Content Marketing Awards 2021 Winners

Meals on Wheels America

Meals on Wheels America COVID-19 Campaign

Meals on Wheels struggles to keep delivering during the pandemic

Funds were low, but the need to feed isolated seniors was high. Its COVID-19 Response Fund raised millions—and it earned the Grand Prize for Campaign of the Year in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Seniors who depend on local Meals on Wheels programs were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and so were the programs themselves. A July 2020 survey by Meals on Wheels—which supports more than 5,000 community-based programs across the country addressing senior isolation and hunger—found that costs had risen for 97% of local Meals on Wheels programs, mostly because of the need for safety supplies, along with greater demand amid all the uncertainty surrounding COVID.

The COVID-19 Response Fund, launched in April. 2020, attacked this urgent need for funds, ultimately distributing more than $32.5 million through 1,212 grants to 646 Meals on Wheels programs across the country.

The campaign strategy rested on three primary insights:

People needed to connect in the moment when the pandemic struck.
People wanted to take action but felt constrained because of social distancing and stay-at-home mandates.
People were using social media and digital connections more than ever as a result.

The campaign’s tactics included:

The Live Lunch Series. Celebrities going live on Instagram became a trend during the pandemic, so Meals on Wheels went live on the platform with DJ Khaled, Robert Ellis and Tony Gonzalez, who talked up the campaign.
Platforms with built-in donation functions. The organization helped launch TikTok’s donation sticker, and influencers raised money through livestreaming. Katy Perry and the TV sitcom “Grace & Frankie” streamed events on YouTube also to raise money.
Digital advertising. For the first time, Meals on Wheels ran digital advertising all year long instead of only during its year-end campaign. The messaging focused on urgency: “Seniors need help now more than ever.”
Town halls. Three town halls on Facebook Live demonstrated what the organization was doing and showed how supporters could get involved. Meals on Wheels shared how much money was being sent to the front lines, spotlighting the impact of the donations.
Rapid response video. The video, “Humanity is Winning,” showed Meals on Wheels’ volunteers in action during the pandemic. Versions of it appeared on giant platforms like the NFL Draft-A-Thon.

Online revenue for Meals on Wheels America in 2020 rose 631% over 2019, with the number of online gifts increasing by 468% from 2019 to 2020.

Michigan Medicine

Michigan Medicine's Michigan Health and Michigan Health Lab blog's education efforts around COVID-19

Michigan Medicine blogs chased the virus around the country

One article from the Michigan Medicine blog tracked the virus’s progress across the U.S., garnering half a million page views. The medical center is a grand prize winner for Content Marketing Strategy of the Year in PR Daily’s 2021 Content Marketing Awards.

One side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic was the amount of misinformation that spread through communities affected by the rise of the virus. Michigan Medicine, a nonprofit academic medical center that acts as the clinical arm of the University of Michigan, felt a responsibility to fight back against the flood of rumors and myths surrounding the disease.

The strategy? The Michigan Health and Michigan Health Lab blogs. The Michigan Medicine team has published more than 300 COVID-related stories since March 2020. Established four years ago, the blogs have earned close to 29 million page views—49% of them in the 16 months since the pandemic had started. The highest performing stories were COVID-related, and 2020 saw the blogs’ highest traffic since the platforms were launched.

The two platforms publish stories daily, an effort that depends on a blog editor, an analytics specialist, a team of more than 20 marketers and public relations specialists, a creative services team to create custom visuals and a web team to help manage the site.

When the pandemic began, the marketing and public relations team reached out around the system, connecting with doctors and scientists and enlisting them to write articles quickly as the crisis mounted and knowledge about the virus changed on an almost daily basis. An analytics specialist searched for trending topics related to COVID, and PR monitored the news closely, looking for the right time to jump in on the never-ending cycle of breaking news.

For an example of the blog’s impact, the Michigan Medicine team tracked the story “14 Things to Do If Someone You Live With Has COVID-19,” in real time as it followed the path of the spreading virus across the country, with people looking to the blog for answers to their questions about the virus.

The story received more than half a million page views in 2020, 78.5% from organic search by people finding it when searching for information about the virus in real time. Traffic to the piece mimicked the spread of the virus throughout the country.

Higher traffic numbers in April were clustered around Michigan; as the virus spread, so did the traffic. The closest correlation between new cases of COVID and traffic to the “14 Things” blog post came during spring and summer, and on into the beginning of fall.

Sunrise Banks

Sunrise Banks 2020 Impact Report

Sunrise Banks used the power of print and interactive storytelling to highlight its achievements

In its effort to capture a digital-first audience and be environmentally conscious, the team used an interactive microsite and limited run of printed booklets. For its vision, it was named a winner in the Annual Report category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

When the world evolves, Sunrise Banks ensures that it keeps pace. Founded in 1986 by CEO David Reiling and his father, William, Sunrise offers financially inclusive products to those in Minneapolis’ Twin Cities Metro and St. Paul areas. A Certified B corporation, it strives to balance purpose and profit.

An Impact Report, released in June, delivered all the data one would expect to find in an annual report—statistics, mortgage loan information numbers, demographics and employee highlights. Sunrise Banks worked with Fluence Creative and 8bitstudio to create the report. What wasn’t expected was the delivery of a creative, twofold approach.

An interactive microsite housed Sunrise Banks’ entire report while a limited number of 400 booklets were sent to stakeholders. The booklet, a condensed version of the full document, included QR codes, which directed readers to the microsite.

David, described as a social entrepreneur and innovator, harnessed the power of storytelling and brand journalism to spotlight the achievements of local BIPOC entrepreneurs from Sunrise’s Banking on Change campaign. Feature stories also celebrated businesses with an environmental focus.

Since Sunrise Banks sees itself as a social engine for good, the report included the significant lending it has done via the Paycheck Protection Program. It also highlighted the Community Development Corporation—an initiative that changed lives by directing millions of dollars toward affordable housing.

The report included the bank’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion measures. In the wake of the George Floyd murder, Sunrise was quick to open a dialogue about race. Since integrity is at the core of everything it does, Sunrise Banks used the report to reinforce its mission, vision and values.

Congratulations to the team of Ashley Cooper, Brian Distad, Jake Schild, Becca Hoeft and Katie Murphy.

Vital Strategies

Vital Strategies Annual Report 2020

Vital Strategies revamped its annual report into a new interactive website and video format

The global health organization’s website housed the report, which garnered 23,400 page views; its video captured another 63,000 views. For its innovation, it was named a winner in the Annual Report category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Before March 11, 2020, most people weren’t thinking much about public health—the area of medicine that focuses on disease prevention and boosting longevity. But when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Vital Strategies turned to a digital format to make its content easily accessible and shareable with a global audience.

The company utilized its annual report, released in June, to highlight the achievements of its global community. A dual timeline illustrated the year’s pandemic-related events, while also outlining the many ways in which Vital Strategies took action. Compelling, engaging video was used to inform audiences that the health organization delivered COVID-19 support to 50-plus countries and trained 36,000 healthcare workers. In addition, 21 countries benefitted from its emergency funding.

The annual report reinforced the message that the future of public health depends upon the collaboration and will of the global community. It encouraged its community to address rising inequalities and challenges so that, together, we could recover from this crisis and build a healthier world for all.

In its programmatic areas, Vital Strategies worked to enhance public health efforts by teaming up with its partners and advocates to reduce the inequities that are known to drive illnesses and deaths up. It also educated the public on other drivers of noncommunicable diseases, including tobacco control, air quality and food policies.

The campaign tapped a host of influencers such as Princess Dina Mired of Jordan and key organizations, including Global Health Council and Health Policy Watch, to promote viewership. Social platforms including Facebook and Instagram were used to reach a more extensive network of people. Their collaborative efforts resulted in reaching 200,000 people, double the original goal.

ADP

ADP's Coronavirus Employer Preparedness Toolkit

ADP equipped its clients with the tools and expertise they needed to thrive during a pandemic

The team’s comprehensive toolkit received 29,000 views. For its success in building trust and supporting businesses, it was named a winner in the B2B Campaign category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

With the onset of COVID-19 came a host of new challenges for many companies. For ADP, it marked the first time the company was helping businesses navigate a pandemic. Drawing from seven decades of expertise in areas ranging from human resources to benefits and payroll—ADP quickly got to work.

The company realized that behind all the businesses it serves, were people with real emotions, stresses and fears. That’s why it employed a “human-first” approach to identify their concerns.

After aggregating inbound questions, fielding requests and conducting market research, ADP tuned in to CEOs and leaders from finance and human resources. The company identified business continuity, compliance and employee health and financial wellness as its key areas of concern.

In response, it launched the Coronavirus Employer Preparedness Toolkit—a hub featuring timely topics, from applying for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to managing leaves of absence and supporting employees. The PPP guide alone garnered more than 700K visits.

ADP’s campaign numbers proved its popularity.

100K attendees visited COVID-related webcasts
65,000 blog subscribers sought information on legislative updates
Its legislative blog content lured 265,000 visitors
More than 400K clients run reports for PPP applications, which represented $115B+ in loans
More than 47K employers applied for an estimated $1.2 billion in tax credits
Over 52K employers in the U.S. deferred over $27.5 billion in federal employer taxes

Karen Menting, VP of HR at Parkdale Mills: “I particularly trusted the information that was being provided to us through ADP. It gave me an opportunity to work out in the field, take care of people and continue strategizing. We received a lot of information from many sources, but for me, the most credible information was what was provided to us through ADP.”

The Weather Channel, an IBM Company, State Farm

Safety and Preparedness

The Weather Channel and State Farm Insurance joined forces to educate people about safety and preparedness

For their accomplishments in illustrating the impact of extreme weather and the actions people can take to stay safe, they earned recognition in the Branded Journalism/Online Newsroom category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

We’ve all heard the saying, “the calm before the storm.” The Weather Channel and State Farm wanted the public to be proactive by utilizing this time to prepare to further prevent deaths and disaster.

Together, the companies deliver actionable content that helps the public protect themselves, their homes and vehicles. The safety and preparedness campaign used human-centric, solutions-oriented instruction. Examples include how to mitigate fire risk within the home and helpful hints like when icicles form, it’s a sign that heat is escaping. These tips help people better prepare for the hazards that occur during hurricanes, tornadoes and extreme cold.

Compelling video, articles, slideshows and infographics were used to demonstrate the impact that Mother Nature can have on our lives, homes and cars. The guidance The Weather Channel and State Farm offered serves as a roadmap for future scenarios. A journalistic approach makes the content feel more newsy and less like sponsored content.

The photos that depict the fury and destruction of major storms were organized into slideshows that were placed within articles. Photos chronicle the impacts of the recovery efforts of a particular storm. Putting them into context kept readers engaged by a story that they may otherwise have clicked through quickly.

