the coast of NJ in October 2012, the stakes were high.

Could the perception of visitors be rehabilitated in time for the summer, a critical time for the tourism dollars that support Shore businesses and communities, or would the iconic image of the Seaside roller coaster swept out to sea be forever burnished in the minds of vacationers, seasonal renters and day trippers, taking them and their tourism dollars to an alternate destination in the summer of 2013?

68

BEST USE OF RESEARCH – BUSINESS/CONSUMER To change these misperceptions, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) hired MWW to help tourists from in and out of state move beyond the pervasive imagery of stormrelated destruction and get the word out that the Jersey shore is open for business and ready for the summer. NJEDA, working with FEMA and other federal authorities, marshaled resources to restore, rebuild and renew the shore. But they knew physical re-building wasn’t enough. MWW needed to change the perception of the traveling public that the shore they loved was gone and would not be available for them this summer.

shortly after the launch of the program demonstrated that the slogan, song and high impact advertising and events had an immediate and dramatic impact on the public perceptions of the shore: 79% believed the campaign was persuasive in the decision to visit the shore this summer, and 1 in 4 shore visitors cited the campaign as their inspiration for coming. Within a six-month period, MWW built several successful social communities from the ground up and saw hotel occupancy and tourism increase. The PR team also garnered 1.16 billion total media impressions from 1,746 placements and 412 million impressions for broadcast.

From a macro perspective, the campaign’s target was everyone who witnessed the devastation of Hurricane Sandy and had a negative perception about the state of the shore going into summer 2013.

More specifically, the target audience was likely shore visitors like families, adults and millennials.

MWW was hired less than two months before the official “launch” of summer and was tasked with devising a program strategy, including broadcast quality television and media planning, to be on-air and active on the ground support of our communities in just four weeks.

Their strategy was to tap into the pride and “toughness” of New Jersey and create a rallying cry, “Stronger than the Storm; replace images of destruction from Superstorm Sandy with iconic images of the shore; create a series of events; develop a robust, active online community; and work in partnership with the DMOs to translate changes in perception into “butts in seats”—beach tags sold, boardwalk visits, hotel stays and restaurant meals. MWW developed a media plan and an aggressive media buy strategy to help spread the message, in partnership with NJ ad agency Brushfire Advertising. The advertising campaign was accompanied by an original song, “Stronger than the Storm,” with strategically designed lyrics and music to permeate the consciousness of our audiences and replace negative perceptions.

The program kicked off with the World’s Largest Ribbon Cutting—over 20 simultaneous ribbon cuttings up and down the coastline—by a live “Today Show” broadcast from Seaside Heights. A series of events over the course of the summer were developed to inspire a steady flow of activity and traffic to NJ’s shore communities. MWW also created the website, strongerthanthestorm.com, and kept digital channels fed with fresh content. MWW focused efforts on user-generated content, asking visitors to share their photos and videos throughout the summer using hashtag #STTS. MWW also distributed collateral at community events and worked with local elected officials and DMOs to best support their communities. An emphasis on broadcast ads allowed the team to create a multisensory impression using new, post-Sandy shore imagery to demonstrate recovery.

The program was a success on every level. A survey conducted

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

69

BEST SPECIAL EVENT/STUNT

GOLD MWW Group for NJEDA: The Jersey Shore’s Grand Re-Opening: 130 Mile Ribbon Cutting Ceremony Superstorm Sandy and its aftermath left a permanent impression on the minds and hearts of everyone who has ever visited the New Jersey Shore, with images like the Seaside Roller Coaster swept out to sea becoming the iconic, defining images of the storm. New Jersey Economic Development Authority needed to create an equally dramatic, bold moment to become the new “defining moment” of the 130 miles of coastline to be covered by regional media to directly reach prospective visitors, and national media to dramatically transition the mindset of the public about the current state of the Shore.

MWW created a comprehensive program with a rallying cry “Stronger than the Storm” and knew it needed to kick off in a high impact way.

The PR pros created the concept of a 130-mile ribbon cutting to serve as the Grand Re-Opening of the Jersey Shore, making it distinct and clear that the Shore was indeed open for business. The Guinness Book of World Records qualifying event was held in Seaside, with a single ribbon stretching over 5 miles along the coastline, held by volunteer members of each Shore community, signifying the common, unifying experience of re-building the Shore. The main stage Seaside event was accompanied by a live, star-studded “Today Show” broadcast including their first summer concert in the series, featuring the band Fun whose hit “Carry On” became an anthem of Jersey Shore residents and business owners.

Fourteen simultaneous ribbon cuttings were conducted down the 130 miles of shoreline, and “Stronger than the Storm” signs were placed at the toll booths along the Garden State Parkway, connecting our “We’re Open” message to a quintessential travel experience of those visiting the Shore. Quintessential and prominent New Jerseyans, from the Cake Boss to Governor Christie, were strategically integrated into the events to serve as an additional media draw, to create content worthy of sharing and social interest and to add to the overall excitement of the day.

To create an environment that would best represent the full 130-mile coastline of the New Jersey Shore for a beachside Ribbon Cutting ceremony, a stage was erected along the water to serve double duty for both the musical portion of the program and for the actual Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. During the 12 hours prior to airtime, over five miles of 14-inch wide Tyvek ribbon was laid out, sewn together, branded and staked onto the beach using ATV’s and various other beach vehicles. The ribbon route traversed two municipalities and a state park along the water, and all activities were coordinated through city officials and local police departments. Just prior show time, nearly 1,000 volunteers from neighboring Shore communities dispersed along the ribbon to join the Governor, show their support and declare the Shore open for business. NBC’s broadcast of the entire event provided the scale and message distribution worthy of the cause and state of New Jersey.

A “ribbon cutting in a box” was distributed to each participating municipality, and local dignitaries were briefed and prepped on the overall campaign messaging to be included in their remarks, and media outreach was strategically segmented to ensure coverage of the main event, as well as other marquis ribbon cuttings across the state.

B-roll packages and social content were created and edited from the main event site and pushed in real time to enhance media packages and drive social conversation and participation in the Stronger than the Storm channels utilizing the #STTS hashtags.

The event was held at the traditional “official” opening of the Shore for the season, Memorial Day weekend, and was conceived, built and executed, along with a broadcast media program, creation of new social and digital assets, in less than 30 days.

The event was a success on every level. Over 12,000 people attended Stronger than the Storm Ribbon Cutting ceremonies in 14 Shore communities. Nearly half of adult residents in the NJ, NYC and Philadelphia area heard about events at the Jersey Shore over Memorial Day Weekend. Of those 69% recalled the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. There were over 3000 #STTS online mentions the morning of the event, over 17 million Facebook and Twitter impressions and over 200 website visits per hour. Over 420M media impressions were garnered, including more than two dozen on-site broadcast outlets. Moreover, tonality generated from both traditional and social media was 98% positive.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

70

BEST SPECIAL EVENT/STUNT

S I LV E R Grey Activation and PR for Canon’s PIXMA PRO City Senses Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leading provider of consumer, business and industrial imaging solutions, engaged Grey Activation & PR to raise awareness for Canon’s professional group of printers, PIXMA PRO, to help resurrect the lost art of printing. Grey was challenged with creating an event series that would bring the story of the printed image to life to a variety of key targets including aspiring photographers, advanced amateurs, professional photographers, photography schools (professors and students), industry influencers, loyal Canon customers and Canon retail partners and stakeholders. Grey produced Canon’s PIXMA PRO City Senses, a three-city series in New York, Chicago and San Francisco aimed at capturing an emotion and moment- in-time through the power of printed photography.

Using the senses of touch, taste, smell and sound as inspiration, Grey brought three iconic cities to life through photography displayed in interactive pop up galleries which showcased the printed image. They then selected celebrity hosts, notable names who were passionate about photography and their hometowns: Norman Reedus (AMC’s “The Walking Dead”) in New York City, multiGrammy award-winning hip-hop artist and actor COMMON in Chicago and notable chef Tyler Florence in San Francisco. The hosts along with two local photographers in each market were then challenged to interpret sensorial themes—like the taste of cotton candy in Coney Island and the smell of the cork in wine country through photography—inspired by their hometown pride.

The images were then printed on Canon PIXMA PRO printers on a variety of Canon paper and featured at the gallery events for attendees to take away. Upon entry, attendees at the Canon PIXMA PRO City Senses exhibit were guided through a 4-room interactive gallery experience. Engaging in a feast for the senses, the first stop was a darkened room where a host greeted the group and provided them with the same sense trigger the photographers used in their photography journey.

Guests were encouraged to create their own mental image by interacting with the triggers before the room was illuminated, revealing the artists’ interpretation. This was repeated through four intimate chambers, affording gallery goers the chance to experience touch, taste, sound and smell exactly as the artist experienced them.

Upon completing the 4-room tour, the crowd entered the main gallery, which exposed the show in its entirety and featured a

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

specially curated collection of images from the hometown host along with an interactive demo station featuring the quality and functionality of the PIXMA PRO printers. Guests dined on themed delicacies while utilizing social media to push out comments and images from the evening to personal networks.

In order to be successful, Grey had to identify and leverage the right channels, messages and assets to attract the target’s attention and drive awareness for the Canon PIXMA PRO printers in an all too often forgotten about marketplace. On-site, top-tier media and bloggers conducted one-on-one interviews with talent and local photographers, providing in-depth details for their coverage. To continue the drumbeat of coverage, Grey issued a press release to tie together the three events. To further engage media and bloggers it conducted targeted follow up and offered brief phone interviews with talent to select media.

Coverage ran the gamut from consumer lifestyle to celebrity, tech and trade, reaching multiple touch points of the program. Grey scored over 110 media placements to date—online, broadcast and print—and 221 total posts on social networks.

BRONZE Hunter Public Relations for JELL-O Makes the Taste of Football Defeat Sweet JELL-O, one of America’s most iconic and beloved brands, has always been rooted in families and fun. However, in recent years, the brand began focusing only on adults, and in doing so, moved away from its core family consumer. JELL-O needed to return to its roots and remind families that JELL-O is “food for fun.” To reinforce this message, JELL-O kicked-off a new marketing campaign, “Fun Things Up,” and decided to be the first company to celebrate the football team and its city that didn’t win the Super Bowl with a “Pudding Surprise”—a delivery to the second-place city of thousands of JELL-O Pudding Cups. Following the Super Bowl XLVII broadcast (San Francisco 49ers vs. Baltimore Ravens), JELL-O ran a national post-game “Pudding Surprise” TV spot celebrating the team that didn’t win—the San Francisco 49ers—and followed up with the promise of making the taste of football defeat sweet with the JELLO “Pudding Surprise.”

Hunter Public Relations was tasked with driving national and local media awareness and consumer excitement of this event, while still maintaining the element of surprise, since the brand wanted to keep most of the activities under wraps until after the game – as

71

BEST SPECIAL EVENT/STUNT necessitated by not knowing who would win the game. In order to build media buzz and consumer excitement, while still maintaining the element of surprise since JELL-O wanted to keep activities under wraps until after the Super Bowl, HPR needed to coordinate efforts in two media markets—Baltimore and San Francisco, not knowing who would win the Super Bowl. In advance of the game, aggressive national and local media relations were conducted, under embargo, to tease the campaign for post-game coverage. The day before the game, an exclusive interview ran with ESPN.com discussing the ad without sharing full creative, helping to set the stage. Immediately following the ESPN article publication, HPR continued its aggressive media outreach to national online, sports and advertising/trade outlets, and distributed a press release teasing the new ad and Pudding Drop.

After the TV spot aired, HPR distributed a multi-media press release and conducted national and San Francisco media relations. Media and consumers were driven to FunThingsUp.com to watch the spot, see a teaser video showing the truck being loaded with Pudding, learn about Pudding Drop locations and receive a coupon. San Francisco fans could also download a browser plug-in to block any gloating about Baltimore’s win in news stories. Additional digital tactics included social seeding on BuzzFeed and AOL to drive increased engagement and sharing of the teaser video. Geotargeted promoted posts were also set up to specifically reach the San Francisco audience.

