Co-Winner: General Motors Corp. with Weber Shandwick – Closing the Perception Gap: Compelling Content Helps Drive More Consumers to GM's Revamped Vehicles
Working with Weber Shandwick, GM created the GM News Bureau, a centralized news and story-mining team to promote GM’s product revitalization program. Stories were developed as convenient “content packages,” including articles, photos, videos and infographics and then disseminated on GM’s various channels and social media outlets as well as directly to the media.
This fusion of compelling and consistent content, and strategic story placement, enables GM to touch more consumers in more ways with more positive messaging on brands and products. The results were impressive. GM achieved nearly 16,000 placements with a reach of nearly 11 billion. YTD sales were up by 14% and the public’s “product quality” perception was up as well. —JG
Co-Winner: GolinHarris for Nintendo of America – PR barks Up the Right Tree by Naming Uggie as Nintendo's First Spokesdog
When Nintendo was looking to bolster sales of its newest offerings, the Nintendo 3DS and the video game “nintendogs + cats,” it literally went to the dogs. With the help of GolinHarris, it secured the services of celebrity dog Uggie, from the movie The Artist, and created a public relations campaign that was a hit with the press, with social media and with the target audience—young female buyers.
GolinHarris deployed a combination of PR tactics, including a pun-filled press release (“lending a paw”), the creation of a video of Uggie’s first day of “spokesdog training,” and effective use of social media. When The Artist won the Academy Award for best picture, GolinHarris took advantage and secured broadcast appearances on Live with Kelly and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The social media efforts showed bite, reaching 1.8 million people, while sales increased by 25% during the four-week campaign activities. —JG
Honorable Mentions:
Hill+Knowlton Strategies – Tracking health reform all the way to the Supreme Court: In anticipation of the Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2012, H+K sought to position the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions executives as the go-to source for comment on health reform implications. As a result, the team garnered more than 260 million media impressions, including The Wall Street Journal, NPR and Financial Times.
Makovsky + Company – Launching a New Category in Vision Technology and Building a National Sales Network: To publicize the launch of PixelOptics’empower! (the world’s first electronic prescription eyewear), Makovsky unveiled the product at two off-campus Consumer Electronics Show (CES) venues. A huge savings over the multimillion dollar booths at
CES, the strategy still led to coverage from outlets like PC Magazine and LIVE! with Regis and Kelly.
McDonald’s USA and GolinHarris – McDonald’s Commitments to Improved Nutrition Choices: To tout its healthy eating choices, McDonald’s and GolinHarris leveraged endorsements from Michelle Obama and the Let’s Move initiative for its Nutrition Commitments drive. MWW – Re-Shaping Zumba’s Image from Dance Workout Phenomenon to Global Multimedia Giant: MWW directly engaged the top 20% of lifestyle media and made significant progress in re-shaping brand perception of Zumba. The efforts secured 91% message pull through in national coverage.
National Restaurant Association – Kids LiveWell: To promote the idea of healthy menu choices for kids, the National Restaurant Association kicked off the “Kids Live Well” campaign with a press conference and tasting event at the National Press Club, and then used an integrated social media campaign that got the attention of parents, kids and even former President Bill Clinton.
NBC Universal – Smash: The multi-platform campaign, including a red-carpet star-studded event to promote the new series Smash, resulted in 11.5 million viewers tuning in for the premiere.
Ogilvy PR with Blurb – Bringing Your Story to Life: Blurb, a site that allows visitors to design and create their own bookstore-quality books, called upon Ogilvy PR to enhance its profile with professional photographers while expanding brand awareness into new customer segments. The campaign relied heavily on leveraging the Instagram community and developing Blurb’s Instagram’s books.
Samsung Telecommunications America – Samsung Mobile Blows Away Tablet Competition with Launch of the Galaxy Tab 10.1: Samsung, with the help of MWW, got the word out that its Galaxy 10.1 was a superior alternative to the iPad 2 by creating excitement within the tech, business and general media.
Symantec Corp. and Connect Marketing – Symantec Honey Stick Project: In an effort to publicize the importance of having security features added to mobile devices, Samsung purposely“lost”50 smartphones across five major cities. As expected, over 80% of the people who found these phones attempted to access files that were clearly labeled a corporate in nature. Using several carefully selected exclusive interviews and then broadening their outreach to a wider media audience, Symantec and Connect Marketing were able to increase Symantec’s position as a thought leader in the mobile security space by 15%.
The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino – The Venetian and The Palazzo Las Vegas Announce First-Ever Winter in Venice Holiday Celebration: Attempting to increase business at the slowest time of year, The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino and Palazzo Las Vegas turned their hotels into winter wonderlands, even building an ice rink. Using celebrity appearances, events and media outreach, the campaign secured more than 413 media impressions and produced over $1 million in revenue directly related to the campaign.