April’s article focused on tornadoes, which tied in with current weather events. When Hurricane Laura slammed the Southeast, The Weather Channel sent a meteorological photographer to the scene within 24 hours to capture footage of the flooding and damage.

The campaign’s numbers indicate its success in elevating brand awareness and improving overall audience impressions. The Safety and Preparedness sponsorship garnered:

86,096,466 impressions on the site
More than 10.3 million impressions on Facebook, with an average rate of posting of three posts weekly.
Most posts, specifically the short-form videos and slideshows, had impressions that were equal to or greater than traditional editorial content.

Congratulations to the team: Ally Hirschlag, Cheryl Karpel, Clare Clifford, Beth Tomburrini and Caroline Crosby.

Cisco (WeAreCisco)

We Are Cisco Blog

Beyond driving employee engagement, Cisco’s blog is used to recruit talent

The team created a platform for employees to share their moments that matter. Its ability to garner 172,166 views, drive visits up 95% and multitask as a recruiting tool, is what led to it being named a winner in the Branded Blog category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

“When we connect, anything is possible.” That’s one of the mantras expressed at Cisco—a multinational technology company that turned to digital to foster meaningful connections among its employees, potential talent and press.

Its’ We Are Cisco blog is an engine for transforming team members into published authors. Since its launch, Cisco has elevated 250 employees to author status. The blog has become a thriving community where employees go to support one another.

Its top posts highlighted employees’ feel-good experiences with Cisco—from becoming an engineer to ‘growing up’ at Cisco and then landing a dream job there, to how Cisco lent its support to an employee battling cancer.

Cisco’s journey to creating published writers begins when team members post photos through their #WeAreCisco social posts. The platform invites them to share everything from work moments to tech projects, fitness accomplishments, community projects and beyond.

To identify potential story ideas, Cisco’s team scrolls through posts tagged with #WeAreCisco. It’s on the lookout for emotional, informational and bite-sized content that’s easily shareable. Once the team determines the potential of a post, it reaches out to the post’s originator. Then, it empowers that employee to shine.

When employees express interest, Cisco fosters positivity by having them communicate accomplishments with their leaders, who share in this celebration.

Extending far beyond Cisco’s walls, the We Are Cisco blog targets potential talent. Leaders are made aware of the opportunity that their team member shares what they do and why others might want to join Cisco.

The blog’s tagging strategy highlight role, region and topic and the tags can be added to recruiters’ RSS feeds in Outlook, which sends an email every time a new post goes live in that tag. Stories are shared on the @WeAreCisco social channels and with corporate and internal communications.

Credit to team members Carmen Collins and Casie Shimansky.

TCS Education System

Insight Digital

The Chicago School of Professional Psychology used a blog to capture a wider audience that included prospective students

The educational organization capitalized on the success of its INSIGHT magazine by unveiling a blog of the same name. For its ability to increase visibility by driving unique page views by 291%, it has earned the winner title in the Branded Blog category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

As philosopher Francis Bacon once stated: “Knowledge is power.”

The Chicago School of Professional Psychology is a nonprofit, regionally accredited university founded in 1979. With a will to spark positive change where it matters most, it employed a forward-thinking approach when it enhanced its’ educational offerings beyond the field of psychology. The Chicago School currently offers more than 30 degrees and certificates that span from health services to nursing, education, counseling, business and beyond.

Through the years, The Chicago School has amassed a large, knowledgeable faculty and a wealth of resources. Its INSIGHT print publication has proven to be a valuable medium for sharing expertise and news about faculty and community members while also bolstering the brand. A vehicle for growth, it drives nearly 20% of overall website traffic. Over the last year, The Chicago School has garnered more than 800 inquiries, driven directly from the magazine.

In an effort to share news and highlight the perspectives of its faculty and community, it created the INSIGHT blog. Here, perspectives and ideas from healthcare and psychology are featured alongside campus news, trending blogs and career advice. The blog enhances the magazine’s efforts to capture prospective students. Request for information forms prompt action without the need for readers to leave the page.

INSIGHT’s digital format allows for more innovation through videos and animations. User experience played a prominent role in guiding its design. Simple navigation and well-organized content allows readers to effortlessly locate whatever they’re seeking.

And, readers are certainly uncovering valuable content. The blog’s “From the magazine” section captured 77,981 page views—a 70% increase over the same period the year before. Increased visibility has propelled the career development and business sectors, which have become key areas of growth.

Travere Therapeutics

Rare Life: Stories of Real People

To generate awareness about rare illnesses, Travere Therapeutics spotlights the experiences of real people

The biopharmaceutical company’s campaign garnered nearly 2,500 pageviews. For its ability to increase visibility, it was named a winner in the Branded Content Series or Publication (Print or Digital) – Consumer of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Approximately 400 million people worldwide are diagnosed with rare diseases, according to health reports. Gisela is one of them. Although the teen “didn’t look sick,” kidney failure from an invisible disease meant she needed a transplant to survive.

Travere Therapeutics develops drugs for people like Gisela who have rare kidney, liver and metabolic disorders. It created a campaign to shed some light on this community’s unique experiences. In May, it launched the Rare Life: Stories of Real People campaign, which also reinforced the purpose of the company’s work to its team members.

Through in-depth interviews, Rare Life shares personal stories via video and print. The campaign includes the real emotions people have about misdiagnosis and the isolation they feel, as well as the frustrating challenge of having an illness that the medical community is unfamiliar with or doesn’t recognize.

Gisela’s story is just one of the dozen or so spotlighted in the Rare Life campaign. After realizing there was a lack of information on how to ask a person to donate an organ, Gisela stepped up to help others find donors. The people featured in the campaign consistently share their hopes that their voices, which are amplified through the campaign, will help others feel less alone.

Travere’s patient advocacy team helps identify people for the campaign. They look for a link to the therapeutic areas Travere works in. For consistency, the campaign reflects a uniform layout and draws its colors from Travere’s brand palette.

Rare Life was cross promoted on internal and external channels including email, social media and the website. Average time spent in May increased from 3:18 to 5:36 in June. On social, Travere targeted patient groups and advocacy partners. This move garnered 182,589 impressions and 3,690 engagements.

Members of the team include Nivi Nehra, Eve Dryer, Amy Zimmon, Kathy Machuzak, Sika Dunyoh and Michele Huie.

Explore Georgia

the Georgia Department of Economic Development, ExploreGeorgia.org | Georgia's Official Travel Marketing Website’s

ExploreGeorgia.org harnessed the power of its own data to keep travelers engaged

Despite the pandemic, The Georgia Department of Economic Development’s official tourism marketing organization achieved record-breaking traffic of 1.2 million sessions. For its success, it earned the winner title in the Branded Content Site category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

When the rest of the world closed down, ExploreGeorgia.org seized the opportunity to ramp up its marketing efforts. Splashy photos of its pristine beaches and data-driven content kept Georgia on the minds of jetsetters.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) played a prominent role in monitoring consumer interest and driving editorial ideas. Web traffic, social engagements and messages, and travel patterns within Georgia were analyzed on a weekly basis to detect shifts in traveler preferences.

The inspiring data stirred up some wanderlust. When data revealed that reader interest in outdoor activities soared, content highlighting the joys of tubing were used to generate 88,496 engagements on social media and 60,105 pageviews. When autumn numbers indicated that jetsetters were anticipating holiday travel, content on festive displays nabbed another 274,069 pageviews. Globetrotters were eager to share their travel ideas with fellow adventurers—a feat that was simplified through the share social buttons on its website.

From February 2020 through May 2021, the campaign received 21,733,362 unique pageviews, marking a 54.5% increase year-over-year. The number of views on the accommodations page also soared to 438,822, demonstrating that visitors weren’t just dreaming about travel.

Interactive landing pages spotlighted destinations within Georgia and a new user-friendly virtual experiences grid impacted time-on-site (00:02:24). Explore Georgia’s message also reached new audiences. There was a 76.4% increase in traffic from visitors who hadn’t previously visited ExploreGeorgia.org.

Partner referrals also reached 3,027,000, representing a 78.1% increase year-over-year, and 66,464 orders for travel guides came pouring in.

The Well by Northwell and Revmade

The Well by Northwell Health, with Revmade

Northwell Health used a branded publication to earn trust and boost engagement

For its prowess in connecting with its community, Revmade and Northwell earned the winner title in the Branded Content Site category in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

When it comes to health, trust is crucial. In recent years, there’s been so much misinformation circulating through the media especially around the pandemic. Sometimes it’s difficult for audiences—even the utmost savvy New Yorker—to decipher fact from fiction.

Northwell Health—a healthcare provider with more than 830 hospital and care centers in New York—set out to foster a sense of trust in the community. It wanted New Yorkers to know that Northwell’s experts were there when health concerns arose. Its medical team were trusted partners, always on hand to answer questions, address anxieties and clarify misinformation. Simply put: Northwell would tell the truth about health and tell it “well.”

In 2017, Northwell reached out to New Yorkers by introducing The Well—a publication that delivers health guidance to the community. It used editorials, advice columns and documentary-style videos to help its audience achieve better health outcomes.

The success of the magazine’s mission was measured by brand trust, audience engagement and referrals. The numbers reflect its popularity:

Northwell earned trust among New York residents. Their likelihood to consult Northwell for care increased by a 44-point margin.
For the first time, audience engagement exceeded 2 million sessions and Northwell nearly doubled its rate of new subscribers.
Brand awareness soared. Northwell was often spotlighted on Today.com, ABC 7, Apple News and Newsday. It also earned top positions on Reddit.com.
Its media plan shattered industry benchmarks—it netted an average acquisition CPLPV of 21 cents—5x better than published benchmarks.
The Well’s content generated 20% more direct, cost-efficient referrals in comparison with the previous year.

Kudos to the team of Julie Shapio, Andrew Hanelly, Krystle Kopacz, Joshua Lasky and Courtney Fowler.

NYISO

Power Trends Podcast

New York ISO tuned into the popularity of podcasts to capture listeners and increase mindshare

The non-profit grid operator’s Power Trends podcast attracted 3,700 listeners via its website and YouTube. Another 2,000+ downloads were made through Apple, Google and Spotify. For its success in creating accessible, digestible content, it earned the winner title in the Branded Podcast category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Let’s face it: most people don’t think about electricity – until it’s not there. Then it’s front-page news, as we saw with recent outages in California and Texas. It’s the responsibility of the New York ISO (independent System Operator) to keep the energy grid running in New York and prepare the grid for future changes.

NYISO is proud to support New York’s groundbreaking Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which calls for a zero-emissions grid by 2040. This move will usher in dramatic changes to the energy grid in the way that electricity is produced, delivered and consumed.