On the Tuesday morning following the big game, truckloads of JELLO Pudding Cups were delivered to residents in San Francisco, reminding them to celebrate their team’s accomplishments and smile. HPR helped to create a post-game, media moment-in-time by lining up Hall of Famer, six-time Super Bowl champion and former San Francisco 49er, Ronnie Lott, to act as a media spokesperson and help distribute JELL-O Pudding Cups in key hightraffic locations throughout San Francisco. HPR conducted aggressive media relations both locally and nationally to draw attention to this unique pop culture event.

More than 115.1 million media impressions and 200 placements resulted. Noteworthy placements include ESPN.com, CNN Newsroom, San Francisco Chronicle, MSN Now, Huffington Post, YAHOO! Sports, FOX Sports Radio with Pat O’Brien, and every local San Francisco TV station. FunThingsUp.com garnered more than 147K visits, and Pudding Drop generated more social buzz than any previous JELL-O campaign, with more than 17K mentions.

HONORABLE MENTION Zapwater Communications for for LYFE Begins in SoCal LYFE Kitchen is a great-tasting, good-for-you, lifestyle brand cofounded by Mike Roberts, former global president and COO of McDonald’s Corporation. LYFE Kitchen’s menu is filled with greattasting, locally sourced, sustainable ingredients expertly designed by celebrity Chef Art Smith and vegan culinary sensation Tal Ronnen. The brand opened its first restaurant in late 2011 in Palo Alto, CA, with the goal of national expansion. As part of the national expansion, the challenge was to introduce LYFE Kitchen’s second restaurant to the Southern California community, a crowded market, while concurrently generating national exposure and interest. In order to reach both local and national media it was crucial to position LYFE Kitchen as a restaurant that could appeal to all types of lifestyles—not limited to wellness—and appropriate for every meal-time occasion. To help ensure trial, messaging had to be breakthrough and community buy-in needed to occur prior to opening. Zapwater Communications was retained to aid in messaging, event execution and social media designed to generate broad strokes awareness, create local affinity and drive sales.

Zapwater Communications’ strategic approach hinged on developing strong, succinct and breakthrough brand messages. The messages were then pushed out via media relations and influencer outreach. The purpose was to ensure surround-sound talk value and media coverage. As a result, Zapwater Communications worked to ensure that the “great-tasting” message broke through all types of coverage from consumer to business to trade media along with social media conversation.

Zapwater focused on two main targets: Media and influencers. For media, platforms included national, local and social media and beats were focused on business, food and lifestyle. Influencers were defined as people with social media or community influence that could help drive recommendations and awareness. They included wellness experts, parenting bloggers, Culver City officials and athletes. For both categories, Zapwater Communications positioned LYFE Kitchen as a restaurant for every type of consumer. Brand ambassadors were also tapped to amplify the LYFE Kitchen manifesto: “eat good. do good. feel good.”

LYFE Kitchen introduced their “lyfestyle” brand to Southern

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

72

BEST USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS – BUSINESS/CONSUMER

GOLD Porter Novelli for The UNCLE BEN’S® Brand Ben’s Beginners Cooking Contest In 2011 The Uncle Ben’s Brand® created the Ben’s Beginners Cooking Contest with the goal of showing how starting with a single grain of rice can lead to better meals, more diverse cuisines and more family time. Along the journey, the team learned some interesting things, including that when families eat meals together, they are more likely to eat healthy foods, and when kids help prepare a meal, they are more likely to eat it. The Uncle Ben’s Brand® wanted to inspire families everywhere to make healthier choices together, because the habits we learn as children inform the decisions we make throughout our lifetime. The Uncle Ben’s Brand® launched the Ben’s Beginners program. Its mission: Let’s get kids cooking. To kick it off, Porter Novelli (PN) created the Ben’s Beginners Cooking Contest, a fully integrated Facebook-driven nationwide contest challenging parents to cook a kid-friendly recipe with their child. The content asked them to submit a video on a branded Facebook page to share their experience with others. The winner would receive $15,000 and a $30,000 school cafeteria makeover. After a successful first year, the PR pros were tasked with scaling the program to reach more families nationwide. As they evaluated this campaign in its second year, they looked for ways to build more momentum around how schools can be a vehicle for building awareness for the contest and mission to encourage children to make healthier eating choices. Porter Novelli was tasked with leading the team to growing the Ben’s Beginners Cooking Contest to reach more households Porter Novelli and the Uncle Ben’s Brand® aligned with influential partners and leveraged online relationships to maximize exposure for the Ben’s Beginners Cooking Contest while providing contestants and media with immediate understanding of the contest’s key messages through the use of various tactics. In the second year, to reach more families and schools nationwide, they added in a pledge for families to sign to commit to cooking healthy meals with their children, PN focused on more communication with schools by offering three school participation awards that rewarded the schools that had the most students enter the contest and gave families the tools they needed to spread the word in their communities both online and off.

The Porter Novelli team focused its energies on utilizing the stories of the contestants to drive engagement online and secure both local and national media attention. They opened the contest up for submission on July 29 with a soft launch by putting out a release and driving interest through Facebook. To officially kick off the contest, PN leveraged celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson to host a record setting event at the New York City Public Library, where they invited local families to set the record for the most parents and kids cooking together.

They spread further awareness before and after the event by securing media attendees and by using photos and videos to spread awareness through their Facebook page. Through the partnership with Marcus Samuelsson, the team hosted a media luncheon at his famed Red Rooster in Harlem and he hosted a satellite media tour to discuss how families can get in the kitchen together to encourage healthy living and eating.

Throughout the entire contest, PN put the power of PR in the hands of their contestants and provided them with a downloadable PR toolkit for them to reach out to their own local media and community members to help spread the word about the contest. The toolkit included a press release template for them to insert their personal information into as well as ideas for contacting their local morning show producers and holding school assemblies to get their schools behind them. Three schools were awarded a $30,000 cafeteria makeover, and at each school, PN hosted a celebration assembly to award the school with a check and had local media attend. They also accompanied the three winners on their trip to New York City to be on “The Rachael Ray Show.”

More than 960 videos were submitted through the Facebook application and over 84,600 votes were casted, a 33.5% and 280% increase from last year respectively. Over 866.8 million media impressions and counting were generated as part of the PR campaign, including placements secured by Ben’s Beginners Cooking Contest entrants. Notable placements include Fox and Friends, Huffington Post, Yahoo!

Shine, Pop Sugar: Moms, Yahoo! News, About.com, and Newsday.com.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

73

BEST USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS – BUSINESS/CONSUMER

S I LV E R Weber Shandwick for The PEDIGREE Feeding Project PEDIGREE Brand, the world's largest dog food brand, set out to reinvigorate their dog adoption efforts by creating a program in which their support of shelters and dog adoption could be more closely tied to nutritious, really good food for dogs, thereby driving sales. The PEDIGREE Feeding was created to provide participating shelters with their dogs’ food needs, at absolutely no cost.

This new campaign was inspired by the success of the brand’s supportive shelter efforts in Chicago and Nashville. After receiving an overwhelming amount of positive community feedback from these specific efforts, the brand sought to expand its reach and embark on a crowd-sourcing campaign that would engage and empower dog lovers all across the country. The goal then was to inform and engage the public nationwide, and rally them to be the voice in choosing those communities where participating shelters would benefit from the PEDIGREE Feeding Project. To achieve this goal, PEDIGREE Brand, working with its partner, Weber Shandwick, created a multi-platform communications campaign.

The “Choose the Next Communities” campaign encouraged dog lovers everywhere to nominate their city as the next community that could benefit from the PEDIGREE Feeding Project. Unlike other adoption programs, PEDIGREE tapped into its faithful and passionate consumers to lead them to a market that consumers felt passionate about and needed acute attention. To effectively reach targeted news media, online influencers and bloggers, and the general public, PEDIGREE with Weber Shandwick executed a number of tactics that combined community events, digital elements, online crowd sourcing strategies, a celebrity spokesperson and social media activations, all to aid in supporting traditional media efforts.

To lay the foundation for the national launch, the team held two separate pre-launch activities for key media and influencers. This provided a unique opportunity to share information about the brand, and offer an exclusive look at the brand’s new initiative, the PEDIGREE® Feeding Project and celebrity partner, country music allstar Miranda Lambert.

After generating pre-launch buzz among key media and influencers, PEDIGREE® and its partner Weber Shandwick, launched the PEDIGREE Feeding Project “Choose the Next Communities” initiative at a fun and exciting event at the Americana at Brand in Los Angeles. The launch included an early morning SMT/RMT with Miranda Lambert, as well as a personal appearance on-site where Lambert debuted her PSA-style videos, and completed interviews with national and LA-based media. To spotlight the furry friends who

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

would ultimately benefit from the program, dogs from SPCALA were on-site playing and interacting with guests. Digital stations were set up throughout the event and guests were encouraged to be the first to nominate their community and spread the word to their friends and family.

Additionally, Facebook followers were encouraged to share their favorite dog memories and adoption stories on the PEDIGREE® Facebook Page. To carry the momentum through the announcement of the five finalist communities, and eventually the selection and announcement of the two winning communities, the team continued to drive awareness through local media outreach and continued support through influencers.

BRONZE Diamond PR for Blogging Florida Diamond Public Relations’ client Florida Marriott is a group of 14 JW Marriott, Autograph Collection, Renaissance, Marriott and Gaylord Hotels throughout the Sunshine State, reaching from the Panhandle region to Key Largo to northeast Florida. In order to promote all 14 resorts cohesively yet for their individual attributes, the agency identified a range of influential online media to simultaneously visit resorts within the collection and subsequently report back to their audiences on their experiences at their assigned properties.

Diamond sought to create awareness of Florida Marriott’s dynamic resort collection throughout the state and the varied amenities the resort collection offers to a wide range of consumers in different niches. They would leverage the power of the social media to grow the reach of messages distributed by participating bloggers and vloggers, the latter of whom would post their content to YouTube, the world’s second largest search engine after Google. They would then target both the national and drive markets to boost bookings and revenue for summer 2013. The team would simultaneously promote the resort collection’s “Endless Summer” promotion, available to book at participating resorts.

In producing the “Blogging Florida” event, the agency selected eight travel bloggers and vloggers to simultaneously explore, experience and report on the very best of Florida Marriott’s key properties.

Bloggers were selected based on a series of criteria, including monthly reach, niche, where they are based and social media influence. The agency created eight itineraries providing a unique experience for each travel blogger who spent one to two nights at

74

BEST USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS – BUSINESS/CONSUMER each resort to experience firsthand the accommodations, cuisine, amenities and attractions unique to each property. Each blogger was given a daily resort credit to enjoy the hotels “at leisure,” allowing them to explore based on their interests and those of their audiences. In producing the itineraries, the agency worked closely with each of the participating resorts to include experiences/amenities tailored to each.

The agency created the hashtag #BloggingFL to be used by participants when posting about their experiences on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. With each blogger traveling separately, the social media aspect would enable participants to stay connected and establish a sense of camaraderie throughout their visit while simultaneously promoting the resort collection.

Furthermore, the website www.FloridaResortBuzz.com was created as part of the event where blogger biographies, social media handles and blog posts were aggregated in a “live-feed” format. In addition to streaming blog posts from each participant’s outlet, the event hashtag facilitated the aggregation/tracking of tweets and Instagram posts. With a focus on driving summer business, the agency provided participants with details about Florida Marriott’s “Endless Summer,” should they wish to organically include it in their coverage of the resorts.

