Stories by Sophie Maerowitz

One of this year’s Hall of Fame inductees, the Purina ONE Cat Café, wowed judges for its forward-thinking approach as the first cat café pop-up in North America. For this campaign, Purina ONE, working with agency partner Golin, took a cue from the popular trend in Eastern Asia and Europe. The pet food brand also partnered with the North Shore Animal League, which organized cat adoptions onsite, and won placements on “TODAY,” Reuters and other top outlets through strategic media outreach. PR News learned more about the inner workings of the campaign from Golin’s Stephanie Matthews.

How long does it take before a crisis is truly over? That’s a question some communicators might be asking after news broke that comedian Louis C.K. performed live for the first time since sexual misconduct allegations against him went public in November.

One of this year’s Platinum Hall of Fame inductees, the DoSomething.org website, was selected by PR News’ panel of judges as leading the pack in clear and achievable calls to action. Website visitors have the option to get involved on a variety of causes using a simple dropdown that filters by time commitment and type of cause. PR News spoke to DoSomething.org’s CMO Carrie Bloxson about her organization’s Hall of Fame win, and what makes DoSomething.org’s website such a standout.

Content marketing is an element of many communicators’ daily work. But it can be challenging to tie back content marketing efforts to overall communications and business goals, from audience growth to fundraising. And while there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to successful content marketing, it’s most important to play to your strengths, sourcing content that’s close to home, according to Indiegogo’s director of integrated marketing, Kira Sparks.

As part of its annual Platinum & Agency Elite Awards celebrating the best and brightest in communications, PR News handpicks a group of campaigns that will likely be remembered in years to come for their ingenuity, strategic messaging and measurable communications outcomes. These campaigns make up PR News’ Platinum Hall of Fame, and will be officially inducted at PR News’ Platinum & Agency Elite Awards luncheon Sept. 21 in New York City.

For communicators working with a tight budget, it can be tough to find time to post to social media, let alone measure the success of those posts. But there are ways to prioritize social media measurement in your daily work, especially if you fully consider the benefits of doing so. Here are three tips for communicators seeking to bolster their social media measurement efforts without exhausting their teams’ resources.

Has your organization ever held meetings about improving web traffic, but let the implementation of SEO strategies fall by the wayside? If so, you’re not alone. Here are four recommendations for communicators seeking to drive better SEO practices across their organizations.

With a new marketing agency, PR practice or digital communications firm seemingly opening up shop by the minute, sometimes even the top performing communications organizations can get lost in the shuffle.

That’s why PR News celebrates the cream of the agency crop each year with its Agency Elite Awards. The Agency Elite Awards benchmark the communications and marketing firms that, over the last year, truly stood out for their creativity, strategic expertise and achievement of successful outcomes for clients.

At PR News’ annual Platinum & Agency Elite Awards luncheon—which this year will be held Sept. 21 at the Grand Hyatt in New York City—hundreds of communications professionals gather to celebrate the top communications and marketing campaigns of the last year, as well as the PR and marketing professionals behind the strategy and execution of those initiatives. This year’s Platinum & Agency Elite Awards luncheon will be hosted by ESPN’s Hannah Storm.

While a successful donation campaign or high number of form fills is cause for celebration, it’s often what isn’t working that gets overlooked, whether you’re updating an existing site or launching a new one. A bad website might be compared to the Winchester Mystery House, famous for its eccentric and haphazard construction, including stairways and doors leading nowhere.