With so much change on the horizon, NYISO recognized the need to educate elected officials, stakeholders, members of the Climate Action Council, media, and influencers. It also aimed to reinforce its position as a trusted provider of independent, fact-driven information.

It did so by reintroducing its Power Trends podcast, which initially launched two years before. The podcast bears the same name as its annual flagship publication. Beyond amplifying the opinions of thought leaders within NYISO, it includes the perspectives of outside stakeholders.

The podcast quickly captured interest. It’s hosted by Kevin Lanahan, a veteran energy industry leader and former journalist who currently holds rank as Vice President of External Affairs and Corporate Communications at NYISO. Although Lanahan has a knack for delving into the complexity of the grid, he’s also quite skilled at making content digestible for listeners.

To date, NYISO has published 18 podcasts with guests from across New York’s energy landscape. They address the ways in which planning efforts and public policy are dovetailing with the largest commitment to clean energy resources in the country.

The podcasts have been successful in increasing mindshare among its narrow audience of energy stakeholders, and has helped attract national news coverage of the organization and its efforts. For example, recent press coverage has included The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, and POLITICO.

Plenty of Fish

Dating Defined: 2021 Dating Trends by Plenty of Fish

Plenty of Fish used its annual dating trends list to boost its online reputation

Its campaign generated a 196% increase in positive sentiment. For its achievements, it was named a winner in the Brand Awareness category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

“After Netflix & chill, I got ghosted!” People engaged with the dating scene are well acquainted with the buzzwords used to describe their experiences. Every year, Plenty of Fish, a Match Group company, creates its list of dating trends and buzzwords and phrases. It queried 2,000 members for the November launch.

The trends included:

Apocalypsing—getting too serious, too soon.
Fauci-ing: Declining to date someone because you don’t believe they’re taking COVID-19 seriously enough.
Maskerading: Fronting how much you care about COVID-19 safety precautions to meet a date’s expectations.
Zoomlander-ing: When a Zoom date spends too much time eyeing themselves on camera.

Crafted Communications developed the communications campaign. Beyond solidifying the online and mobile app’s influencer status, it generated buzz.

The campaign resulted in 547 pieces of content spanning print, online, broadcast and social (far exceeding last year’s 111) and 3.6 billion impressions. The equivalent ad value amounted to $31,451,317, which surpassed the Q4 impressions goal by 130%. Coverage included 77 top-tier media placements, 188 broadcast hits and 313 online placements. Things really heated up when the Fauci-ing trend went viral. The story landed in Forbes, New York Post, Huffpost and Mashable.

Plenty of Fish also shared the love through Bachelor Nation, the official website of The Bachelor franchise. Social content netted 6.7 million impressions and more than 414.9k engagements.

Urban Dictionary’s promotion generated 8.7K “likes,” 4.9 million impressions and more than 7.3K clicks—over 2x the average. A partnership with Bustle drove over 300k impressions—a number that exceeded Bustle’s benchmark for similar campaigns by 1.5 times.

Finally, Plenty of Fish hosted its first social media contest on Instagram. It had a 7.4% engagement rate. Micro-influencers also promoted the trends on Instagram. The Stories included Swipe Up links, which whisked users off Plenty of Fish’s registration page to prompt sign ups and new profiles.

Congratulations to the team members: Allie Marsh, Raina Danna, Kimmi Lorman, Natalie Scott, Shannon Smith and Kate MacLean.

Capital One

Capital One's Tell Me Something Good

Capital One boosted employee engagement during an era of remote work

The finance company’s team created a feel-good campaign that elevated viewership by a 246% average. For its ability to increase engagement, it earned the winner title in the Content Marketing for the Purpose of Employee Engagement Category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

To quote Anne Frank: “Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news.”

In the midst of a pandemic and during an era of social unrest, Capital One delivered what the world and its associates desperately needed—a sense of optimism and hope.

Shortly after shifting its team to remote work, it became evident that the company’s 50,000+ employees were yearning for connection and positive vibes. It used its 2019 Associate Survey to conduct internal research to tap fears and concerns while assessing the state of mental health. The survey revealed that associates were stressed by a flood of somber news.

In April, Capital One’s corporate communications team began spreading smiles. It launched Tell Me Something Good (TMSG)—an internal storytelling platform that encouraged associates to share heartfelt stories, musical parodies, Spotify playlists, community projects and beyond.

In addition to driving engagement, TMSG set objectives to:

produce a curated-to-original content ratio of 80 to 20;
elevate readership by at least 50% before year-end; and
boost engagement via likes, bookmarks and comments, by at least 25% before the new year.

As the adage says, the best things in life are free. The TMSG work was conducted deskside and didn’t require a budget. At the close of 2020, TMSG saw a curated to original content ratio of 84.5 to 15.5. It generated 2x as many top stories (3 per quarter) and 1.5x as many features (4 weekly).

Positive sentiments such as this one was shared: “So many more examples of why I am proud to work for Capital One; alongside so many amazing, passionate, and generous people! Thanks to everyone who has and continues to give to their communities!”

Credit to these team members: Christine Kegelman, Jackie Foreman, Annie Ronquillo, Cindy Armstrong, Ella Beth Southall, Jill Kerr, Bridget Phelan, Isabelle Keegan CHK, Arlyn Abelson, Laura Weisiger, Clare Mortenson and Anne Stroud.

Dotted Line

Lead Generation Campaign for TKA

Dotted Line developed a comprehensive tool and campaign to generate marketing leads

The agency generated 423 new potential sales leads for the healthcare technology management (HTM) provider. For its ability to drive results, it was named a winner in the Content Marketing for the Purpose of Lead Generation category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Prior to 2019, The Innovation Institute, which includes Tech Knowledge Associates, LLC (TKA) as a portfolio company, focused its marketing efforts solely on its member owner hospitals. That suddenly changed when a major financial setback jolted its foundation.

TKA has a crucial role. It embeds its biomed technicians within partner hospitals to ensure that life-saving devices will function when needed. One of its goals was to generate revenue by securing new contracts. A 2- to 3-year sales cycle coupled with exorbitant annual contracts and the inconvenience of transitioning to a new provider created obstacles.

Realistic of the challenges that lie ahead, TKA set its sights on closing $7 to $10 million in new business by the end of 2022.

Dotted Line needed to understand its target audience, so it developed Charlotte Ceefo—a persona representing the CFO’s responsibilities, key tools, objectives and challenges. Then it crafted “assets” such as a cost-tracker worksheet and workbook with equations that measured the effectiveness of the HTM.

Each asset was promoted organically on social media and paired with social media boosted paid posts. They also were highlighted through search engine marketing ads and via a traditional media buy with Becker’s Hospital Review.

Hubspot automated the nurture process via email workflows and score contacts to better qualify them for sales. Contacts received points for target audience alignment, interactions with email workflows and form submissions. When contacts amassed 20 points, they were sent to the sales team along with data collected through form submissions.

“Dotted Line knocked it out of the park,” said David Francoeur, senior vice president of marketing and sales, TKA. The campaign’s success was measured by:

196,511 impressions on hospital leaders
1,412 landing page visits (a submission conversion rate of 11.26%)
1,486 website sessions
423 new contacts far exceeded its target of 25
159 form submissions
764 (unique reach) also influenced contacts

Meals on Wheels America

Meals on Wheels America COVID-19 Campaign

Meals on Wheels raised $32.5 million in its fundraising campaign for 646 senior programs nationwide

For its ability to help a vulnerable population during a pandemic, it was named the winner of the Covid-19 Campaign category in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Meals on Wheels—a nonprofit that supports more than 5,000 community-based programs nationwide—had experience in caring for America’s seniors.

Since seniors are among the most vulnerable groups, keeping them well-nourished and safe amidst a health crisis posed quite a challenge. Those friendly visits made by volunteers became even more urgent during an era of isolation and fear.

That said, Meals on Wheels ramped up funding to meet the escalating demand for safety supplies and additional meals. Beyond targeting its network of supporters, it aimed to recruit new donors.

In April, Meals on Wheels launched the COVID-19 Response Fund campaign—an emergency status initiative. Beyond increasing the frequency of messaging, the campaign marked the first time Meals on Wheels used digital advertising year-round. Social media and digital were ideal ways to deliver content during an era of stay-at-home orders and social distancing. Key messages were shared via paid media and storytelling canvases.

Impact stories reeled donors in by showing the direct impact their donations made on local communities. Donors could see exactly where their donations were allocated, and that drove satisfaction. This led to a 48% increase in email sign-ups year-over-year.

Versions of the campaign’s “Humanity is Winning” video were shared at the NFL Draft-A-Thon pandemic recovery efforts. Town halls on Facebook Live helped rally support. Meals on Wheels continually shared the amount of revenue that was sent to the frontlines.

The campaign drove overall online revenue up 631% over the prior year and online gifts increased by 468%. To achieve this, the campaign utilized platforms with built in donation functions. It also helped launch a donation sticker on TikTok. Influencers such as Katy Perry streamed on YouTube and a Live Lunch Series with DJ Khaled, Robert Ellis and Tony Gonzalez supported the efforts.

ShelterPoint Life

COVID-19 Communications

ShelterPoint Life prevents ‘claims tsunami’ with online resource center, infographic

New York insurance company ShelterPoint Life created an infographic and tailored online guides to help streamline customer service amid confusion related to the pandemic. The team won first prize in the Crisis Communications category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

ShelterPoint’s digital COVID-19 claims resource center and blog posts saw 9,500 user sessions in the first two days of its launch, satisfying the need for immediate help and clarity following some confusing legislation.

When the state of New York passed emergency legislation allowing for eligible employees to receive special COVID-19 benefits through their state-required insurance coverage, ShelterPoint was inundated with calls from confused customers, many of whom didn’t even know if they were eligible for the program.

“While this was much needed relief for New Yorkers, the details were fuzzy,” the ShelterPoint team noted.

To mitigate a so-called “claims tsunami,” ShelterPoint needed to release important information quickly—and make sure that information was front and center for customers coming to its website for help. An online resource center offered infographics, eligibility checklists, links to relevant blog posts and other value-added content, while the ShelterPoint New Claim Guide provided step-by-step guidance for scenario-specific claims, alleviating much of the pressure on ShelterPoint’s customer service.

For example, the benefit structure infographic features an attractive color scheme and a clear explanatory chart, including icons and large fonts that answer the questions, “What is the benefit structure of paid leave for an employee who is under Order of Quarantine?” and “What is the benefit structure of paid leave for an employee that cares for [a] minor dependent child who is under Order of Quarantine?”