The agency achieved participation of eight influential travel bloggers and vloggers from Visit Florida, South Florida Food & Wine, Trekaroo, Tourist 2 Townie / Trip Films, Wanderplex, Stop Having a Boring Life, Travel Yourself and Family Travel Magazine. Combined, these outlets had a total reach of 1,043,400 unique visitors monthly, catering to a wide range of consumers. Within a onemonth period, the Blogging Florida participants produced a total of 39 blog posts that promoted Florida Marriott’s collection of hotels and resorts. As a result of the #BloggingFL hashtag, all posts generated as a result of the trip were linked together in one conversation. According to the social tracking tool Hashtracking.com, the #BloggingFL hashtag achieved just short of 8 million timeline deliveries on Twitter alone.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

75

B E S T T E C H N O L O G Y C A M PA I G N – B U S I N E S S

GOLD Bateman Group for Branding Braintree: Bringing Mobile Commerce Innovator to the World Stage Braintree helps thousands of online and mobile businesses around the world including Uber, Open Table, Airbnb and TaskRabbit accept payments. Headquartered in Chicago and founded in 2007, Braintree acquired peer-to-peer payments app Venmo in 2012 to further its goal to transform online and mobile commerce. Bateman Group began work with Braintree in April 2013 and was immediately tasked to elevate the company’s profile in the business and broadcast media; evolve their “story” beyond technical product news; and establish their leadership position in the mobile commerce sector.

Understanding the importance of elevating Braintree in the crowded and somewhat complicated payments industry, Bateman Group immediately launched into a multi-pronged approach to position Braintree as a mobile innovator and the payments company to watch. In April 2013 when Bateman Group started working with Braintree, the PR team facilitated a storyline session to create proactive pitch angles that would appeal to journalistic instincts of reporters at top-tier business press and producers at national broadcast news shows.

Leveraging the storyline results, Bateman Group then mapped out the available news assets—product innovation, strategic partnerships, company milestones and key client results—to create multiple hooks for storytelling in Q2 and Q3 2013 that would better position Braintree as THE mobile payments leader as they moved into Q4 2013 and the holiday season.

The overarching strategy for this campaign was to combine unique proactive pitch angles with news that was highly relevant to current events and trends impacting online and mobile commerce. All pitches were specifically targeted to individual reporters with exclusive offers to break the news, have advance access to Braintree executives, or interview a customer or partner for third-party point of view.

Another key strategy was to capitalize on partnerships and corporate news that would solidify Braintree’s affiliation with mobile innovation and fellow innovators. This started in late April when the co-founder of Google Wallet, Rob von Behren, joined Braintree as the lead engineer with responsibility of advancing Braintree’s mobile commerce products. Bateman Group secured interviews for Rob with top-tier media including TechCrunch and New York Times discussing his journey from Google to Square and finally to Braintree. This effort also incorporated CEO Bill Ready’s mobile vision and together he and Von Behren outlined Braintree’s roadmap for future success.

The next news opportunity was when Google announced that it would close Google Checkout and focus its commerce efforts on Google Wallet. With this announcement, Google recommended its Checkout customers work with Braintree to serve their online payment needs, which opened up an opportunity for Braintree to have a voice in the story. Bateman Group immediately reached out to the most influential media following the news and secured 40 articles that prominently featured Braintree as the next generation in online and mobile payments.

In addition to the Google partnership, Braintree was also working to announce a new Venmo Touch offering to financial services companies. To make the announcement, the team leveraged Braintree’s partnership with Simple, a startup that is changing the way people bank. Finally in August, Facebook was set to announce that it was working on a payment platform that would make paying on your phone as easy as creating an account on a new site via Facebook Connect. Braintree was a primary technology enabler behind this capability, but due to the nature of the partnership, Facebook was taking the lead on the announcement. Bateman Group was poised and ready to jump on the news when it happened, and quickly lined up an exclusive interview with Sara Lacy of Pando Daily to speak with Braintree CEO Bill Ready about the nature of the partnership.

Through a series of well-orchestrated events leveraging product innovation, strategic partnerships, company milestones and key client results, Braintree garnered 470 top-tier media hits between Apr.1 and Sept. 30, not including an additional 400 plus stories that published about the acquisition.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

76

B E S T T E C H N O L O G Y C A M PA I G N – B U S I N E S S

S I LV E R Tanis Communications for Crossbar: Shaking Up a Technology Market Crossbar, a start-up company pioneering a new memory technology, has game-changing innovation and a staggering market opportunity of more than $48 billion. Bringing a new memory technology to market requires visibility across a broad set of audiences, from press and analysts, to potential partners and future customers. And after years in stealth mode—its presence was close to zero, so Crossbar engaged Tanis Communications in late 2012 to raise visibility in the press, encourage traffic to the website and provide relevant and helpful content allowing them to engage with each of those critical audiences and drive their business forward.

Approaching communications in a holistic fashion, Tanis Communications leverages its deep technology expertise and inhouse communications experience to deliver fully-integrated programs for a broad range of technology clients. Tanis Communications’ team of experts worked closely with Crossbar’s executive team to articulate ‘the story’ and craft a brand strategy, narrative and key messages that would resonate across a wide range of audiences. That story became the framework for a comprehensive set of communications activities, including, but not limited to strategy development, public relations, speaker training, website revamp, social media and creation of numerous marketing assets. Capturing and clearly articulating “the point” of the story prior to dividing and conquering the list of deliverables was absolutely crucial to the success of the launch.

Tanis helped Crossbar emerge from stealth mode with an extremely high profile, ensuring that with every touch point, target audiences became aware of the company and its differentiated gamechanging technology, and take the planned actions—whether visiting the new website, writing an article, contacting the company for a meeting, or engaging in industry dialogue about the company's potential impact on the industry and the world.

Tanis developed a comprehensive PR plan to spark the industry’s attention about the game-changing technology from Crossbar. Clear and concise content essential to telling the story was bolstered with a social-media-enriched press release, analyst and industry endorsements, press images, b-roll and in-depth briefing materials.

Tanis developed targeted press, influencer and industry analyst lists, securing coverage in top-tier business and technology publications.

The PR team worked closely with Crossbar spokespersons and implemented presentation and media training. Designed and customized WordPress templates, developed all website content

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

and created supporting homepage and content page graphics, reinforcing the visual telling of Crossbar’s story online. Tanis also designed and customized a website, developed all website content and created supporting homepage and content page graphics. A social media presence was established on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and Wikipedia. Moreover, Tanis developed content and designed new corporate marketing materials, including a company fact sheet and presentations.

The campaign piqued the interest of a broad range of analysts and reporters, and two weeks later, more than 100 unique articles about Crossbar had been written in both leading technology and business publications, with many publications running multiple stories about Crossbar’s game-changing technology. That coverage created a sea of interest from potential partners and customers, kick-starting the next phase for Crossbar.

BRONZE RF|Binder Partners for NYU Stern School of Business: Positioning Experts in the Technology Industry In the past couple of years, the U.S. economy has seen a collision of the technology industry with economics and finance. Led by Internet giants such as Google, the overlap has manifested itself in regulations seen in San Francisco’s policy regarding limitations on sharing economy companies and the jarring effect the IPO of these once strictly social companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, have had on the economic climate. As digital companies become more relevant to the conversation, it is becoming increasingly apparent that financial thought leaders need to have a foot in both worlds.

For RF|Binder and its client, the NYU Stern School of Business, the emerging global economic climate provided a unique opportunity for NYU to leverage their extensive knowledge base in a crowded national conversation, marking a pivotal moment of expediency in their public relations mission. RF|Binder worked to establish Stern as a leading voice at the crossroads of the technology and economic policy discussion table, offering researchbased solutions, and to position the school for future success by solidifying its brand identity and increasing its exposure among media, influencers, policymakers and lawmakers.

RF|Binder developed a strategic media relations plan outlining specific opportunities to insert Stern into the ongoing dialogue and establish the school as an authority- providing compelling opinions

77

B E S T T E C H N O L O G Y C A M PA I G N – B U S I N E S S and proposals for solutions. The program centered around a thought leadership platform, proactively addressing upcoming digital breakthroughs, while also reacting to relevant news of the day.

as a prominent go-to source for analysis of prominent technology issues and thought leadership.

As the technology landscape began to shift, RF|Binder helped professors from various niche expert areas stay in constant contact with high-level business editors at major publications in order to strengthen relationships that would lead to expanded coverage in the media. The strategic relationship-building would lead directly into media outreach based on news developments in the U.S. technology sector.

In an effort to expand upon already established relationships with key technology media, the Stern team continued their work with RF|Binder to engage the national media on behalf of the school’s information technology faculty. As the field of digital economics began to evolve, RF|Binder leveraged research by Professor Arun Sundararajan on the ongoing disruptions in the technology industry to build relationships with high-priority reporters in the national technology media. From the smartphone wars between Apple and Samsung, privacy concerns regarding Google’s cookie tracking and the emergence of the digital, “sharing” economy, the professor’s research led to interviews with top-tier and trade publications such as Financial Times, Fortune, CNET, Wired and Salon. Additionally, the team saw an opportunity to capitalize on the growing discussion on business analytics and the use of big data. Highlighting Professor Anindya Ghose’s research as co-director of Stern’s Center for Business Analytics, the team secured several West Coast interviews with key reporters at The Wall Street Journal and Wired.

RF|Binder kept a close eye on breaking news, leveraging professor research for a timely reaction to the media, presenting the faculty as current thought leaders with a fresh perspective on relevant topics. A concentrated effort on high-profile op-eds authored by the faculty functioned to solidify the Stern faculty as preeminent thinkers on the global financial reform debate. Translating professors’ heightened visibility into the school’s brand was an additional goal. RF|Binder worked in conjunction with the Stern team to coordinate a series of high-profile speaking events with both national and international policymakers on campus. These events were designed to visibly draw the connection between the information technology faculty as thought leaders and Stern as a premier business school.

RF|Binder’s efforts on behalf of Stern’s technology faculty resulted in conversations with All Things Digital, The New York Times Bits blog, Bloomberg, Bloomberg Businessweek, CNET, Financial Times, Fortune, GigaOM, Salon, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal and CNBC. The professors have also been guests on CNBC, Fox Business and NBC News. Stern’s visible leadership role in the breaking technology news established Stern

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

78

B E S T T E C H N O L O G Y C A M PA I G N – C O N S U M E R

GOLD Flashpoint PR for Inspiring the makers of today and tomorrow: LEGO® MINDSTORMS® EV3 Platform Launch When the LEGO MINDSTORMS robotics platform first launched in 1998, it was regarded as the first real “smart toy,” and since then, it has become widely recognized as the gold standard in consumer robotics. Fifteen years later, The LEGO Group launched a redesigned platform called MINDSTORMS EV3, a system designed to 1) excite and challenge an audience of children who have grown up with technology— many of whom are more proficient in commanding and controlling mobile devices and other technology than their older siblings and parents; and 2) give the now significant audience of consumer robotics hobbyists and enthusiasts—those who are proudly part of the “maker movement”—a more flexible and powerful way to build robots that do everything from playing instruments to making pancakes.

While LMS had an enthusiastic user base and was essentially seen as the leader in consumer robotics, EV3 was technically evolutionary— not revolutionary. On top of that, its price point of $349.99 could limit mainstream appeal and compete for wallet share with iPad and other coveted tech products. Additionally, the last launch of LMS in 2006 set an incredibly high bar by establishing and leveraging the company’s philosophy of lead user innovation and co-creation as the underpinning of the launch. Storytelling hurdles were high both among the internal stakeholders and the news media that had rabidly covered LMS innovation in 2006.

PR was the only marketing lever in place at the time of the EV3 launch and began nine months prior to product availability. The Flashpoint PR team laid the foundation for the campaign by creating a visually compelling recap of the Institute for the Future report, a retail fact sheet, a LMS platform milestones fact sheet, a compilation of campaign spokesperson bios, and universal messaging for all things EV3.

From the product announcement at CES 2013 through launch, Flashpoint issued a flurry of outbound news about product specs, campaign initiatives, the company’s associated social hub for robot fans at www.LEGO.com/MINDSTORMS, apps that let fans connect and more.

