2009 Platinum PR Awards: Web Site Marketing

Miller Meiers and H&R Block: H&R Block Social Community (co-winner)

To maintain H&R Block’s role as a conduit for sharing ideas, tax advice and product information with customers and increase one-to-one interaction, Miller Meiers and H&R Block created Digits, a Web site that would leverage all these touch points.

To heighten consumer engagement, the yearlong campaign included tactics such as the use of seasonal themes, blogs, user ratings/reviews, podcasts, RSS feeds and connections within the existing social media space (MySpace, YouTube, Facebook). A larger campaign conducted during the Super Bowl commercial voting was highlighted on Digits and linked voters to the H&R Block’s Super Bowl spot.

The campaign yielded outstanding ROI. Digits increased page views twofold in a four-month period, while total community members increased by 3,000 members in a year. Subscribers to the RSS feeds increased by more than 900%. The FAQ page elicited over 1.3 million views. ■

Ogilvy PR & YAZ: YAZ: Step Up and Go Beyond  (co-winner)

To position the birth control brand YAZ as an edgy lifestyle product to young women, Ogilvy PR launched the “YAZ: Step Up and Go Beyond campaign,” which challenged aspiring designers and fashionistas to step out of their comfort zones to design a new pill pack case for YAZ. The goal was to transform the pill pack into a new fashion accessory.

To find the right design, a contest was held in partnership with the Step Up Women’s Network, an organization that seeks to empower young women. Project Runway judge Nina Garcia was chosen to select the winning pill pack design entry. YAZ would award a $10,000 fashion scholarship to the winning designer. The nerve center of the contest and campaign was a special microsite, PillPackMakeover.com. In addition to promotion on the home site, the campaign was marketed through third-party channels such as Glam.com.

Following the selection of Elaine Mayes, a young aspiring designer from New Jersey, as the winner, her entry was scheduled to be introduced as a limited edition offering from YAZ in the second and third quarters of 2010. The program generated over 102 million gross impressions, which include third party and online media. ■

Honorable Mentions:

Edelman & API: Energy Tomorrow Through Online Advocacy Today—To support API’s Education Advocacy campaign, the team created a podcast series with content syndicated on both API’s Blog Talk Radio channel and iTunes. The series received more than 50,000 downloads in 2008.

MWW Group & Samsung: MWW Group Makes Samsung Newsroom the Go-To Resource for Media and Consumers—MWW Group helped Samsung execs launch the Samsung Newsroom, a one-stop shop for the media and consumers complete with press releases, graphics/photos and a blog.

Excel PR Group: BakeSpace Goes Hollywood—BakeSpace.com, launched in 2006 as the Web’s first food social network, was marketed in a star-studded campaign in 2008. The site utilized popular TV shows and movies with food tie-ins to create “fan pages.”

GE Corporate: Plug into the Smart Grid—GE’s Smart Grid campaign reached the homes of millions via a new microsite, which allows visitors to bring a 3-D hologram to life. It received 970,000 unique Web visitors in just 3.5 months.

October 26, 2009