The team also produced free, printable coloring pages with positive and informative messaging about COVID-19 for children, like “Virtual high five” and the Oscar Wilde quote, “When it rains, look for rainbows… when it’s dark look for stars.” ShelterPoint encouraged parents to share photos of their children’s finished coloring pages on social media, tagging ShelterPoint’s social handle.

Congratulations to Stephanie Haber and Yiu Wa Tso with the ShelterPoint Life team.

ABC

Soul of a Nation

ABC News’ promotions for ‘Soul of a Nation’ series garner nearly one billion impressions

In promoting its “Soul of a Nation” series, ABC News was able to reach millions of Black viewers with a program highlighting the intricacies and nuances of Black life in America. These efforts resulted in first prize in the DEI Communications category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Millions of impressions, legacy media placements and A-list celebrity involvement are just a few of the results of ABC News’ promotional campaign for its “Soul of a Nation” series. ABC worked with marketing agency MRKT to reach Black audiences, deploying publicity and influencer initiatives as well as earned media placements.

The campaign included exclusive and weekly episode announcements, exclusive clip placements, TCA and review coverage, 1:1 interviews, weekly live tweeting and Clubhouse discussions.

The team partnered with USA Today for an exclusive announcement of the launch and some of the guest hosts, including Sterling K. Brown, Jemele Hill and Marsai Martin, netting 56 million impressions.

Media coverage prior to the premiere of the series included placements in The Washington Post, the Associated Press, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and many more, which resulted in 406 million impressions.

ABC also partnered with HBCU Buzz on a roundtable series focused on engaging students at historically black colleges and universities. The three-part series featured students from several of these universities who were able to ask questions of the featured journalists. Participating students were given a curated mailer that included branded merchandise and items from Black-owned companies. The roundtable series netted more than 6,500 views and 340,000 impressions.

The team deployed activist and influencer Etienne Maurice of “Filming While Black” to host “Soul of a Nation: Creators Lounge,” a weekly Clubhouse discussion where participants engaged in conversations surrounding the topical themes of the episode. Participants included show guests like Anthony Hamilton, DJ D-Nice and Jemele Hill, along with ABC News correspondents Alex Perez, Janai Norman, Byron Pitts and Linsey Davis. It was the most heavily attended Clubhouse event hosted by the team.

A virtual watch party for the “Black Joy” episode included show hosts, students from 25 HBCU institutions, a live DJ and a virtual photo booth. It was attended by 150 people with an average tune-in of 80 minutes, generating 460,000 impressions.

Altogether, the team’s promotional initiatives garnered more than 918.8 million impressions across all social media platforms and other media.

Congratulations to the ABC News team.

Travelers

Zaadii: The Legend of Z-Hawk—Consumer Distracted Driving Education Campaign

Travelers Insurance, Peppercomm and TBWA/Chiat/Day New York’s distracted driving comic book campaign garners 132 million social media impressions

Travelers Insurance added to its “Unfinished Stories” series with a comic book honoring a little boy who was killed by a distracted driver, winning first prize in the Education Campaign category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The latest installment of Travelers’ ongoing “Unfinished Stories” series, which pays homage to 3-year-old Zaadii Tso, generated 23 earned media placements and 9.5 million social media video views.

Tso, a Navajo boy from Arizona, was killed by a distracted driver in 2015. Travelers’ comic book, “Zaadii: The Legend of Z-Hawk,” imagines Tso as a superhero, with the intention of drawing awareness to the potentially fatal dangers of distracted driving.

The 28-page comic is drawn in classic comic book style, complete with speech bubbles and carefully detailed illustrations. It includes the heroic story of Z-Hawk, a lawyer by day and superhero by night, who stops a factory owner from potentially polluting the land and water of a local tribe—and stops a villainous, two-faced friend from destroying a dam and flooding the town.

The story doesn’t end when Z-Hawk comes out on top, however; the last few pages of the comic are dedicated to telling Zaadii’s story from his mother’s point of view. It includes a moving message about distracted driving and a tribute to Zaadii: “He might have become a hero. This story helps him achieve that purpose. In it, he becomes the hero he wanted to be, and his memory lives in. Beyond that, I hope you’ll think of him when you drive, and keep your eyes and mind on the road so you can really protect us all.”

The comic book was released at New York Comic Con, complete with a panel appearance by Travelers Senior VP of Enterprise Integrated Marketing John Morris to explain the inspiration for the project and Travelers’ larger goal of raising awareness about the dangers of distracted driving.

Working with Peppercomm and TBWA/Chiat/Day NY, Travelers also distributed a press release via Businesswire on the day of the launch. After the launch, Travelers continued to promote the comic book in relation to key relevant events and holidays, like Distracted Driving Awareness Month and Indigenous Peoples Day.

The campaign’s earned media coverage included outlets like CNBC, SheKnows, AdAge, iHeartRADIO, AZ Central and the Arizona Daily Sun, totaling 100.6 UVM.

Kudos to the Travelers Insurance, Peppercomm and TBWA/Chiat/Day New York teams.

OneTrust

OneTrust Five-Year Anniversary Employee Engagement

OneTrust celebrates five-year anniversary with comprehensive employee engagement campaign

Software solutions company OneTrust engaged its employees through multiple channels and events to celebrate its five-year anniversary. These efforts won first prize in the Employee Communications Initiatives category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Two in-person events, one virtual event, an 82% increase month-over-month in job referrals and 1,400 of 2,000 employees requesting swag packages—this is what success looks like for OneTrust’s employee engagement initiative.

To show appreciation for employees, highlight accomplishments and position OneTrust as an employer of choice in tech, OneTrust centered its five-year anniversary employee engagement strategy on authentic engagement. The team interviewed employee-nominated top five workers about their work experience, then shared those interviews as graphics, mini-blogs and videos.

One employee spotlight graphic includes this quote from employee Harri Stenning: “We’ve scaled at record-breaking pace and are not slowing down. If you want a career that will challenge you, reward you, and really propel you to the next level, then now is an ideal time to join our team.”

New benefits were a part of the employee engagement campaign, too. Those included global unlimited PTO, fully covered (100%) healthcare premiums for U.S.-based employees and 75% coverage for dependents, paid fertility treatment coverage, enhanced orthodontic coverage, increased HSA employer contributions and free global ClassPass fitness subscriptions.

In addition, OneTrust launched a new work anniversary celebration program and hosted an employee appreciation week in the final week of June. To strengthen its commitment to DE&I, OneTrust also announced Juneteenth as a paid day of observance for U.S. employees and launched employee resource groups for women and Black employees: Women@OneTrust and Black@OneTrust.

To cap off Employee Appreciation Week, OneTrust hosted a virtual cocktail making event in the United Kingdom, a virtual lunch in Australia and trivia in Brazil. The result? In-person block parties in Atlanta and Denver were attended by 450 and 123 employees, respectively, and OneTrust saw “a more than 500% increase in job candidates funneled through social media five-year content.”

Sabrina Patel, Audrey Proa, Gabrielle Ferree, Meghan Demons, Elizabeth Britton, Sarah Hampton and Autumn Hamre are among the members of OneTrust’s winning team. Congratulations!

Katz Institute for Women’s Health & Revmade

Katz Institute for Women’s Health Content Strategy with Revmade

Katz Institute for Women’s Health campaign redefines women’s healthcare, garners $1 million+ in donations

The Katz Institute for Women’s Health (KIWH) engaged not only patients but also the medical community and its donor base, winning first prize in the Health and Wellness Campaign category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

In an effort to move away from the “bikini approach” to women’s healthcare, KIWH worked with Revmade to develop a multi-channel content strategy focused on promoting its experts in women’s health amid a changing medical landscape for women. The campaign engaged more than 50 medical doctors, who pledged to follow the KIWH model of care, and prompted a 290% increase in visits to the KIWH website.

KIWH deployed ghostwriters to produce meaningful thought leadership content, including first-person essays, Q&As about women’s health and a quarterly editorial. The team also worked with influencers to create content about their personal healthcare experiences and promoted that content to KIWH’s audiences.

In an article titled “Gaslighting in women’s health: No, it’s not just in your head,” obstetrics and gynecology specialist Dr. Stephanie Trentacoste McNally writes, “How often does a woman get angry, only to be asked if she’s about to get her period? How often does a perimenopausal woman go to her doctor’s office to complain about weight gain, only to be told that it’s related to hormones? Our hormones aren’t making us anxious or upset—these condescending attitudes are.”

Promotional images included a female, bra-wearing version of the Vitruvian Man, which is often used as a symbol of a scientific approach to health.

Additionally, KIWH leveraged their existing network of clients, sending a regular email to all women in their database in the form of “personal outreach from physicians asking for help in spreading the message about the importance of women’s health.”

This campaign resulted in 25x the rate of content shared on social media as compared to prior marketing efforts and a 40% growth in KIWH community involvement (social media, email and in-person events).

Congratulations to Danielle Scagnelli and Andie Egbert with Northwell Health; and Krystle Kopacz, Courtney Fowler and Andrew Hanelly with Revmade.

TCS Education System

Ordinary magic in extraordinary times

Pacific Oaks College draws “ordinary magic” from childhood education faculty for magazine article

Drawing from the expertise of its own faculty, the Pacific Oaks College team produced a blog in line with their organization’s values and goals. This earned it first prize in the Individual Blog Post category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards

Pacific Oaks College team’s feature article, “Ordinary magic in extraordinary times,” written for Pacific Oaks’ Voices magazine, spotlights the resilience of children amid the COVID-19 pandemic. While the immediate negative effects of the pandemic on children remains a moving target, the article draws on the knowledge of experts at Pacific Oaks College to analyze and predict long-term effects.

For example, the article features excerpts from an interview with Terry Webster, Ph.D., dean of the Pacific Oaks College School of Human Development, in which Webster says, “Research has shown that human attachment lies at the core of resilience. Parents and other important caregivers can buffer many of the negative stressors associated with the pandemic.”

Quotes like this one help answer the blog’s driving question: “What does history and research teach us about what we can expect for the COVID-19 generation, after enduring a crisis like no other?”

The article’s design, including the splashy blue color scheme and playful fonts, speak to its goal: focusing on children and how they have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Quirky illustrations of mask-wearing kids contribute to the lighthearted take on what is no doubt a heavily politicized topic.

“With or without a pandemic, as adults, we’ve never been able to completely control the outside forces that affect our children,” blog author Cassandra Morrison writes in conclusion. “That’s why Pacific Oaks has been devoted for more than 75 years to helping raise children to be good stewards of their communities, with the necessary tools to ensure a hopeful, inclusive future.”

By focusing on the effects of the pandemic on children, the team was able to draw a bridge between the research and Pacific Oaks’ roots in early childhood education. The article is featured in the print and digital editions of Voices magazine, and the team plans to promote it via social media and email.