To give core fans the inside track and recruit new ones, the agency coordinated hands-on moments with EV3 through a December 2012 22-outlet media tour in New York, Washington DC, San Francisco and Toronto; participation in the CES show’s highest profile press reception, Digital Experience—where 250 influential press and analysts met their makers—and the CES Kids@Play Summit where LMS spearheaded a panel called “The Transformation of Play: How 15 years of ‘smart toys’ has changed children’s play”; and through significant presence at the largest gathering of robotics fans in the country, Maker Faire.

The key kid-facing event of the campaign was the LEGO MINDSTORMS-sponsored SparkTruck (owned and run by Stanford d.school) that road-tripped across the country all summer long and stopped in over 35 kid-friendly locations in 16 cities to engage kids in hands-on, minds-on activities via free workshops that unleashed kids’ inner makers, including an EV3-based activity that introduced the versatility, power and fun of the new platform. The culmination of the SparkTruck program was the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robo Lunch Party, where Facebook, Flickr (division of Yahoo!), the Instructables (division of Autodesk), and Pandora went head-to-head to compete in a LEGO robot building challenge. Each company’s team had 10 days and advanced access to EV3 to build and program a San Francisco Bay Areainspired creation.

The culmination of the SparkTruck program was the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robo Lunch Party, where Facebook, Flickr, the Instructables and Pandora went head-to-head to compete in a LEGO robot-building challenge. Each company’s team had 10 days and advanced access to EV3 to build and program a San Francisco Bay Area-inspired creation.

PR value totaled $34,000,000 for the campaign to-date. EV3 was included in over 200 articles at the Consumer Electronics Show and received seven “best of” awards from publications such as Popular Mechanics, PCMag.com, Mashable, Popular Science, and more. EV3 has been the subject of feature stories in the Associated Press, TIME Magazine, Popular Science, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Smithsonian Magazine and the cover of Boys’ Life. EV3 product reviews have garnered additional acclaim, and LEGO MINDSTORMS got the #1 spot for sponsor recall at the Maker Faire Bay Area according to an attendee survey of the year’s event.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

79

B E S T T E C H N O L O G Y C A M PA I G N – C O N S U M E R

S I LV E R Zapwater Communications for Everpurse: Kickstarter to Fashion Week Star Dubbed “the bag as powerful as you are,” Everpurse merges technology and fashion into an innovative women’s accessory. Each Everpurse clutch is equipped with a special pocket that charges your smartphone on the go. Created by husband and wife duo, Liz and Dan Salcedo, Everpurse launched on Kickstarter in the fall of 2012 and quickly surpassed its initial fundraising goal of $100,000 in just one week. After reaching their goal on Kickstarter, media inquiries began flooding Liz’s and Dan’s inboxes. Like other entrepreneurs and start-ups, they faced an immense challenge to take a great product and make it a both commercial and media success. In April 2013, Everpurse retained Zapwater Communications to manage the public relations around their product’s primary launch and consumer roll out. Everpurse understood that the launch could make or break their business, and they only had one chance to make a great first impression.

Faced with a limited budget and number of product samples, Everpurse turned to Zapwater Communications for help. Zapwater was tasked with executing a strategic public relations campaign that would garner significant national media exposure, drive consumer awareness, boost industry credibility and build loyalty among the fashion and tech elite.

To stand out in the highly competitive market, Zapwater touted the innovative concept and mass appeal of the product through a mix of traditional pitching, formal press releases and media sampling.

Top-tier media, editors and high-profile bloggers began to quickly take notice. National media including CNN, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, E! News, Huffington Post, Forbes, Mashable, NYLON Magazine, USA Today and Telemundo all praised the uniqueness of the product and their excitement for its availability.

With buzz quickly building, Zapwater convinced the brand to make a high-profile press visit to New York in time for long lead holiday gift guide consideration. While in Manhattan, the team met with more than ten top-tier media outlets and went on to receive additional features in publications like Glamour, Daily Candy National and Star Magazine. Everpurse would also receive future placement in the holiday gift guides for Ok! Magazine, American Airline’s Celebrated Living and Time Magazine as a direct result from the national media trip orchestrated by Zapwater. In fact, the bags were receiving so much attention and demand that shipments were delayed a month in order for production supply to keep up.

Zapwater then worked in tandem with the brand using social media

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

as the preferred channel to manage consumer feedback and expectations directly.

After not one but two appearances on “The Today Show,” Katie Couric’s producer felt that Everpurse was the perfect candidate to feature as one of Katie Couric’s Mothers of Invention. The Mother of Invention segments on Katie invite entrepreneurs from all over the country to pitch their product for feedback from top industry professionals. Liz was flown out to New York again and given the chance to pitch Everpurse to ABC’s most notorious entrepreneur elite, the sharks of “Shark Tank.”

The results of Zapwater’s efforts between April 2013 and December 2013 have been significant. Total media impressions stand around 41.7 million with an ad value of more than $2.3 million. Zapwater secured more than 70 local, regional and national placements over the course of eight months.

BRONZE Allison + Partners for Taking a Smart Approach to Launching Samsung SMART Camera Samsung is one of the world’s most recognized and well-respected consumer electronics brands. With a reputation for trust and producing lifestyle enhancing products, Samsung’s brand leadership began in TVs, expanded to smartphones and tablets and now extends to almost every consumer electronics category.

Samsung has redefined “smart” with remarkable consistency through its SMART technology platform that has been implemented across TVs, phones, computers and even home appliances.

Cameras, however, were a different story.

The digital imaging category faces a number of challenges overall.

With the rise of the camera phone, global camera sales are rapidly on the decline estimated to be down 40% from three years ago according to IDC with many brands significantly decreasing their product lines or even abandoning “point and shoot” style cameras entirely. What’s more, in the US, most consumers still have an affinity toward legacy camera brands for professional or advanced hobbyist cameras despite technological advances favoring smaller forms and increased connectivity from newer players. Likewise, pro or photo hobby customers still gravitate to interchangeable lens, digital single-lens reflex cameras (or DSLRs) over the likes of “point and shoot” and mirrorless cameras (or CSC).

Yet despite declines in sales, more pictures than ever are actually

80

B E S T T E C H N O L O G Y C A M PA I G N – C O N S U M E R being taken. This opened the door for the smart or connected camera era, and Samsung was better positioned than any other brand to become the SMART camera brand of choice.

The experts at Allison + Partners spearheaded Samsung’s PR campaign and helped capture the leadership role in this newly emerging category. The PR pros successfully increased mindshare; established Samsung as a leading innovator in digital imaging in terms of technology and design; defined SMART in the camera marketplace starting with WiFi and apps, but ultimately expanding to include groundbreaking innovations like the Android platform on a camera; and positioned Samsung as the smart (or connected) camera brand of choice for consumers equal to their stature in other consumer electronics categories.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

81

B E S T T R AV E L , H O S P I TA L I T Y & D E S T I N AT I O N S C A M PA I G N

GOLD Murphy O'Brien PR for Launch of Mukul Beach, Golf & Spa – Nicaragua’s First Luxury Resort Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one with a warn-torn history, wasn’t even a blip on the radar of North American tourists when Murphy O'Brien PR began doing PR for the Nicaraguan Tourism Board in 2009. Since then, thanks to the firm’s work and stressing that contrary to popular perception, Nicaragua is safe for tourists, the PR team has been able to put Nicaragua on the tourism map.

Murphy O’Brien’s effort brought attention to the country, but Nicaragua lacked a resort that could qualify as a luxury property—one that would entice visitors who vacation at a Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton resort. In fact, the daily tourist spend in Nicaragua was $43. The PR team was thrilled when the Pellas Development Group asked them to work on a PR campaign to launch the opening of Mukul, Nicaragua’s first luxury resort.

Mukul is the legacy project of Nicaragua’s wealthiest entrepreneur and philanthropist, Carlos Pellas. Set in Guacalito de la Isla, Pellas’ 1,670-acre, $250-million low-density, private beach community on Nicaragua’s pristine Pacific coastline, the hotel features 37 luxurious accommodations, an elaborate spa and an environmentally friendly golf course designed by Scottish golf architect David McLay Kidd.

Opening room rates start at $550 per night.

Given Nicaragua's perceived instability, the team had to develop a campaign that first showcased the truly positive nature of the country, and second, showcased the resort itself as a game changer for Nicaragua and as the ultimate luxury destination. Murphy O’Brien crafted messaging that positioned Nicaragua as offering something Costa Rica was falling behind on due to the oversaturation of hotels. They argued that since the tourism business in Nicaragua is in its infancy—and Mukul is the first luxury resort— travelers visiting Mukul can enjoy a genuine, exotic and untouched destination. Nicaragua was new. It was fresh and it was ready for discovery. And Mukul provided the most luxurious setting in which visitors could experience the best that Nicaragua can offer.

To showcase Mukul as the ultimate luxury destination, the PR pros highlighted the resort’s truly sustainable efforts—both in the infrastructure and its local staff; the efforts of the owner Mr. Carlos Pellas to give back to the community; the first resort of its kind in Nicaragua; and the resort’s very unique spa—six spas in one. To tackle this campaign, Murphy O’Brien sent press releases covering the above messaging, pitched Mukul to top-target editors in New York, and gave media training to Carlos Hernandez, CEO of Pellas Development, and escorted him on a New York media tour where they met with editors at 12 top-target travel, lifestyle and business publications. The team also worked with T: New York Style Magazine writers in Nicaragua to arrange interviews with Carlos Pellas and with Nicaraguan Minister of Tourism, for quotes on how Mukul will positively impact Nicaraguan tourism. They gave an exclusive to The Wall Street Journal for an article about how travel agents would sell a luxury resort in such a poor country and invited the editor-in-chief of Indagare, an upscale travel website and travel agency, for a pre-opening look.

Since the Pellas Development did not have prior experience opening a hotel, Murphy O’Brien helped them with every aspect of preopening, including designing and providing content for their website. They also arranged a top-tier media exclusive, coordinated a preopening photo shoot and arranged pre-opening trips to Mukul. In addition, Murphy O’Brien worked with golf media, fashion media and food and wine media to drive coverage for Mukul’s many extraordinary features.

The goal was to reach an upscale/affluent audience that would be interested in Nicaragua's first luxury resort. As a result, the PR team pitched and received tacit endorsements in the most reputable national and key niche regional outlets. Examples of the excellent coverage include T: New York Times Style Magazine, the “Today Show,” Travel + Leisure, CNN.com, Fodors.com, AFAR.com and Indagare.com. The effort yielded a 50:1 return on investment.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

82

B E S T T R AV E L , H O S P I TA L I T Y & D E S T I N AT I O N S C A M PA I G N

S I LV E R Diamond PR for CyberSummer A large portion of Diamond PR’s (DPR) clients are based in warmweather destinations in beachfront locations. Winter weather in the northeast results in strong seasonal business for these warm regions, while the summer sun has the opposite affect and leaves resorts with the challenge of attracting business during this time.

The agency is faced with the challenge of how to help clients drive business during summer. In order to drive bookings specific to summer travel, agency created the concept of CyberSummer, a oneday, online only, flash sale to be held on the first day of summer, June 21. Based upon the popular CyberMonday event, the concept is to create a sense of urgency to book by making it a one-day-only sale with deeply discounted rates and deals that can only be booked on this single day. Timeframes and restrictions could be imposed as needed to limit travel to specific need periods (i.e., summer). By utilizing the agency’s roster of hotel specific clients, the campaign could be positioned as a trend and subsequently generate media interest and awareness to put it on consumer radars.

