2009 Platinum PR Awards: Social Media Campaign—CNN

CNN.com-Facebook Inauguration Collaboration

As the 2008 presidential election results were being broadcast to a global audience, viewers around the world were simultaneously updating their Facebook statuses—an occurrence that a group of CNN.com employees thought to be noteworthy. Out of this came the idea to have CNN.com merge with Facebook to put its finger on the global pulse around—what else?—Inauguration Day.

The CNN-Facebook collaboration centered on merging CNN.com’s Live video player with the Facebook status update module, thus enabling audiences around the world to witness the historic Inauguration Day first-hand.

Thanks to aggressive, targeted outreach to traditional and digital media, audiences around the world participated in the inauguration, and the team’s thorough preparation enabled them to distribute real-time traffic results throughout the day. CNN.com experienced record-setting traffic on Jan. 20, with 26 million live video streams and 2 million Facebook status updates made from the site. ■

Honorable Mentions:

Ogilvy PR & Lenovo: Voices of the Olympic Games—The campaign promoted Lenovo’s sponsorship of the Beijing Olympics through a Facebook application, SEO, multimedia, blogging and Twitter outreach and a dedicated Web site, exceeding all expectations and projections.

Miller Meiers & H&R Block: H&R Block Social Community—The campaign used H&R Block’s Digits Web site to engage consumers and position the company’s brand expertise, leveraging interactive multimedia components.

TMG PR & Citi Cards: Moving Citi Forward—The campaign used dynamic social media elements to build buzz around the launch of Citi Card’s new product for consumers in their 20s and 30s.

Pizza Hut & Zeno Group: Now You’re Tweeting—The campaign positioned Pizza Hut as a digital frontrunner by creating a “Twintern” position that was filled through a Twitter contest, which garnered significant media and consumer attention.

October 26, 2009