Congratulations to the Pacific Oaks College team.

Keyper Company

Collins and Devan Key Invisalign Campaign

Align Technology and Keyper Company boost Invisalign web traffic nearly 400% with influencer campaign

The orthodontics tech company deployed influencers Collins and Devan Key to promote Invisalign using a digital media campaign that resulted in nearly 400% higher web traffic than expected. This earned Align and Keyper Co. first prize in the Influencer Content Marketing category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Brothers Collins and Devan Key certainly have something to smile about.

Their new media company, Keyper Company, in partnership with Align Technology, spearheaded an Invisalign brand campaign that exceeded its website traffic goal by 385%. In addition, Keyper Company surpassed its goal for the number of online Smile Assessment completions by more than 200%.

In an unusual move, Invisalign relinquished complete creative control of the campaign to Keyper Company. The brothers were able to capitalize on their large social media followings to produce successful Invisalign content for multiple platforms, including TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube. Keyper Company conducted AB testing on all their content to ensure the most engaging, informative content was delivered to fans and viewers.

The YouTube video for Keyper Company’s $10,000 sweepstakes (in partnership with Invisalign) is colorful and eye-catching, geared toward a younger, tech-savvy audience. It includes quirky animations of the brothers’ pearly-white smiles and prominent Invisalign branding—alongside a storyline about a game show and a hamster with a taste for human blood (you’ll have to watch it to see what we mean). The video has nearly 50 million views to date.

An accompanying TikTok video accounted for nearly 20% of all traffic to Invisalign.com and more than 35% of the Smile Assessment completions in a single week.

The two companies “discovered the ‘secret sauce’ of how to authentically, ethically and organically blur the lines between entertainment and advertisement” creating content that was primarily entertainment and secondarily promotional.

Congratulations to Collins and Devan Key.

Miriam's Kitchen

Communications

Miriam’s Kitchen lays groundwork for strong video content with comms team restructuring

Washington, D.C.-based homeless advocacy organization Miriam’s Kitchen (MK) formed a new comms team and produced a variety of interactive, in-house content that helped elevate its brand visibility, winning the team first prize in the Interactive Content category of Ragan’s Marketing Content Awards.

The brand-new Miriam’s Kitchen communications team set out to prompt more external engagement and elevate the organization’s public profile. It delivered, producing staff testimonials and other video content. Other goals for the restructuring included streamlining metrics tracking and digital marketing activities and producing micro and major events.

A new Director of Equity and Inclusion position alongside the development of a new web strategy and a formal communications protocol across the organization meant a major overhaul of the organization—which Miriam’s Kitchen was deftly able to communicate to their audience and stakeholders using in-house video content.

To successfully produce the interactive content, MK developed a formal system to track campaign performance and formed a cross-team management group.

The MK team produced a segment for the NBC4 Health & Fitness Expo, a More Than A Meal campaign video and an impact video, all meant to solidify MK’s place as a leader within the racial and economic justice fields and among anti-homelessness advocacy groups. New narrated video tours of its mobile and desktop websites guide users through navigation of the new sites, providing a thorough summary in under three minutes.

Three video staff testimonials feature the day-to-day work of MK Executive Chef Cheryl Bell, Senior Housing Case Manager Esther Ford and several other employees, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the work that Miriam’s Kitchen does. The combination of in-house behind-the-scenes content and testimonials make a strong statement as to the transparency and brand purpose of the organization.

The growth of MK from an organization that “served only breakfast” in 1983 to one that “plays a critical role in the fight to end chronic homelessness” is reflected in its video content today.

James Durrah, Nathan Smith and Kala Johnson are among the winning Miriam’s Kitchen team members.

ABC

Soul of a Nation

Diverse outreach efforts garner excitement for ABC series

Campaign efforts around “Soul of a Nation” drove discussion and interaction around the show and earned it accolades for a winning Media and Entertainment Campaign in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

To maximize publicity for its series “Soul of a Nation,” ABC News worked with MRKT, a full-service marketing agency that connects diverse, multicultural demographics. To reach the intended audience, MRKT utilized a range of publicity and influencer initiatives, including:

Partnering with USA Today sports and current local and national news to debut the six-part series and its guest hosts and episode themes. This earned 56 million impressions.
Opened the Disney General Entertainment Virtual Winter TCA Press Tour with a panel comprised of series creator Marie Nelson and ABC News’ executive producers Eric Johnson and Robe Imbriano. More than 100 press members were in attendance, and the panel secured media coverage with outlets like Forbes and Deadline, plus social coverage.
Secured media coverage leading up to the “Soul of a Nation” premier in outlets like CNN, Entertainment Weekly, Associated Press and The New York Times, resulting in 406 million impressions. Subsequent weekly episode announcements were secured with African American outlets like Right On! Digital, EURWeb, Laughing Place and more. This coverage earned 207.3 million impressions.
Activist and influencer Etienne Maurice of Filming While Black hosted “Soul of a Nation: Creators Lounge” on Clubhouse. The partnership was a weekly discussion where participants engaged in conversations around each episode’s topical themes. Each week drew over 100 attendees, though week four had the largest attended Clubhouse with over 1,500 guests.

MRKT also utilized a multilayered Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) program to drive interest in the series. A live, three-part roundtable discussion series came from a partnership with HBCU Buzz. Moderated by HBCU host CDK On The Mic, the discussions allowed the audience of HBCU students to ask questions directly to the featured journalists. Students representing 25 HBCUs attended a virtual watch party for the “Black Joy” episode of the show. The series six segments were followed by a question-and-answer session with the show’s hosts, resulting in an average tune in of 80 minutes.

Overall, MRKT’s promotion efforts for ABC News’ “Soul Of A Nation” garnered over 918.8 million impressions across all media and social platforms.

ShelterPoint Life

COVID-19 Communications

ShelterPoint Life launches educational resources for New York’s special quarantine benefits

The life and health carrier delivered a support-forward approach to mitigate an influx of claims, calls and processing delays. This effort earns a win for Microsite in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

In mid-March of 2020, New York passed emergency legislation that meant eligible employees received special quarantine benefits through existing state-required disability and paid family leave (PFL) coverage. For New York-domiciled ShelterPoint Life, a life and health carrier specializing in state-mandated short-term disability insurance and PFL, the objective was to lessen the potential for a “claims tsunami” that would result in increased call volumes, delayed claims processing and the need to staff up in claims and service.

ShelterPoint Life shifted its usual communication efforts from being targeted to brokers to educating claimants and New Yorkers looking to use the emergency benefits. It became crucial for website visitors to see ShelterPoint Life’s guidance before taking further steps, so focal banners, content modules on the homepage and links on frequent entry pages drove visitors to two core resources:

The COVID-19 Resource Center featured eligibility checklists, infographics showing the relation between New York and Federal benefits, shortcuts to relevant educational blog posts and frequently asked questions.
With a special COVID-19 section, the New Claim Guide allowed visitors to self-identify their situation, receive scenario-specific claim filing guidance with step-by-step help and helped set expectations around the process.

The continued release of more guidance and educational tools, helped lower ineligible submissions for regular benefits and meant turnaround times and call volumes were not drastically impacted. Other key marketing metrics around ShelterPoint Life’s microsite:

When the emergency benefit claim forms first became available, claims went up 42% over normal, with about half of that increase being from the new quarantine forms and the rest from claims submitted as regular claims. The creation and circulation of an eligibility infographic cut submissions of the new quarantine forms to less than half the previous volume.
The COVID-19 Resource Center and blog posts saw over 64,000-plus sessions in 2020, peaking at 9,500 sessions in the first two days of launch and another 18,000 the following week.
The 2020 eligibility infographic was downloaded more than 10,500 times, while the Claim Help Section saw 15,000-plus sessions.

Accolades to ShelterPoint Life team members Stephanie Haber, marketing director, and Yiu Wa Tso, online customer experience and UI designer.

CooperVision

CooperVision: MiSight® 1 day contact lenses launch

CooperVision’s first consumer campaign surpassed all its goals

Working with EvolveMKD, the soft contact lens manufacturer launched a new product and awareness campaign that netted tangible results and a win for Multiplatform/Omnichannel Content in the PR Daily Content Marketing Awards.

The launch of MiSight 1 day contact lenses from CooperVision—FDA-approved soft contact lenses proven to slow the progression of myopia (or nearsightedness) in children ages 8 to 12—served as the impetus for an integrated marketing campaign intending to establish CooperVision as a leader in myopia control.

Research revealed a deeper understanding of audience personas, including preferred communications channels, lifestyle choices and what goes into parenting decisions. Insights from the persona research led to meaningful topics such as growing concerns about increased screen time, the impact of virtual learning on eyesight and the importance of early eye health condition diagnosis.

The “Kids Should Grow Stronger, Their Nearsightedness Shouldn’t” campaign ran August. to November. 2020 with narratives and messaging around how myopia can impact a child’s future and may worsen with time. A few successes of the integrated marketing campaign:

Partnering with mom influencers, eye care providers and a pediatrician partner, content highlighted personal connections to myopia and the brand’s key messages. This content was leveraged as paid digital media across programmatic, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, reaching 2.84 million people and garnering 1.04 million engagements across social platforms.
Worked with celebrity Sarah Michelle Gellar, who shared her personal connection to myopia in a Satellite Media Tour that generated over 50 earned placements and over 1.86 billion total impressions.
Working with popular publishers including TheSkimm, Mommy Poppins and Meredith Digital, a custom direct media partnership used native advertising, article integrations, newsletters, email partnerships and social advertising. This reached 18.68 million parents.
Campaign landing pages for all the advertising efforts, allowing CooperVision to collect 7,800 leads into their CRM. Searches for MiSight 1 day increased by 285% during the campaign, with over 561,000 landing page views across all campaign activities.

Overall, the campaign surpassed its awareness goal by over 360%, garnering 875 million impressions. According to post-campaign survey results, nearly 9 in 10 moms who became aware of MiSight took action in the three months the campaign was live, with 4 in 10 moms contacting an eye care provider and 4 in 10 going on to purchase MiSight 1 day for a child.

Congratulations to the CooperVision team: Simon Seshadri, Melissa Kiewe, Jane Agbontaen, Jessica Angeline, Yvonne Reopelle and Jan Scully.

Congratulations to the EvolveMKD team: Megan Driscoll, Adeena Fried, Maggie Holmes, Anna Twersky, Alex Christian, Christina Monteleone, Lisa Faiella, Kat Tatulli, Ashley Marzano, Megan Duffy, Sarah Bouzine, Margaret Molloy and Casey Shenloogian.