Diamond PR created the concept and collected deals and offers from all interested clients—20 hotels in total. Additionally, DPR purchased the website domain, www.cybersummertravel.com. The website hosted all CyberSummer travel offers, broken down by region. The agency worked directly with a designer to create the site in a user-friendly format to help drive bookings directly to hotel websites. This site also served as a key resource in media outreach, giving journalists a place to direct their readers for all Cybersummer offers. It also proved to legitimize the promotion with a “real website.” Finally, it allowed all participating clients to have equal exposure via the media since every article that ran about the promotion, whether it cited specific hotel offers or not, included the website URL. The website saw upwards of 6,000 unique visits and over 10,000 overall visits in a short, two-week period—especially impressive when considering the website was previously unknown/non-existent just a few days prior. With the deals compiled and the website in place, agency went on an all out pitching blitz—utilizing and social methods, in an entire office team effort, reaching out to media across the country and in every format. A specific focus was placed online so that coverage could link directly to cybersummertravel.com. Finally, leading up to and on the day of the promotion, social channels—specifically Twitter and Facebook—were

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

utilized to spread the message and share the cybersummertravel.com website. Twenty resorts, plus the entire DPR team and the media, shared the message across social channels— and all was marked with #cybersummer.

Results from this campaign were two-fold. From a PR perspective, the goal was to generate media attention for the campaign and the individual hotels. This goal was met and surpassed with media coverage in more than 40 outlets including print, online and broadcast reaching more than 14 million consumers. The exposure included CyberSummer-focused coverage in, but not limited to NY Post, Forbes.com and ABC10 TV. The social reach of the promotion was more than 1.8 million from Twitter alone. The hashtag #CyberSummer was instituted and used in the week leading up to June 21st and on the CyberSummer sale day. Facebook was also used consistently to push out the messaging from a resort level, and media pushed their individual coverage of the event through these two social channels as well. The second goal, and catalyst for the creation of the campaign, was to generate room bookings for clients in summer, and more than 1,000 room nights were booked.

BRONZE Grey Activation and PR for Marriott Hotels’ Travel Brilliantly The iconic brand, Marriott Hotels, has been an industry leader for over 50 years, but the travel industry is experiencing a sea of change as millennials become the dominant customers. They are mobile and global, effortlessly blending work and play. Marriott’s image was not reflective of this demographic’s needs and wants.

Marriott International is making investments in its flagship Marriott Hotels brand to deliver innovations that appeal to Gen X and Y, who demand style, design and substance and require technology as central to their lifestyle. To target this next generation of travelers, Grey launched Travel Brilliantly, an integrated platform across TV, digital, social, PR and activation channels. The campaign highlights Marriott's commitment to evolving travel beyond the hotel stay—a bold change to inspire and engage consumers to re-imagine the future of travel. By innovating in different verticals Marriott promises to make travel unforgettable, effortless, brilliant.

Research conducted on the Gen X and Y frequent-business-traveler consumer revealed that Marriott’s target is a modern global nomad—the ambitious frequent business traveler who is always connected, knowledgeable and sophisticated. This led Grey to define brand beliefs and values: Modern travel should enhance

83

B E S T T R AV E L , H O S P I TA L I T Y & D E S T I N AT I O N S C A M PA I G N work, play and ourselves. Today’s traveler seamlessly blends work and leisure and needs a hotel that combines high tech and high touch. Going further, the target audience craves flexibility and the freedom to live their blended lifestyle. Within this audience, there is a group that thinks independently to embrace what’s genuine and meaningful, rejecting the trendy and superficial. They want authentic hotel experiences that are dynamic, polished and thoughtful. They create their own definition of success, work/life balance, mobility and freedom, and have close connectivity with family and friends. These “headsters” (as opposed to hipsters) consider themselves intelligent, worldly and discerning.

A vast majority (74%) of earned coverage was categorized as a transformational story based on a detailed algorithm that laddered back to key performance indicators. The campaign also increased brand relevance for the next generation of traveler, Marriott’s target audience. The online component of the campaign capitalized on the target demographics’ affinity for co-creating products with brands by introducing the platform TravelBrilliantly.com. Website idea submissions exceeded the year target by 179% in just 4 months, with over 50% of users categorized as millennials. In addition, Grey PR generated 1.2 billion+ impressions and ad value from PR hits totaled $11.3MM+

Grey’s strategy was to lay the critical foundation for an integrated campaign, creating a brand-building program with quality strategic news stories. The goal was to generate a steady drumbeat, tell a cohesive story and focus on lifestyle and non-traditional trade and hospitality/travel press preferred by younger guests to sustain buzz after each announcement. To elevate the Travel Brilliantly campaign story above and beyond the traditional hospitality angle, the PR team targeted media in key, non-traditional verticals for the brand— technology, eat and drink, work and play, health and wellness, style and design—and seeded key messages through outreach. By pulling back the curtains to allow consumers and media to be part of the journey, Marriott’s transparency built a continual story to showcase the brand’s commitment to innovation.

in 4 months following the launch, creating awareness for Marriott’s innovations and vision for the future of travel.

To highlight Marriott’s bold transformation, Grey created programming that targeted the audience of next generation travelers and assisted in their lifestyle, which blends work and play and high tech and high touch. Disrupting the traditions of the travel and hospitality, Travel Brilliantly celebrates the entire global travel experience and demonstrates the shift away from the idea that a hotel is just a hotel by inviting the consumer in to become part of the process. By thinking beyond just the hotel’s four walls, Marriott can differentiate itself from competitors and form stronger connections to its guests, playing a bigger role in travelers’ journeys; to make travel more brilliant. To further amplify the transformation messaging, the strategy included collaborating with on target influencers and brands including Architizer, What’s Trending, Herschel Supply Co. and Yurbuds.

As Travel Brilliantly is a multi-year, global campaign, the team’s proactive PR strategy enabled them to preview the innovations before they rolled out and curate new ones, allowing for a constant drumbeat of non-traditional travel and hospitality coverage. This approach allowed them to create multiple moments-in-time and touch points to connect with media, extending the life of each initiative while consistently shifting Marriott’s perception from an iconic brand to a transformative hospitality innovator.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

HONORABLE MENTION Hilton Worldwide for THilton Hotels & Resorts Cures Vacationitis In today’s fast-paced work environment, many working professionals neglect the time they need to unplug and relax. The traditional work week and typical annual or seasonal vacations have evolved as people are working more than ever before. Hilton Hotels & Resorts recognized an opportunity to connect with overworked professionals by engaging them with fun content and playful workforce humor while growing leisure hotel stays.

As working professionals are often most familiar with Hilton through business travel, the brand saw an opportunity to focus on leisure travel and conceived “Hilton Urgent Vacation Care Center.”

The interactive website aims to drive incremental leisure travel revenue and build brand awareness through a humorous campaign alerting consumers to a global outbreak of “Vacationitis,” a fictitious disease affecting overstressed workers around the world incapable of taking long- or short-term breaks. The Vacationitis campaign was a relevant way to introduce Hilton as a champion of breaks and vacations to the brand’s core demographic.

Hilton Urgent Vacation Care Center launched in January 2013 to support leisure travel to Hilton Hotels & Resorts properties among a key audience of working professionals in the U.S., U.K. and Latin America. This group is often aware of Hilton through business travel and Hilton aimed to increase their awareness of the brand’s leisure offerings by engaging them with fun content. The PR team also sought to build enrollment to the HiltonVIP Newsletter, drive traffic to hilton.com, strengthen brand social engagement and support

84

B E S T T R AV E L , H O S P I TA L I T Y & D E S T I N AT I O N S C A M PA I G N wider brand efforts for leisure packages and promotions and enable each of the brand’s properties to promote tactical revenue generating offers.

The campaign required design and launch of a new hilton.com website, www.vacationcarecenter.hilton.com, and leveraged existing Hilton social media platforms and customer touch points. The key message of this campaign was to encourage working professionals to find time to take breaks and vacations while engaging them with humorous content that is relatable to their daily work tasks as well as to highlight Hilton as a champion of leisure destinations.

The Vacationitis campaign aimed to target working professionals as Hilton looked to convert business travelers to leisure guests to help make vacations a priority and to maximize the value of each guest’s personal time. This included individuals who are success driven, high-tech efficient and young professionals.

Hilton conducted a survey of 2,000 U.K. residents on their professional and vacation habits and paired it with archived research of previous Hilton leisure campaigns. From the findings, Hilton Urgent Vacation Care Center was developed—an interactive website that features a quiz and rates consumers need for a break and provides personalized vacation prescriptions. The site was supported by a partnership with satire news organization, The Onion, a social media campaign and consumer messaging through in-room video, Hilton VIP Newsletter and Hilton HHonors Monthly Statement. The campaign also hinged on a consumer sweepstakes, a media exclusive in The New York Times and consumer activations—a pop-up stunt in London and a Vacation Care Center Mobile Unit used for events.

Messages across consumer and media platforms captured the attention of the target audience. From January 14, 2013, through July 31, 2013, Hilton Urgent Vacation Care Center saw tens of thousands of site visits, completed quizzes, entrants to the sweepstakes, visits to hilton.com from the site and HiltonVIP Newsletter sign ups at the Hilton Channels. Vacationitis content was the most actioned item in all HiltonVIP editions of 2013, and the campaign played a key role in helping Hilton reach 1 million Facebook likes. The effort also garnered 274,804,109 impressions and more than 100 media placements in 22 countries.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

85

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 1 0 0 , 0 0 0

GOLD Child's Play Communications for Building a Brand: a littleBits at a time littleBits is a system of electronic building blocks for children and adults that functions as a toy, gadget and prototyping tool. In 2013, the brand wanted to expand awareness of littleBits beyond the small “maker” community by securing greater visibility within the mainstream media. LittleBits contracted Child’s Play Communications to manage media relations for the brand and support the company’s launch of two new products: the littleBits Exploration Kit series and the littleBits Synth Kit. The Exploration Kit series, consisting of three separate Kits—the Base Kit, Premium Kit and Deluxe Kit—was to be positioned as the brand’s new flagship product line, with a target audience of children, hobbyists and first-time tinkerers. The Synth Kit, created in collaboration with KORG, a leading global manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, was to be positioned as the first of a series of strategic partnerships in which the marriage of technology and other fields is explored, starting in this case with music. The target audience for the Synth Kit was teens, musicians, and hobbyists.

The program’s primary goal was to generate new product and holiday gift-guide coverage in the last half of 2013 to help drive sales. The secondary objective was to seek profile pieces for founder and CEO Ayah Bdeir, as well as business stories focusing on the startup story of littleBits.

For traditional media coverage of the Exploration Kit series, Child’s Play anticipated the up-front education that would be needed in order to secure new product news and holiday gift guide coverage in long-lead editorial publications. The agency led the creation of video assets for use in pitching and editor one-on-ones, providing the brand with direction on media-appropriate content for a brief Web-based video capturing how the product works and what users could make with littleBits. Several versions of the video were created, including a holidaythemed video starring littleBits founder and CEO Ayah Bdeir. An extensive press kit including press releases, fact sheets, images and project “look books” were also created.

For long-lead media, the agency orchestrated a series of desk-side demonstrations with leading lifestyle, women’s and parenting publications to give editors a hands-on look at how the Kits work. In addition, press kits and product samples were sent to short-lead print, Web and broadcast outlets, as well as to long-lead editors who could not commit to desk-side meetings.

For the launch of the Synth Kit, littleBits orchestrated a private media event at New York City’s Le Poisson Rouge with nationally known comedian/musician Reggie Watts, as well as local New York City-based synth musician Nullsleep. Child’s Play invited top-tier music, tech, lifestyle, general interest, and New York-based media to attend the event. To entice attendees, they positioned the event as a “first look” at the Synth Kit and embargoed coverage of the new product for the day after the private event. Targeted media were also sent a “teaser” promotional video of Reggie Watts performing with the Synth Kit. At the event, littleBits founder Ayah Bdeir introduced the new Synth Kit, representatives from KORG Japan also gave a short presentation in which they discussed how the product was developed. Finally, there were musical performances by Nullsleep and Reggie Watts, both of whom used the Synth Kit for the entirety of their sets. Following the event, Child’s Play officially released the product to all media with a nationally distributed press release.

Toward the end of the PR campaign, the startup completed an $11.1-million Series B funding round. Child’s Play quickly developed press materials and embargoed the news for targeted top-tier business and technology outlets, as well as local New York-based news outlets. The team offered pre-embargo interviews with littleBits founder Ayah Bdeir, as well as interviews with her investors. After the embargo was lifted, Child’s Play released the funding news to all major markets with a nationally distributed press release.

