Winner: Carmichael Lynch Spong with Webmaster Radio.fm – Untying the Purse Strings of America’s Most Powerful Consumer
Maria Reitan, senior principal of Carmichael Lynch Spong, hosts Purse Strings, a weekly 30-minute podcast on marketing to women that streams live on WebmasterRadio.fm. Seeking to take advantage of this unique asset in hopes of raising awareness of the agency’s expertise and to position Reitan as a thought leader, CLS partnered with WebmasterRadio.fm to cross-promote the podcast. Along with creating special promos for her podcast that would air during regular programming, WebmasterRadio.fm hired Reitan as its reporter for the 2009 PRSA International Conference and, in exchange for her support of the network’s own biannual conference, verbally mentioned her show during the event. As result of these efforts, the podcast saw a 32+% increase in downloads year-over-year. Furthermore, Reitan is successfully being positioned as a thought leader as she has been invited by clients to speak on topics relating to trends in marketing to women. —SP
Fast Fact: Maria Reitan conducted 31 interviews during the 2009 PRSA International Conference that were featured on PRSA's Web site, further driving traffic to PurseStrings and Carmichael Lynch Spong's own Web site.
Honorable Mentions:
American Society for Microbiology (ASM) – This Week in Microbiology: To make its new podcast on microbiology accessible and informative for general audiences, ASM encourages interaction with the audience via comments, e-mail, voicemail and even article submissions for future discussion topics. The podcast was rated third in the iTunes Science Podcast section as a New & Noteworthy show.
Chrysler Group LLC – Under the Pentastar: The weekly video recap of Chrysler’s top stories, releases and product reveals is disseminated over Chrysler’s media site, blog, YouTube, Twitter account, Facebook page and the employee Intranet site.
Cone Inc. – Tune Up with Jeannie & Christina, Yoplait Light Two Week Tune Up with Live Webcast: To promote Yoplait Light’s Two Week Tune Up dieting program, Cone created a webcast, hosted by fashion expert Jeannie Mai and registered dietician Christina Meyer-Jax, that featured a live Q&A segment where viewers could submit questions via Facebook or Twitter and even an interview with a blogger who actually participated in the program.