Plenty of Fish

The New “F-Word”: Fauci-ing

Plenty of Fish dating trends campaign goes viral

A campaign by-product was an 80% increase in positive online sentiment for the brand, plus a win for Newsjacking or Trend-Related Content Marketing in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

In an increasingly crowded dating app market, Plenty of Fish strives to find fresh ways to connect and appeal to existing and prospective members across the U.S. Crafted Communications, the online dating platform’s U.S. agency of record, took on developing the 2021 list of memorable and relatable terms and definitions. The goal with the list was to transcend pop culture and current events and elevate the brand through top-tier media coverage throughout the year.

Plenty of Fish polled over 2,000 U.S. members in October. 2020 about everything that impacted dating, including mask-wearing etiquette, the rise of Zoom dating, social media trends and pop culture moments. A list of 13 new trends was generated from the study, including four related to the pandemic.

The release of Plenty of Fish’s 2021 trends strategically occurred between the 2020 U.S. presidential election and the start of the holiday season. Announced via a wire-distributed press release, Crafted Communications also crafted a robust media list with over 200 contacts across an array of verticals to secure widespread coverage of the launch. In tandem, the campaign utilized a partnership with Urban Dictionary, a crowdsourced online dictionary for slang words and phrases, for a series of sponsored content, ad displays and social content on its Facebook and Instagram channels between November. 2020 and January. 2021.

Plenty of Fish’s dating trends campaign launched with a focus on, “Apocalypsing: Treating every relationship like it’s your last and getting super serious with someone you just started dating.” At the start of the new year, the team shifted to spotlighting the trend “Fauci-ing: Declining to date someone because you don’t feel they’re taking COVID-19 seriously enough,” a reference to a popular pandemic figure, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The 2021 Dating Trends campaign generated hundreds of placements and billions of impressions, and the shift to “Fauci-ing” in early 2021 went viral after an HBO Axios interview where Dr. Fauci was asked about the trend and gave a favorable reaction. The term garnered 408 stories and social posts netting 1.55 billion impressions in two weeks around the interview with coverage by top-tier publications like Forbes, Mashable, New York Post and more that mostly linked back to a Plenty of Fish blog post outlining all the trends.

Credit for the win goes to Allie Marsh, Raina Danna, Kimmi Lorman, Natalie Scott, Shannon Smith and Kate MacLean.

Intel

How Wonderful Gets Done – Intel’s 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable Platform Launch

An Intel processor product launch builds brand trust

The global communications team leveraged its product launch to establish the company’s leadership, value and ongoing innovation. It also earned a win for Product Launch in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Because of technical challenges due to execution misses and product delays, Intel faced doubts around its ability to deliver on its promises and company trust was impacted. The company’s Trust Net Sentiment fell 45% in July 2020 when 7nm delays were announced, so Intel’s global communications team used the launch of its latest data center platform, the 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor, to change negative perceptions and rebuild trust.

The global communications team had clear objectives in mind with the launch: positively introduce and raise awareness of the platform, establish Intel as an industry leader and demonstrate the portfolio’s power is enabling innovation. Around media coverage, the team aimed for 75% of coverage to appear in U.S. top 50 outlets, 90% of articles have one or more key message throughout and 70% of articles be neutral to positive in sentiment toward the company.

To achieve these goals, the team engaged with the analyst community, global technology press, business press, investors and customers via embargoed technical workshops; message testing sessions; and providing access to Intel executives and technical team members for an exploration of the platform, update on Intel’s business and discussions around its value. The formal launch of the 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor took place at a virtual event with content broken into several shorter sessions on key product topics.

A few campaign launch highlights:

Engaged more than 775 media, analysts and influencers worldwide, resulting in 1,207 original pieces of coverage in technical and business publications worldwide.
Achieved coverage in 80% of U.S. top 50 outlets. Ninety-two percent of coverage incorporated at least one of Intel’s key messages, and the coverage globally was nearly all positive to neutral in sentiment.
Hosted 13 individual launch events globally plus supported 50 customer global watch parties.

These efforts by the global communications team also resulted in a 77% improvement in global trust, with the Trust Net Sentiment score rising to 84% in Q2 2021.

Stephen Gabriel, Langley Albrritton, Tim Schulte, Krista Foxwell, Liz Wu and Leigh Rosenwald are the team who made it happen. Congratulations!

Vital Strategies

Change. At Your Own Pace

An informational campaign by Vital Strategies and partners prioritizes care

A Michigan state-wide campaign removed stigma, shame and stereotypes around drug use and promoted avenues for assistance, winning recognition in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards for its Social Justice Campaign.

The current overdose crisis in the U.S. represents a wave in the longstanding public health challenge that is drug use. In 2019, Michigan experienced more than 2,300 overdose deaths, so the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services worked with Vital Strategies and Luceo Images to create a multimedia campaign in response. The state-wide informational campaign aimed to inform all Michigan residents about effective harm reduction services and available resources.

Vital Strategies, a global public health organization, prioritized the messaging that fatal overdoses are preventable and that seeking help and services needs to be destigmatized. Another campaign goal was to increase awareness and use of essential harm reduction health services across the state. It also aimed to normalize those who use drugs needing compassionate health services.

The campaign centered on people with lived experiences with drug use and drug overdose in front and behind the camera sharing stories. It also featured local harm reduction service providers in Michigan to help identify them as well as document a mix of routine daily activities across communities to foster trust and belief in messaging.

Ultimately, eight different static social media graphics, four GIF format graphics, four 30-second video clip ads and four 15-second video clip ads delivered in three languages (English, Spanish and Arabic) were created. While reaching people via their personal technology devices across social media platforms and websites, creative materials like billboards, public transit and convenience store advertisements aimed to reach unhoused people and those who may not see the campaign elsewhere. The campaign reflected racial, gender, age and geographic diversity to illustrate harm prevention services are for anyone.

Overall, the campaign netted 43,246,004 total impressions across digital displays, digital video, Google ads, Facebook and Instagram. It also achieved 6,316,123 total video views with an average 72.16 video completion rate. More broadly, the campaign hopes to be a model for informing and supporting drug users in a supportive, compassionate and destigmatized manner.

The team behind this winning campaign includes Gloria Malone, Tony Newman, Alejandro Alves, Julie Rwan, Esther Mae Rosner, Matt Slaby, Kevin German, Lauren Abbot and Maria Habib.

MGC

#ConverseCityForests

Converse uses its platform to generate equity, sustainability conversations

A mural project in Chile went beyond shoe sales and landed as a winner for Sustainability/ESG Communication in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Shoe brand Converse wanted to use its brand power in Chile to lead a conversation on breaking barriers of discrimination in gender and racial equality, as well as bill itself a leader in sustainability with the launch of its My Story and SP21 shoe models. All this coalesced into the City Forest mural project with the theme of breaking down barriers.

The campaign ran in two phases:

A series of conversations between 10 young people from the Converse All Stars community and Fundación Ilusión Viril, which works to prevent gender violence and promote diverse masculinities. During the meetings, each young person revealed their story and struggle with breaking down the barriers of equality and gender. Stories and photos of participants were shared on Converse Chile’s Instagram to demonstrate support for all, and three hashtags—-#ConverseChile, #ConverseAllStars and #ConverseCityForests—-were used throughout.
The launch of the first City Forest mural by artist Estefania Leighton, known as Stfi, in the Yungay neighborhood of Santiago, Chile. The more than 60-meter-tall mural features two human figures holding hands to create a circle of light, representing the importance of both genders and the need for equal opportunities.

Sustainable Graphenstone paint was used for the mural specifically because it is composed of a lime base in artisan paste that cleans the air. (For example, three 15-liter jars absorb 14.5 kilograms of CO2, the same amount as a 250-kilogram adult tree.) The campaign thus tied together and crossed verticals with its gender and racial equality messaging, sustainability messaging and sneaker launch.

More than 136 press releases were generated within one week across TV, newspapers, blogs, online sites and radio. The communication for the launch of the mural achieved more than 200 publications across media, resulting in a reach of 38 million people. All of those coverage results came from the production of one press release, 10 exclusive TV and radio interviews, six influencers and 50 notes on various websites.

Award recognition goes to Javier Vega and Valentina Yavar.

BackBay Communications

Fiduciary Trust Company: Guiding Clients Through the Pandemic

Efforts by BackBay Communications help with navigating early days of the pandemic

The PR, content development and digital marketing firm assisted its client in developing meaningful content that engaged new and existing customers and takes home the prize for its Thought Leadership Campaign in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

BackBay Communications partnered with client Fiduciary Trust Company (FTC), a privately owned wealth management firm, to create a content-based marketing and communications campaign aimed specifically at helping navigate the uncertainty in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. From late February. through mid-July 2020, BackBay and FTC collaborated to create content, develop visual aspects of those content pieces, distribute and boost content across social media platforms and pitch FTC thought leadership to media.

The first content piece BackBay assisted with was “The Coronovirus and the Markets” from FTC’s CIO Hans Olsen, which ran Feb. 28, 2020. While an update to that followed in short order on Mar. 9, Olsen also offered insight and analysis during the turbulent market for MarketWatch, Bloomberg Radio, Yahoo! Finance and Reuters.

During the five-month period, BackBay also helped FTC produce content around financial planning and wealth management questions, a wealth planning article and checklist, financial and estate plans and more. Experts from Harvard Medical School, the Boston Foundation and Strategic Philanthropy covered pertinent topics like staying healthy and maximizing charitable impact.

Overall, the campaign distributed 35 pieces of content from 16 authors in five formats (PDFs, online articles, podcasts, webcasts and webinars). These efforts by BackBay and FTC resulted in 22,000 organic insights page views and 4,000 video and podcast plays, plus coverage by the media over 40 times in 2020.

While the primary focus was informing and engaging FTC clients, BackBay also helped promote the content through paid and organic ads, third-party emails and paid search. Use of these additional channels generated 370 new inbound prospect leads from individuals who registered for FTC’s insights emails and/or the firm’s webcasts. All of these efforts contributed to FTC achieving record new business revenue and maintaining a 98% annual client retention rate.

Congratulations to the team comprised of Paul Lim, Greg Wood and Christina Drexler.

Cisco

WeAreCisco

Cisco’s focus on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter keeps its brand a standout

From Instagram Stories to TikTok challenges and more, Cisco took charge of social media to get its brand message out. It’s a winner in the ‘Use of Social Media’ category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Social media has come a long way since the days of cat pictures and selfie sticks, evolving into a tool for marketing, PR, branding and more. Cisco’s use of social media for recruitment and branding has been an industry standout for years.

Its Instagram strategy in 2021, for example, took advantage of the “This or That” trend, using Instagram Stories to display two images side by side of employees working from home and asking audience members to vote for their favorite. One challenge allowed viewers to choose between the “Cisco tee” and “business casual” for at-home work preference. Another asked, “Best work view—mountains or beach?” The series and vote totals helped Cisco plan content for its social media channels.