Overall, Child’s Play has been able to secure more than 368 million impressions for littleBits over the course of the six-month campaign, many of which came from top-tier media outlets. Anecdotal evidence from the brand revealed the success of the campaign: the Exploration Kits sold steadily following their launch and the Synth Kit sold out less than a month after its initial launch.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

86

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 1 0 0 , 0 0 0

S I LV E R Rogers & Cowan for will.i.am Business Leadership Campaign Global entertainer, musician and producer will.i.am is best known for his role as the front man for The Black-Eyed Peas. Seven-time Grammy Award winner, Emmy winner and CLIO award winner will.i.am is creative well beyond the world of music. What many people don’t know about will.i.am is that he is also a successful business leader who has stakes in consumer tech companies such as Beats Electronics and Twitter, has founded his own consumer electronics company (i.am.plus) and is also a partner in a social business initiative with The Coca-Cola Company (EKOCYCLE).

Rogers & Cowan worked with a team on a business-leadership campaign designed to leverage each business role, and expand press visibility over a one-year period.

Key ingredients for campaign success included: will.i.am’s role and relationships with Intel Corporation executives, where will.i.am served as the director of creative innovation for three years; international business reach provided by i.am.plus/i.am+ camera accessory launch in the UK; growing his EKOCYCLE brand in tandem with partner The Coca-Cola Company; and taking a more visible role in discussing business issues and preparing the next generation of workers as an advocate for STEM education.

Conference keynotes and executive panels were also an important part of the mix, providing platforms to discuss business issues, including the workforce of tomorrow and his STEM education advocacy mission.

While ramping up visibility for will.i.am’s non-music visibility, careful coordination was required to manage activities around his entertainment coverage driven by music/new solo album introduction, and his role as a coach on “The Voice” UK. Due to long periods where will.i.am was traveling out of the country, media and speaking opportunities were sought out in the UK market to showcase his entrepreneurial and business-influencer roles internationally. Activities and news placements were spaced out to coincide with key speaking engagements, and also to prevent cannibalizing his own news across business and entertainment tracks.

A multi-dimensional campaign was built, incorporating significant editorial placements and speaking events to build and enhance will.i.am’s reputation as an entrepreneur and business leader.

Integrated into the campaign and key messages was will.i.am’s philanthropic mission focusing on STEM skills and equal educational access for all students. Since success in business ultimately depends on a steady flow of well-educated young people

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

coming into the job market, will.i.am encouraged the business community to focus on the future and the business needs of the future, including more code-writers, engineers and technologyliterate workers.

Long-lead opportunities were plotted out and ramped up, while shorter lead opportunities were evaluated throughout the campaign period. Major print cover story interviews and research were started three to four months ahead of time, and then photo shoots were arranged closer to press time. In the interim between initial interviews and issue dates, business and philanthropy updates were integrated into articles during final story edits and fact checking. Speaking engagements were managed and carefully selected to maximize exposure via press coverage by host outlets and beyond. Post-speech interview spaces were negotiated with conference organizations to facilitate group and individual interviews after leaving the stage.

For cover stories and speaking engagements, will.i.am leveraged social media to cross promote his involvement in issues and activities. will.i.am’s PR and marketing representatives met with PR representatives of magazines and conference organizations to coordinate pre-issue and pre-event coverage, and then maximize issues and articles integrated into keynote speeches.

The results were astounding. will.i.am attended the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting and served as a guest panelist on CNN “Piers Morgan Live,” specially taped at Clinton Global Initiative. He also keynoted numerous other events and named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. will.i.am served as the guest editor of an entire issue of Wired UK magazine and as a mentor for the Wall Street Journal/WSJ.com “Start Up of the Year” initiative, among many other successes.

BRONZE Citizen Relations and Princess Cruises for Princess Cruises Makes its UK-based Royal Princess Debut/Christening a Royal Affair Stateside In 2013, Princess Cruises launched its newest and most innovative ship to date, Royal Princess. In preparation for her christening/naming ceremony, the brand engaged Citizen Relations to execute a two-pronged approach to secure mass-media awareness for Princess Cruises and Royal Princess in the U.S. and Canada. The first media pulse took place in April, where it was announced worldwide that the Duchess of Cambridge would serve as the ship’s Godmother at the christening. On June 13, the

87

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 Duchess officially named Royal Princess and led the longtime maritime tradition of breaking a champagne bottle on the bow of the ship. While the world’s media watched the Duchess perform one of her last Royal duties before going on maternity leave, Citizen Relations employed a series of strategic activities to ensure Princess Cruises and Royal Princess received positive inclusion in resulting coverage.

On April 9, Citizen aggressively pitched that the Duchess would christen the Royal Princess in late spring. The team leveraged a Palace-approved press release, images and brand spokesperson quotes to secure positive and generous U.S. coverage for the brand.

As part of a global effort to secure coverage for Princess Cruises, Citizen Relations developed and executed a media strategy to promote the June 13 Royal Princess Naming Ceremony. Outreach to targeted U.S. and Canadian media outlets incorporated all Palaceand Princess Cruises-approved media assets, as well as custom pitches and special offers. Citizen pitched and coordinated ceremony attendance for correspondents from People, Us Weekly and OK! Magazine. The Southampton media experience including a pre-event VIP tour of the ship, participation in the press sailing, invitation to the Gala, attendance at the ceremony and inclusion in the global press pit.

The days leading up to the event, the Citizen team prepped key media for the upcoming availability of real-time event assets from the ceremony, including livestream video, press release and fact sheet, b-roll and still images of the ceremony and the Duchess’ tour and Princess Cruises’ spokesperson interviews. To reach local media in key cruising markets and national targets not traveling to Southampton, Citizen developed and coordinated delivery of custom “Royal Princess Christening-in-a-Box” media kits, featuring Princess Cruises-branded champagne flutes, Moet Imperial champagne, a tiara and press materials.

The extraordinary effort resulted in 1,673,965,772 total program impressions and 948 total program placements. The Godmother announcement scored 114 placements, and the naming ceremony garnered 253 placements. The Royal Princess hashtag generated 16,300,000 impressions. Finally, Citizen helped win feature segments on No. 1 and No. 2 morning shows—“Good Morning America” and “Today Show”—as well as coverage in every weekly celebrity publication following the event.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

88

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 5 0 , 0 0 0

GOLD Zapwater Communications for Everpurse: Kickstarter to Fashion Week Star Dubbed “the bag as powerful as you are,” Everpurse merges technology and fashion into an innovative women’s accessory. Each Everpurse clutch is equipped with a special pocket that charges your smartphone on the go. Created by husband and wife duo, Liz and Dan Salcedo, Everpurse launched on Kickstarter in the fall of 2012 and quickly surpassed its initial fundraising goal of $100,000 in just one week. After reaching their goal on Kickstarter, media inquiries began flooding Liz’s and Dan’s inboxes. Like other entrepreneurs and start-ups, they faced an immense challenge to take a great product and make it a both commercial and media success. In April 2013, Everpurse retained Zapwater Communications to manage the public relations around their product’s primary launch and consumer roll out. Everpurse understood that the launch could make or break their business, and they only had one chance to make a great first impression.

Faced with a limited budget and number of product samples, Everpurse turned to Zapwater Communications for help. Zapwater was tasked with executing a strategic public relations campaign that would garner significant national media exposure, drive consumer awareness, boost industry credibility and build loyalty among the fashion and tech elite.

To stand out in the highly competitive market, Zapwater touted the innovative concept and mass appeal of the product through a mix of traditional pitching, formal press releases and media sampling. Top-tier media, editors and high-profile bloggers began to quickly take notice. National media including CNN, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, E! News, Huffington Post, Forbes, Mashable, NYLON Magazine, USA Today and Telemundo all praised the uniqueness of the product and their excitement for its availability.

With buzz quickly building, Zapwater convinced the brand to make a high-profile press visit to New York in time for long-lead holiday gift guide consideration. While in Manhattan, the team met with more than ten top-tier media outlets and went on to receive additional features in publications like Glamour, Daily Candy National and Star Magazine. Everpurse would also receive future placement in the holiday gift guides for Ok! Magazine, American Airline’s Celebrated Living and Time Magazine as a direct result from the national media trip orchestrated by Zapwater. In fact, the bags were receiving so much attention and demand that shipments were delayed a month in order for production supply to keep up. Zapwater then worked in tandem with the brand using social media as the preferred channel to manage consumer feedback and expectations directly.

After not one but two appearances on “The Today Show,” Katie Couric’s producer felt that Everpurse was the perfect candidate to feature as one of Katie Couric’s Mothers of Invention. The Mother of Invention segments on Katie invite entrepreneurs from all over the country to pitch their product for feedback from top industry professionals. Liz was flown out to New York again and given the chance to pitch Everpurse to ABC’s most notorious entrepreneur elite, the sharks of “Shark Tank.”

The results of Zapwater’s efforts between April 2013 and December 2013 have been significant. Total media impressions stand around 41.7 million with an ad value of more than $2.3 million. Zapwater secured more than 70 local, regional and national placements over the course of eight months.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

89

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 5 0 , 0 0 0

S I LV E R Lippe Taylor for Helping IKEA Go LED by 2016 Lippe Taylor was charged with generating media coverage and excitement surrounding IKEA’s announcement to go 100% LED in the US by fiscal year 2016—meaning the company would only sell and use LED lighting in their stores. The PR team knew the announcement would need to give consumers the reasoning behind the LED initiative, which provides an opportunity for consumers to work with IKEA to make a more sustainable choice for their lives at home.

There was one problem: Knowledge of LEDs was low, and the product was more expensive than your average light bulb. Lippe Taylor needed agenda-setting media to educate consumers about the long-term benefits of using LED lighting, both for their household budgets and the planet.

To better understand how US consumers felt about light bulbs, protecting the environment and LED lighting in general, the agency organized an omnibus survey with Wakefield Research. After reviewing the survey results, they recognized that knowledge of LED lighting and its benefits was low and identified the “light green” trend that says consumers want to do something that’s good for the planet, but want to make easy changes. This presented a real opportunity for IKEA, as the leader in life at home, to help make sustainability easier.

Lippe Taylor positioned IKEA as an authority on educating consumers, influencers and the media on ways for Americans to go “green” with minimal effort. The overall approach included creating straightforward messages to make a complicated story seem easier.

For example, they framed the LED bulb as “the light bulb that lasts for 20 years.” They also educated media and consumers on value proposition of LED and key differentiators.

Lippe Taylor cast a wide net for coverage. Instead of looking at the issue narrowly as a sustainability or business story, the PR team reached out to business, lifestyle, consumer and sustainability media. In addition, they positioned the announcement as yet another bold sustainability move from the same company that led the push to “ban the plastic bag.” By referencing other sustainable milestones, they helped increase the perceived importance of LED To maximize reach and impact and to shape all subsequent coverage, Lippe Taylor offered an advance to the Associated Press to break the story. They tapped into the “Light Green” consumer trend and used the survey findings both to support initial media pitching

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

and to extend the coverage window throughout the launch week.

The team also jump-started coverage by sending an IKEA LED light bulb to priority media to coincide with the announcement. They then used both the head of IKEA US and head of global sustainability as spokespeople and pitched long- and short-lead media outlets, including environmental and business editors, daily and weekly newspapers, broadcast media and regional publications in all IKEA markets, as well as relevant websites and blogs. Green influencers and bloggers were integral to increasing awareness of IKEA’s sustainability practices, as was the appearance of IKEA’s head of sustainability at the BSR Conference.

All in all, Lippe Taylor secured 1,170 placements, generating over 912 million impressions. The Associated Press article featured an exclusive interview with IKEA sustainability head Steve Howard, which led to broad pickup across the country. Coverage included key messaging, and quality in-depth stories were also placed with broadcast and digital outlets including The New York Times, AOL Daily Finance, CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” and The Street.com.

Online coverage included over 900 million impressions with feature placements on Huffington Post, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, ABC News, Washington Post, “CNN Money,” Philly.com, Bloomberg Business Week and many others.

BRONZE CooperKatz and Coldwell Banker Real Estate for “Why Buying a Home is the New Engagement Ring” CooperKatz and Company, Inc. knows the value of storytelling. In today’s environment, you need more than just a news announcement to break through the media landscape; you need a good story. The real estate industry has received its fair share of news over the past six years, but most of it has been focused on the recession, the recovery and whether home appreciation will once again return to the levels of 2005. Coldwell Banker Real Estate charged PR agency of record CooperKatz to break the barriers of real estate media coverage and give consumers something light-hearted and fun to discuss around the water cooler and the kitchen table. CooperKatz accepted the challenge, and developed a story that would reach 6.7 million Americans with a two-question survey and catchy headline, “Buying a home is the new engagement ring.”

One generation that has been the topic of countless debates and analysis over the past few years is Generation Y—the millennial generation. Entering the job and housing market during what is considered the worst recession in decades, this social-media savvy

90

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 5 0 , 0 0 0 group has captured media attention with their decisive, independent nature. While much has been reported about their place in the housing market, CooperKatz recognized an opportunity to tap into a story that hadn’t yet been told: How many millennials are taking advantage of low prices and amenable interest rates to purchase a home before tying the knot—a trend not as accepted among previous generations. With a modest budget of $32,000, CooperKatz embraced a three-part strategy to bring this campaign to life. The team conducted a simple survey among 2,000 Americans identifying how many homeowners purchased their home before, during or after marriage, and compare trends by age groups; worked with well-known psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig to analyze results and act as a third-party spokesperson; and provided a robust array of supporting assets on www.coldwellbanker.com, including full survey results, an infographic and blog post with insight and tips from Dr. Robi Ludwig.

$340,000 in publicity value reaching 16.7 million readers and viewers.

CooperKatz began an aggressive embargo outreach two weeks before the scheduled day of release on April 17, offering reporters all the assets and interviews they would need to prepare their individual stories. By April 15, the team had locked in more than seven interviews with Dr. Robi Ludwig and planned nearly 10 advance articles. Just as the team was compiling its client recap of the anticipated coverage, news broke about the Boston Marathon bombing. While the country sorted through the terror and hurt unfolding in the Northeast, CooperKatz and Coldwell Banker quickly reconvened and decided to hold the announcement until the following week out of respect for the victims, though giving the media permission to release their stories on the original date should they choose. After much discussion, USA Today and Time.com decided to publish their articles as planned, breaking the story five days before the press release and supporting materials would be shared publicly online.

The USA Today and Time.com stories drove more than 150 online and broadcast placements before the study was officially announced, resulting in more than 320 media placements total, 25 of which were top-tier. Although new developments were breaking every day that week regarding the terrorist attack, the “Marriage and Homebuying” story made the homepages of AOL, MSN, Time.com, USA Today and Yahoo!, in addition to high-profile media placements in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CBSNews.com, CNBC.com, The Huffington Post and TheNest.com. AOL and Newsy created their own sizzle reels of the coverage, and Yahoo! Finance developed a poll around it. Media shares spread like wildfire, including 1,000 for the Time.com and USAToday.com articles. Coldwell Banker branded Facebook and Twitter posts were shared or re-tweeted by more than 600 social media followers, and the blog post authored by Dr. Robi Ludwig received 14,255 page views. Social media impressions aside, the news media placements alone generated nearly

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

91

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 2 5 , 0 0 0

GOLD The Baddish Group for National Strawberry Shortcake Day Driscoll’s Berries, the leading American purveyor of quality berries and a longtime Baddish Group client, has always presented the agency with the unique PR challenge of branding a commodity. Last spring, Driscoll’s tasked the agency specifically to create a program that would take advantage of the peak summer strawberry growing season. In short, the goal of the program was to drive consumers to the marketplace to purchase Driscoll’s berries by name. The Baddish Group responded with a multi-faceted publicity program that would enable Driscoll’s to take ownership of National Strawberry Shortcake Day, June 14. By stamping the Driscoll’s logo on America’s favorite summer dessert, the agency would stimulate demand for strawberries at the outset of the season and instill in consumers the desire to use the very finest berries in their sweet summertime confections. The consumer takeaway: that the finest berries for their favorite seasonal dessert must come from Driscoll’s.

The Baddish Group quickly realized that a key to branding a food commodity would be to enlist respected members of the food community as advocates and spokespersons. The staff could then effectively merchandise these influential third-party endorsements to the media. The strategy would offer the opportunity to associate the brand with many respected culinary names and to induce media to actually sample Driscoll’s strawberries in luscious desserts. The key holiday, June 14, would allow for a timely hook for all press. Toward those ends, the agency set out to quickly to identify and engage with appropriate candidates such as celebrity chefs, locally known chefs in key markets for Driscoll’s, top pastry purveryors in key markets, blogger communities and other influentials. They then tasked these chefs and culinary partners to create branded desserts and include them on their summer menus and in their blogs and columns.

The chefs were made available as spokespersons to appear on national and local television programs to demonstrate cooking with berries, and special events and tastings were arranged for media and influentials. To further engage food and general interest media, the PR team coordinated a sampling delivery program of Driscoll’s Strawberry Shortcake-inspired desserts. Finally, a wide release of the proprietary press materials and an inforgraphic heralded National Strawberry Shortcake Day in a timely manner to ensure coverage with the beginning of strawberry season in June.

More Cupcakes, the official cupcake supplier for Williams Sonoma, was engaged to create a NSSD cupcake that consumers could order online and that could be sent to 12 key influencers. Influencers such as popular food bloggers and entertaining bloggers received a dozen cupcakes and sunglasses with the campaign’s Twitter handle and hash tag branded on the side. In the key NYC market, The Baddish Group worked in conjunction with renowned Pastry Chef Jacques Torres, who celebrates his birthday on NSSD, arranging for him to create an icecream and signature Strawberry Shortcake recipe.

To create excitement and awareness for Driscoll’s in markets outside New York, The Baddish Group identified chefs in 22 key cities. Some of the chefs placed branded Strawberry Shortcake on their menus for June 14th as well as made themselves available as media spokespersons for the brand with local media. The Baddish Group also took advantage of the Blog Her Food conference on June 8th, 2013 working with FieldsofCake.com to host a Strawberry Shortcake Day Party, inviting guests to bring their version of a Strawberry Shortcakeinspired dessert. Twenty influencers tweeted and blogged the news using the hashtag #TasteSummer.

The campaign was highly successful by all measures. More than 248,836,094 media impressions were generated via TV, print, online and podcasts, and 22 national and local media appearances for chefs and experts helped spread the word about NSSD. Highlights included opportunities to serve Driscoll’s Strawberry Shortcake at the Daily Meal and to the VH1 staff and crew for their morning show wrap party.

The campaign was also incredibly successful in spiking online and social media reach.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

92

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 2 5 , 0 0 0

S I LV E R Allison + Partners for PRISM-Proof Search: DuckDuckGo Heralds User Privacy On June 6, 2013, data privacy moved to the top of the news cycle with the leak of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) PRISM surveillance program which collected personal data stored by major Internet companies. What was once a topic discussed only by those in the tech industry suddenly became an issue for every Internet user worldwide; consumers wanted to know how they could navigate the Internet while steering clear of the snooping eyes of the NSA. As the search engine that doesn’t track you, DuckDuckGo enlisted Allison+Partners to launch a PR campaign positioning the company as the safe, secure search alternative.

DuckDuckGo turned to the team to capitalize upon the attention the NSA scandal brought to data privacy issues and drive the conversation around DuckDuckGo’s privacy aspects to increase market share. In addition, DuckDuckGo had preexisting plans to introduce a new iOS and Android Mobile app— DuckDuckGo Search + Stories—during this timeframe and sought the PR pros’ guidance on successfully launching the app in light of the NSA news.

As this campaign would advocate against search powerhouses like Google, Bing and Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo did not want to be viewed as combative with these options, but rather, “The Little Search Engine that Could” by offering consumers something different: Privacy. As a result of the PRISM news, DuckDuckGo saw initial traffic spikes as consumers organically turned to the secure search option. Allison+Partners’ strategy was to use this trend as an indicator that consumers wanted private alternatives to drive press attention around DuckDuckGo and convince media that there was more to the PRISM story: How can consumers avoid NSA spying?

The NSA leak set the premise for an important story that demanded to be told, and Allison+Partners determined it was a matter of trending with the news cycle to offer more to the story. In the first week following the PRISM leak and the team’s proactive media outreach, DuckDuckGo’s CEO, Gabriel Weinberg, hosted briefing meetings and live interviews with national broadcast news outlets including FOX, CBS, CNBC and NPR where he shared the differentiators in privacy and search that spiked DuckDuckGo’s traffic over the past several days. As the DuckDuckGo story spread through these segments, traffic steadily increased as did in-bound media requests. Allison+Partners managed this influx of media

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

interest and established a rapport between DuckDuckGo executives and top-tier media, particularly to support the upcoming app launch.

This first round of proactive and reactive interviews proved beneficial once timing was solidified for the launch of the Search & Stories mobile application for iOS and Android in late June. The team expanded its approach, targeting mobile, privacy and technology reporters at print and online publications alongside the mainstream broadcast outlets. Allison+Partners worked with DuckDuckGo to formally announce the app in a press release and conducted extensive media outreach. During a time of national uproar, the execution of traditional media pitching increased DuckDuckGo’s visibility and kept the company’s name in the headlines as a worthwhile alternative to search titans such as Google and Yahoo.

The news generated surrounding DuckDuckGo during the PR campaign increased the search engine’s traffic by more than 90 percent in only two weeks following the NSA leak, a number that is still steadily increasing. What’s more, Allison+Partners’ efforts helped secure more than 60 media placements in print, online and broadcast media outlets including: “FOX & Friends,” “CBS This Morning,” WSJ Digits, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CNET, VentureBeat, Salon, LifeHacker, and more. Overall, Allison+Partners estimates more than 180,000,000 media impressions were generated worldwide in just six weeks.

BRONZE Neff Associates for Chink’s Steaks Rebrands to Joe’s Steaks + Soda Shop Neff Associates’ client, Joe Groh started working at Chink’s Steaks seven days a week in 1979 while in high school—hand-slicing rib eye and onions. He eventually took over as grill master when the original owner, and the restaurant’s namesake, Sam “Chink” Sherman, fell ill before passing away in 1997. Joe purchased the business from his widow back in 1999. While struggling with his decision to shed the restaurant’s disparaging name, owner Joe Groh found himself at the center of controversy—on the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News twice, and at forced arbitration “asking” him to change the name. Meanwhile, he was presented with a 10,000-signature petition to keep the name, Chink’s Steaks, from loyal customers.

The primary objective in guiding Joe through the rebrand and media

93

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 2 5 , 0 0 0 relations strategy was to communicate that the only thing changing for the 64-year-old restaurant was the name. It was clear that owner Joe Groh needed an aggressive media-relations strategy to raise awareness that Chink’s Steaks would be rebranding to Joe’s Steaks + Soda Shop. With the cost of designing a new brand and the projected controversy within Chink’s Steaks loyalists, Joe’s Steaks + Soda Shop did not allocate an advertising budget for the initiative. Thus, the team moved forward with public relations as the sole marketing tool.

restaurant’s financial successes. To date, the company has seen significant hikes in website traffic as a result of the positive publicity generated by Neff Associates’ media relations efforts.

In lieu of any external marketing analysis, Neff Associates conducted multiple research efforts in order to evaluate the current public opinion of Chink’s Steaks and how to go about changing it.