On TikTok, Cisco created a first-of-its-kind pilot program that turned interns and employees into ambassadors who shared their #LoveWhereYouWork stories through a series of TikTok “challenges.” The Employer Brand team created a calendar of challenges issued to ambassadors, such as the “Dolly Parton Nine to Five” challenge, the “Electricity Game” and the “What I’d Wear” challenge.

The campaign drew 265,000 views of ambassador content; one intern’s post went viral with 239,000 views.

When Cisco’s signature event, Cisco Live, moved from June 2020 to March 2021 and consolidated multiple regional events into a single all-virtual conference, Cisco turned to Twitter to bring the same in-person dynamic to its virtual environment with its virtual social media hub.

Throughout Cisco Live, attendees could see top social posts, share images and scroll through social content. Viewers could engage directly through Twitter, watching the Twitter leader boards to see which names were at the top.

During the event’s opening keynote, the #CiscoLive hashtag trended nationally on Twitter for more than two hours. By the end of the conference, #CiscoLive received more than 20,000 total mentions, 3 million impressions and reached more than 222 million people on its social channels.

Northeastern University

Social Media Team

University turns to Instagram to boost student groups

The pandemic kept students apart, but Northeastern University wanted to encourage participation in on-campus groups. Its Instagram strategy has won in the ‘Use of Social Media’ category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Like many organizations and institutions, Northeastern University faced the challenge of keeping its students, faculty, employees and visitors safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Precautions like social distancing, restrictions on large in-person events and limited access for visitors to residence halls during the 2020-21 school year kept people healthy, but they limited students’ opportunities for making new friends and getting involved on campus.

So, the university turned to Instagram to increase awareness of student organizations and spur participation in them. The strategy was to recruit student leaders to share their experiences on Northeastern’s official Instagram account

The university employed two tactics: An Instagram takeover by student organization leaders; and “Feature Day,” a special one-day event in which each student organization posted about a different organization, allowing each group to reach a new audience.

Twenty-six takeovers took place during the fall 2020 and spring 2021 semesters. Student leaders were given full autonomy—within guidelines—to share their experience with their organization and encourage other students to join. The Instagram “questions” function allowed them to engage directly with prospective members, asking questions and building relationships.
Feature Day. Close to 60 student groups participated. Each group spotlighted a different group on Instagram, allowing them to reach out to a new segment of prospective members. All the posts were shared to Northeastern’s Instagram story to amplify multiple groups in each post and showcase the diversity of options for students.

The Instagram Story takeovers drew hundreds of thousands of engagements over the 26 weeks. Participating student groups saw an increase in Instagram followers, as well as a rise in signups for email lists and dozens of new members recruited.

Participation in Feature Day resulted in thousands of impressions, with student groups drawing in new followers on their Instagram accounts along with inquiries from students interested in joining.

The Instagram strategy resulted in an 80% increase in engagements on the account during the events compared to the previous period.

OneTrust

OneTrust Five-Year Anniversary Employee Engagement

OneTrust pulls out all the stops to celebrate employees on its five-year anniversary

#FiveYearsofTrust events announced new benefits, shared swag and reaffirmed a commitment to diversity, earning a win in the ‘Use of Social Media’ category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

For its five-year anniversary, OneTrust, a privacy, security and data governance software platform, wanted to celebrate and thank its 2,000 employees around the world.

Its #FiveYearsofTrust employee appreciation week in the final week of June 2020 featured daily celebrations; digital activities; and the announcement of new employee benefits, like an unlimited PTO policy, fully covered health care premiums, paid fertility treatment coverage, enhanced orthodontic coverage and more.

The anniversary celebration kicked off by highlighting milestones internally and externally. Custom-designed swag and gifts for employees were branded with a five-year anniversary logo and a thank-you card; employees posted pictures of themselves wearing the swag or using their gifts on social media with the #FiveYearsofTrust hashtag.

The company also enlisted co-workers, managers and partners to nominate OneTrust’s “top five” employees—people representing the OneTrust culture of diversity and inclusion. Teams interviewed the employees and used the material for employee spotlight graphics, mini-blog posts and video vignettes. The content was shared across OneTrust’s social media channels, along with its Microsoft Teams channel and the OneTrust.com website.

During employee appreciation week in June, the company premiered its documentary, “The Story of OneTrust,” featuring leaders and employees sharing personal anecdotes about building the OneTrust brand over the past five years. The last day of Employee Appreciation Week was a paid day off for employees.

Although the pandemic made in-person celebrations impossible for the entire global workforce, OneTrust offered a virtual cocktail-making event in the UK, a virtual dance party in India, a virtual lunch in Australia and a trivia event in Brazil. Live events with dancing, drinks and food were held in Denver, with 123 employees attending, and Atlanta, which drew 450.

OneTrust also used the anniversary to reaffirm its commitment to diversity and inclusion, designating Juneteenth (June 19) as a paid day of observance for U.S.-based employees and highlighting its commitment to using the day for engagement, education and volunteership. During a June all-hands meeting, it announced the launch of two OneTrust Employee Resource Groups, or “Trust Groups,” the Women@OneTrust and Black@OneTrust, for employees to connect with people like them and engage in dialogue together.

Credit for the campaign goes to Sarina Patel, Audrey Proa, Gabrielle Ferree, Meghan Demons, Elizabeth Britton, Sarah Hampton and Autumn Hamre.

NVE Experience Agency

Tanqueray's Sunshine in a Glass

Tanqueray forecasts ‘Sunshine in a Glass’ to launch new gin brand

The video series featured singer Joe Jonas in different iterations across multiple platforms, including one customized for Weather.com. It’s a winner in the ‘Video’ category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

It was a new experience for gin drinkers: Tanqueray’s Sevilla Orange, a fresh take on the classic Tanqueray gin. For the national rollout, NVE Experience Agency produced a 60-second video, “Today’s Forecast: Sunshine in a Glass,” featuring singer Joe Jonas as part of a branded content media campaign launched within a two-month time frame.

NVE actually created five distinct versions of the video for different platforms, including social media, Hulu and Weather.com. The video received more than 13 million views across all platforms, with 9.3 million impressions on Weather.com alone.

The video was shot over two days, one in a studio with Jonas and the other at a lake house in Savannah, Georgia, featuring a pool party, a picnic and a boat house dock, all arranged to look like different U.S. locations. With Jonas in the middle of shooting a movie, the production teams had to work around his schedule while following SAG rules and adhering to strict COVID guidelines to ensure everyone’s safety.

The team planned to launch the video on May 17, 2021, in anticipation of the Memorial Day weekend and the beginning of summer. A 30-second spot was released on Hulu, YouTube and other social media channels, along with a 15-second paid spot across social media and Hulu. A custom-built spot on Weather.com targeted messaging around sunny days, reinforcing Tanqueray’s messages of “sunnier times ahead” and “sunshine in a glass.”

Overall, the video content achieved more than 83 million earned media impressions from outlets such as AdWeek, GQ, Billboard, Extra, Yahoo Entertainment and many more. Plus, Jonas’ fanbase created and shared organic content integrating the campaign into the mix.

Kudos to NVE’s Matt Molino, Ty Stafford, Catlin Callaway, Paige Southern, Greg Aldridge and agency partners Hunter PR, Starpower and PHD Media.

Cooper University Health Care

Stories in Care

‘Stories in Care’ spotlights health care workers on the front lines

Cooper University Health Care produced 22 online episodes that told tales of tragedy and triumph in the health system’s trenches. It’s a winner in the ‘Video Series’ category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The story of COVID-19 is often told in numbers—tests, hospital admissions, deaths. When the governor of New Jersey selected Cooper University Health Care, a leading academic health system with more than 8,500 employees and 800 physicians, to coordinate the COVID-19 response in the southern region of the state, the team decided to focus on the more human aspects of fighting the disease.

The result was “Stories in Care,” a multipart oral history featuring health care providers from the front lines sharing their experiences in video format. Video production company Narrative Media helped produce the series—which has earned nearly 36,000 online views, more than 1,000 shares on social media and was featured on a segment on a local CBS affiliate.

The communications and marketing department’s PR team gathered stories from the critical care team. For external audiences, the team created a social media mini-series shared across Facebook and Twitter, along with a website landing page and an article for the marketing department’s weekly consumer e-mail.

The series also was shared internally on Cooper’s blogs, in the weekly e-message from the co-CEO, on its intranet and in Pulse Plus, an internal communications platform/app.

The first season of “Stories in Care” debuted in February 2021. It highlighted personal stories told in emotional, first-person voices by health care professionals sharing their turmoil and triumphs as they struggle through the biggest health care crisis in recent memory.

Season one of the series featured 11 short web-based episodes that spotlighted the work of three critical care physicians, a nurse and a critical care technician. Season two, rolled out in July 2021, highlighted a group of critical care physicians (one back from retirement), along with a critical care fellow, an advanced practice nurse and a registered nurse.

The premiere episode drew 2,454 reactions on social media, with 356 shares and 493 comments. In May, it won a Gold Award in the 42nd Annual Telly Awards, which recognizes the best work created in video and television across all screens.

Roll credits: Wendy Marano of Cooper University Health Care and Andrew Poag of Narrative Media.

Racepoint Global

Seeing Farm Tech in Action through Virtual Reality with John Deere at CES 2021

Deere embraces virtual reality when CES 2021 goes remote

Unable to mount an actual booth at the CES trade show, Deere built a virtual farm for reporters to tour. It’s a winner in the ‘Virtual/Augmented Reality Content’ category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

John Deere had big plans for its CES 2021 booth, but those went by the wayside as COVID-19 ravaged the land in 2020. Deere quickly realized it had to plan for a different kind of event—a virtual one. That meant embracing virtual reality to capture media attention in the midst of a pandemic.

Deere planned to showcase the cutting-edge technology used to plant billions of seeds every year, highlighting how AI, electrification, GPS, connectivity and other technologies are crucial for farmers growing essential food and fuel for the world. Ahead of the 44 interviews they’d scheduled since early November 2020, Deere sent VR headsets to the media, giving reporters the chance to view a 360-degree experience they couldn’t visit in person.

Deere’s Moline, Illinois headquarters became a remote CES booth, providing a visually engaging backdrop for interviews. Designing the story and messaging was one challenge, but the team also had to master the full VR experience so spokespeople could walk the journalists through the virtual environment, instructing them on which way to turn, which buttons to click and more.

Reporters saw barn doors open. A tractor and a planter drove straight towards them, but they could “walk” around both machines. The experience continued, taking them 10 feet underground to watch seeds being planted over their heads.