The team conducted an informal survey of key influencers, consulted with Asian-American advocacy group 18 Million Rising and discovered that the majority of the constituents did not necessarily perceive Chink’s Steaks as a racist organization but would still not patronize the restaurant out of principle. Neff Associates also conducted in-depth analysis on all published articles addressing the racist nature of the Chink’s Steaks name and performed competitive analysis on Chink’s Steaks’ regional competitors.

To make an immediate impact, Neff Associates drafted and publicized a strategic statement regarding the name change from owner Joe Groh, as well as a strategically crafted press release.

Before any media outreach however, Neff Associates prepped by assembling an account team with an all-hands-on-deck approach; creating a timeline of the overall plan of execution for the rebranding, including a 24-hour social media response team; and offering select print and online media exclusive information. In doing so, the PR team generated awareness and support for Joe Groh’s decision to do the right thing by connecting with key influential media and positioning Joe’s Steaks + Soda Shop as Philly’s perfect cheesesteak by highlighting the things that make it unique—table service, cooked-to-order food and its ice-cream parlor and soda shop. The team successfully executed crisis communication as required by curating negative feedback as it spread across social media and using these examples to gather support from 18MR and select members of the media like Philadelphia Magazine’s Joel Mathis for an eat-in, as well as a feature story from Philadelphia Daily News’ Stu Bykofksy.

Neff Associates had a significant impact on generating unprecedented levels of buzz amid key influencers about the rebrand, as well as Joe’s Steaks + Soda Shop’s unique offerings.

The positive attention from the media garnered 180 placements and 343,569,270 PR impressions and has diversified Joe’s Steaks + Soda Shop’s customer base. Joe estimates that at least 70% of his business is new faces, significantly contributing to the

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

94

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 1 0 , 0 0 0

GOLD Diamond PR for CyberSummer A large portion of Diamond PR’s (DPR) clients are based in warm-weather destinations in beachfront locations. Winter weather in the northeast results in strong seasonal business for these warm regions, while the summer sun has the opposite affect and leaves resorts with the challenge of attracting business during this time. The agency is faced with the challenge of how to help clients drive business during summer. In order to drive bookings specific to summer travel, agency created the concept of CyberSummer, a one-day, online-only flash sale to be held on the first day of summer, June 21. Based upon the popular CyberMonday event, the concept is to create a sense of urgency to book by making it a one-day-only sale with deeply discounted rates and deals that can only be booked on this single day.

Timeframes and restrictions could be imposed as needed to limit travel to specific need periods (i.e., summer). By utilizing the agency’s roster of hotel-specific clients, the campaign could be positioned as a trend and subsequently generate media interest and awareness to put it on consumer radars.

Diamond PR created the concept and collected deals and offers from all interested clients—20 hotels in total. Additionally, DPR purchased the website domain, www.cybersummertravel.com. The website hosted all CyberSummer travel offers, broken down by region. The agency worked directly with a designer to create the site in a user-friendly format to help drive bookings directly to hotel websites. This site also served as a key resource in media outreach, giving journalists a place to direct their readers for all Cybersummer offers. It also proved to legitimize the promotion with a “real website”. Finally, it allowed all participating clients to have equal exposure via the media since every article that ran about the promotion, whether it cited specific hotel offers or not, included the website URL. The website saw upwards of 6,000 unique visits and over 10,000 overall visits in a short, two-week period—especially impressive when considering the website was previously unknown/non-existent just a few days prior. With the deals compiled and the website in place, agency went on an all-out pitching blitz—utilizing and social methods, in an entire office team effort, reaching out to media across the country and in every format. A specific focus was placed online so that coverage could link directly to cybersummertravel.com. Finally, leading up to and on the day of the promotion, social channels—specifically Twitter and Facebook—were utilized to spread the message and share the cybersummertravel.com website. Twenty resorts, plus the entire DPR team and the media, shared the message across social channels—and all was marked with #cybersummer.

Results from this campaign were two-fold. From a PR perspective, the goal was to generate media attention for the campaign and the individual hotels. This goal was met and surpassed with media coverage in more than 40 outlets including print, online and broadcast reaching more than 14 million consumers. The exposure included CyberSummer focused coverage in, but not limited to NY Post, Forbes.com and ABC10 TV. The social reach of the promotion was more than 1.8 million from Twitter alone. The hashtag #CyberSummer was instituted and used in the week leading up to June 21st and on the CyberSummer sale day. Facebook was also used consistently to push out the messaging from a resort level, and media pushed their individual coverage of the event through these two social channels as well. The second goal, and catalyst for the creation of the campaign, was to generate room bookings for clients in summer, and more than 1,000 room nights were booked.

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

95

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 1 0 , 0 0 0

S I LV E R MSLGroup Boston for Epocrates Bugs + Drugs: Breaking Superbugs Out of the Hospital According to a report recently issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every year more than two million people in the US contract antibiotic resistant infections and at least 23,000 people die as a result. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria or “superbugs” such as resistant E. coli are of great concern because they areincreasingly impervious to typical antibiotics or may not respond to common treatments.

Unfortunately, unless a physician works inside a hospital, they are not aware of drug-resistant bacteria in their area, as that information has only been available in hospitals and is only updated quarterly. This significantly impacts the quality of care for millions of Americans who either suffer through multiple courses of different prescriptions, or have their health endangered.

Epocrates, a leading provider of medical reference and clinical decision support software for use by physicians on their mobile devices and online, set out to change this. The company, in conjunction with its parent company, athenahealth, created Epocrates Bugs + Drugs, the first app to provide actionable insight for treating superbugs outside of the hospital setting. It anonymously links lab results from athenahealth’s cloud-based EHR database of 15 million patients into geo-targeted data to help physicians identify common and uncommon bugs in the communities where their patients live.

The challenge was to develop and execute a public relations campaign that would reach physicians and break through the clutter of the app store. This was an app with narrow, but important appeal. To raise awareness, Epocrates would have to vie for attention with pregnancy and weight-loss apps aimed at consumers. Additionally, Epocrates had to move fast to be one of the first iOS 7 apps to market, which meant the PR campaign couldn’t use the traditional beta period to secure testimonials and references. MSLGROUP Boston’s task was to raise awareness of the issue, drive app downloads and highlight how the app can help.

tech-savvy healthcare professionals.

MSLGROUP issued a release announcing the availability of the software and highlighting the new functionality and key messages.

This was an omnichannel release, leveraging imagery and going out over all of Epocrates’ and athenahealth’s social channels.

MSLGROUP also identified and contacted key influencers on Twitter and Apple and medical bloggers to provide them more information on the Epocrates Bugs + Drugs iPhone app as well as unique pictures and access to doctors who could comment on the software.

Many Epocrates doctors do not read the technology trade publications, so the PR team had to customize its outreach to be of interest to the physician publications and had to focus on healthcare tech online media and blogs to drive the initial spike of downloads that could raise Epocrates’ profile in the App Store and maintain download momentum. What’s more, to capitalize on events, when “Frontline” ran a special on Superbugs the week prior to the app launch, MSLGROUP monitored the media that covered the story and added them to the outreach and influencer list.

Beyond the initial splash, MSLGROUP also reconnected with the media with download milestones and support with athenahealth blog posts.

The Epocrates Bugs + Drugs app launch was an overwhelming success and helped Epocrates drive adoption and conversions with its target demographics. MSLGROUP and Epocrates met or exceeded all objectives and realized some unexpected benefits.

Public relations was the main download driver for the new Epocrates app. The app had more than 100,000 downloads in the first 30 days. To put this in perspective, there are approximately one million physicians in the U.S., so this translates into more than 10 percent market penetration in just one month.

Additionally, Epocrates Bugs + Drugs quickly became one of the top three medical apps in the AppStore, which helped lead Apple to feature it to further promote the app. The media and social media relations around the app generated more than 30 articles. By contacting key people via social media, Epocrates reached more than 65,000 additional technology influencers. Later on, MSLGROUP capitalized on ongoing opportunities, including the 100,000 download milestone to secure a second, broader wave of coverage that included News.com and IDG. It is also using superbug stories to drive local and national trend stories.

Time was tight, and MSLGROUP Boston realized it needed to take a multi-pronged approach to convince the media to profile the new app. Traditional media would not be enough and they needed a blend of influencers to help drive the discussion. Additionally, they had two distinct channel targets—those focused on healthcare and those on technology/iOS7 that could help spread the message to

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

96

B E S T C A M PA I G N U N D E R $ 1 0 , 0 0 0

BRONZE Hellerman Baretz Communications for Scripting a Star Turn for Seward & Kissel When it comes to PR strategy, the white-shoe law firms of New York City don’t have a whole lot in common with Hollywood studios. It was little more than a generation ago that firms such as Seward & Kissel shied away from even printing business cards, feeling them too gauche a marketing device. But law firms are modernizing, and Hellerman Baretz Communications is helping them do it. And in the case of Seward & Kissel, some Hollywood magic applied by HBC senior account executive Molly McLeod resulted in very valuable exposure for minimal investment.

From the outset, HBC determined that Seward & Kissel’s media relations strategy should have a well-defined focus. Although the firm has 12 different practice areas, covering everything from employee benefits to taxation, HBC would concentrate its work on two specific areas in which Seward & Kissel has a well-founded reputation for excellence: Investment management and maritime issues. Working with a relatively small budget for the firm’s initial media relations efforts, HBC and Seward & Kissel agreed that the goals of the campaign would be to reinforce Seward & Kissel’s reputation as a leader in those two areas; to broaden the exposure of the firm to a general business audience; and to do so in a way that was creative yet consistent with the highly professional nature of the firm.

one that Seward & Kissel would be comfortable attaching itself to in print. Second, Seward & Kissel partner Bruce Paulsen has reallife experience negotiating with pirates. He has advised on more than 40 piracies, and in 2009 assisted negotiations for a $1 million ransom with pirates who had overtaken an oil tanker, resulting in the release of 28 kidnapped crewmembers.

After confirming Mr. Paulsen’s availability, Ms. McLeod pitched targeted media outlets on the opportunity to speak with him in connection with “Captain Phillips.” Her detailed pitch covered not only Mr. Paulsen’s relevant experience, but also suggested the breadth of legal issues at play in piracy situations. As “Captain Phillips” was rolling out, Ms. McLeod continued to track for relevant stories, and found breaking news of a real-life piracy off the coast of Nigeria. Based on her discussions with Mr. Paulsen, she saw a fresh angle—one that would contrast the tactics and regulations that apply to long-practiced Somali piracy to emerging incidents of piracy off Africa’s west coast. For this breaking news, she drafted a second pitch that helpfully included a quote from Mr. Paulsen.

Both pitches resulted in extraordinary coverage for Mr. Paulsen and the firm. Two major maritime industry trades ran interviews with Mr. Paulsen regarding the “Captain Phillips” movie and his maritime practice, and a third, Tradewinds, sent a reporter to a movie screening with Mr. Paulsen, following which the reporter conducted a six-minute video interview with him. Meanwhile, one of the legal industry’s leading publications, The National Law Journal, ran an extensive Q&A on the topic of Mr. Paulsen’s practice.

HBC delivered fast results for the investment management practice of Seward & Kissel, which formed the world’s first hedge fund in 1949 and remains a leading advisor to such funds today. Although few are familiar with this history, HBC’s Molly McLeod quickly positioned partner Steve Nadel as an authoritative source on the impact that a proposed Securities and Exchange Commission rule on hedge fund marketing, known as the JOBs Act, would have on the future of hedge-fund advertising.

HBC had determined that a similar strategy would be appropriate for the maritime practice. And when Columbia Pictures announced that “Captain Phillips” would be coming to theaters nationwide, Ms. McLeod recognized a big opportunity indeed.

“Captain Phillips” tells the story of an American ship hijacked off the coast of Somalia. With Tom Hanks playing the lead, the film would attract significant media attention. Ms. McLeod decided to leverage that media attention for Seward & Kissel’s benefit, recognizing that it made an ideal fit for the firm. First, the caliber of the actors and director promised that it would be a quality film—

2014 BULLDOG AWARDS HALL OF FAME

97