They also sat in the cab of a tractor to see how driving it themselves was different from letting the tractor’s self-driving technology take over. Finally, from a bird’s nest in the sky they saw an entire farm to better understand the connectivity crucial for farmers.

Deere developed other attractions for the CES audience: A microsite hosted a 360-experience for attendees who didn’t have a VR headset, a planting game demonstrated how technology is crucial for farmers and in-depth videos shared the technology and science of planting.

Audience members asked more than 70 questions in live conversations on the CES platform that drew more than 1,000 people. Deere’s technology influencer partners posted content about the conversations on their social media channels, reaching more than 150,000 people.

In the end, Deere ranked 14^th among the most newsworthy brands at CES, according to the Morning Consult, with 34% of Americans saying they’d either read, seen or heard something about the company at CES 2021.

Kudos to Jon Ebert and Laurel Caes of John Deere.

Jen Burns

Social Media Marketer of the Year

Jen Burns is a social media master for Cisco

Cisco’s social media manager expertly executes on TikTok, Instagram Stories and more, making Burns a Content Marketer of the Year in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The @WeAreCisco Employer Brand social media channels aim to entice talented employees to join Cisco and retain them once hired. Jen Burns, who leads the strategy and day-to-day execution of @WeAreCisco, relies on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok to forge strong connections through a deep analysis of metrics and an understanding of WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) that reaches Cisco’s target audience.

Burns took @WeAreCisco to TikTok in a pilot program, for example, with interns and employee mentors creating content tailored to the channel’s unique features. The campaign earned more than 284,000 views for the Employee/Employer Brand and Cisco’s new virtual internship program.

Instagram Stories, Cisco’s most engaged platform, became another vehicle for her efforts to drive @WeAreCisco to higher goals. Burns develops content that matches her audience’s viewing habits by creating templates that employees can fill out using animated GIFs, which they share in their own networks and are re-amplified on the @WeAreCisco account.

Highly engaged viewers of Instagram Stories will “tap back” to see content on the platform a second time. The @WeAreCisco stories generated 3 to 4 times the usual number of tap backs from the intended audience. In addition, Burns saw that her audience was using Instagram Stories’ polling feature and created a series of “This or That” surveys within Instagram Stories to get a better look at preferences and guide content creation going forward.

Cisco’s Instagram newsfeed posts, which had an engagement rate two times higher than the industry baseline, also drove a content campaign during the week of National Intern Day. Interns shared #WeAreCisco content on their university accounts, livestreams ran across Cisco’s social media channels and intern-focused content on Cisco feeds raised awareness about Cisco’s internship program. Cisco’s internship program remained intact during the pandemic.

Matt Wiley

SmartAsset

SmartAsset’s strategy pivot kept revenues humming during 2020

SmartAsset’s Matt Wiley revamped and repackaged content to instill confidence and continue reaching customers, making him a Content Marketer of the Year in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

At the beginning of 2020, Matt Wiley and his team at SmartAsset were regularly hitting record revenue numbers. Then the pandemic hit. Wiley had consistently delivered positive results as SmartAsset’s first-ever content marketing manager. Now he had to figure out how to pivot his strategy and develop content that would connect potential customers to SmartAsset’s financial advisors.

Wiley and his team quickly realized that its initial pandemic-related content wasn’t doing the job. The response: Wiley revamped his previously successful content marketing strategies and began testing new approaches immediately.

The team’s goals were to keep confidence up, emphasize how SmartAsset could empower people to make good financial decisions and connect potential customers to SmartAsset’s financial advisors. Wiley’s strategy repackaged his most popular content to make it timely and relevant in the middle of the pandemic, while increasing advertising spending to reach more people and convert them into leads for SmartAsset’s financial advisors.

Wiley’s most successful content marketing piece in 2020, “7 of the Biggest Mistakes People Make When Choosing a Financial Advisor,” aimed to ease people’s fears about financial uncertainty. The article was incredibly successful across marketing channels.

Similarly, “This Startup is Changing the Way People Retire” was designed to build confidence in the SmartAsset brand and steer readers to the financial advisor matching tool on its website. The article focused on showing the value of a financial advisor’s assistance, demonstrating how easy finding an advisor could be using the tool and emphasizing investors’ confidence in the company. This article, too, performed very well across marketing channels.

By June 2020, Wiley and his team exceeded its pre-pandemic monthly revenue record and achieved steady, positive revenue growth through the rest of the year.

Atrium Health

Atrium Health Communications Team

Atrium Health’s pandemic strategy spread the word about the virus and the vaccine

The comms team’s efforts helped distribute 3 million face masks and generated national coverage for the state’s first vaccination, making it a Content Marketing Team of the Year in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Atrium Health had two communication priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: Provide accurate COVID information to internal and external audiences and, as vaccines became available, ensure people had the information they needed to get the shot.

This focus resulted in hundreds of media interviews, including more than 60 with prominent national media outlets, producing an estimated advertising value of $274 million, and more than 4,100 social media posts with 1.6 million engagements and more than 250 million impressions.

When the pandemic first hit, the comms team joined daily status calls to get updates on the virus and Atrium Health’s response. To produce content, the team tapped brand journalism/social media, public relations, media relations and more areas for status updates. The comms team then decided what content to push and prioritize, reaching out to subject matter experts and organizing the content it planned to develop. Finally, the team shared the content with channel managers to distribute.

The team used its blog, Daily Dose, as a news hub housing all COVID-19-related content for the public. Content was cross-promoted on social media channels, and also shared in patient emails and internal communications, as well as being available as a resource for media.

When North Carolina issued a mandatory face mask requirement in June 2020, Atrium Health launched its Million Mask Initiative. The team was tasked with communicating Atrium Health’s effort to provide face masks to underserved communities. Its messaging, aided by an increased supply of masks, resulted in more than 3 million face masks supplied to the public.

And when vaccines arrived, Atrium Health kickstarted its #ThisIsMyShot campaign on Dec. 14, 2020, when it became the first health system in the state to administer a COVID-19 vaccine, receiving local and national media attention for its shot to Atrium’s medical director of infection prevention, Dr. Katie Passaretti.

Congrats to the team of Margaret Gilmore, Katie McKiever, Emily Shields, Claire Simmons, Ashley Brown, Savannah Simons, Chris Berger, Jerrika Swartz, Gabby Manhertz, Ashley Wilson, Carly Wooten, Dan Fogleman, Kate Gaier, Jolie Shifflet, Dana Ellison, Debra Lipson, Eric Wildstein, Chelsea Moss, Samantha Cook and Rachel Gogal.

Capgemini Americas

External Communications

Team zeroes in on COVID as it grows

Two projects show the reach and depth of this small team from Capgemini, a Content Marketing Team of the Year in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Cloud, AI, cybersecurity, engineering—the external communications team at Capgemini supports business units in these areas and more. The team is small but growing, from two people in 2019 to five in 2021. It proactively increased earned media coverage by nearly 130%, published bylined articles by more than 110% and published thought leadership spokespeople by nearly 200%.

Here’s a look at two projects the team tackled in 2021:

COVID-19’s impact on the auto industry

People stopped traveling as the pandemic spread across the country and the world. The Capgemini Research Institute put together a report on consumers’ sentiments about the automotive industry, hoping to provide useful content to key media targets and build relationships with them, while also establishing Capgemini as a leader in relevant, timely consumer research.

The external communications team developed a list of journalists to target, then developed pitches highlighting the CRI report’s key messages. Team members used relevant content from the report to follow up, targeting angles like how creative financing solutions were capturing young auto buyers.

The effort earned feature articles in Forbes, NBC, USA Today, TechCrunch and CNET, and overall garnered 13 pieces of coverage, as well as multiple broadcast interviews.

Logistics of vaccine distribution

The development of the COVID-19 vaccine put vaccination information front and center in everyone’s minds. Questions abounded: Who would get the vaccine first? How would it be supplied to rural communities? How should the vaccine be transported and stored?

The team sought to position Capgemini’s logistics experts as media sources who could explain and educate the public about the issues and details surrounding vaccine transport and distribution.

The team first connected with Capgemini thought leaders to develop content, then built media lists targeting specific areas of focus. Beyond the usual top-tier outlets, the team zoned in on trade outlets to reach specific audiences interested in logistics and distribution, and solicited opportunities for sharing both written and video content, along with phone interviews and written commentary.

Resulting coverage included:

A byline piece published in Contract Pharma.
Eleven pieces of earned coverage, including multiple video and podcast interviews.
Coverage in top-tier and trade outlets like Fortune, USA Today, Logistics Management and SupplyChainBrain.

Kudos to the team of Kristen Sharkey, Julia Zimmerman, Abby Evans, Nikita Srivastava and Dan Yesenosky.

Travel Nurse Across America (TNAA)

TNAA Marketing Team

As the need for nurses expanded, this organization increased its marketing team—and strategy

Travel Nurse Across America saw increased demand for health care workers, so it expanded its marketing team and enhanced its role. It’s a Content Marketing Team of the Year in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Many companies were forced to close as COVID-19 spread across the country, but the need for health care workers increased substantially as the pandemic surged. That brought people to Travel Nurse Across America (TNAA), which places nurse professionals on multiweek assignments in health care facilities across the country. At COVID’s height, TNAA had 23,000 jobs posted for traveling health care nurses.

As demand for TNAA’s help expanded, so did its marketing staff. In 2020, the team had five roles; by the middle of 2021 the team had grown by 50%, with new roles focused on internal communications, SEO, paid ads and more. Candidates were selected based on multilevel interviews with leaders and employees, along with personality and work-related tests.

The marketing department was tasked with enhancing the work of HR, clinical support, quality assurance and other internal departments at TNAA. The task: clear and engaging communication on a frequent basis. TNAA’s health care travelers needed industry news, along with information on ambassador programs and traveler conventions. The team supported them by sharing their stories and drawing them in with enticing content on all platforms.

The marketing team also took over internal communications. With employees working in remote locations as the world coped with the pandemic, TNAA focused on bringing people together through communication, emphasizing its commitment to the wellness of its workforce.

The marketing department’s expansion is credited with boosting page views on TNAA’s website by 32% in the first six months of 2021 compared to 2020, which included a 30% increase in views of job search pages. Its social media following is the second highest among all its industry competitors, and has the most Facebook followers in the industry, with close to 100,000 people.

Kudos go to Scott Knox, Noressa Kennedy Hinkler, Sara Sidebottom, Sam May, Brittany Goshen, James Miller, Maggie Mankin, Kristen Wilson, Mariana Arredondo, and Mykel Coleman.

CONGRATULATIONS TO PR DAILY'S CONTENT MARKETING AWARDS WINNERS!

PR DAILY'S CONTENT MARKETING AWARDS WINNERS