Campaign: Live. Love. Laugh. Learn.
Winner: Philosophy Communications & Kit Faragher Foundation
Colorado native Kit Faragher lived and worked in the Denver area for most of her life. Her untimely death in the World Trade Center on September 11 led to the formation of the
Kit Faragher Foundation, a nonprofit that provides college scholarships to graduating high school students. To elevate its profile in the Colorado community and increase its
donations, the Foundation approached Philosophy Communication, a Denver-based PR firm, for their help.
The Ultimate Hook
After investigating Faragher's life, the Philosophy team found out she loved a sport called Ultimate Frisbee. Seeing an opportunity to align the KFF with the Ultimate Frisbee
world, Philosophy sought out the Ultimate Players Association, a non-profit flying disc sports organization in Boulder, Colorado, to discover opportunities to partner up for a
fundraising event.
After KFF was selected by the Grass Roots Ultimate Benefit (GRUB) tournament as its sole beneficiary for a fundraising event, Philosophy hired an Ultimate Frisbee player, who
was also a graphic designer, to design an event logo for $800. The logo had the tagline, "Live. Love. Laugh. Learn."
With the new logo, Philosophy created collateral materials that included a media advisory, a press release, media list, KFF T-shirts and event flyers. The target audiences were
the local media and the Ultimate Frisbee community.
Mission Accomplished:
With a budget of only $2,445 ($800 for the logo; $1,500 for media relations; $120 for flyer creations and $25 for printing), the results were overwhelmingly positive. GRUB
raised more than $16,000 for KFF, a 60% increase from previous years.
Honorable Mentions
the bounce agency: Greenville Literacy Association Book Sale--To support the Greenville Literacy Association's annual book sale, the bounce agency had to first convince people
to donate. To do so on the cheap they used a variety of unique advertising methods, such as disguising a staircase as a giant stack of books, to draw attention to the event.
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants: CPA Ambassador Program--To build understanding about what a Certified Public Accountant does, AICPA chose the best
spokespeople from its large membership to address the public. By choosing their best people, and concentrating on issues relevant to the people at large, they were able to get
their message out to as many people as possible.
Philadelphia Convention & Visitor's Bureau: Pennsylvania Convention Center Demolition Event--To create buzz around the expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, a
heavily visual focus was used to tell the center's story. By granting media photo ops and making decisions based on how good the visuals would be, it allowed for a very easy to
comprehend preview at how the Center would look in the near future.
Impact Public Affairs, CLA: Launch Your Future with Reading--To teach children the importance of reading, Impact Relations PR held a reading contest across the country, with
displays in libraries promoting the contest. They also used the Web to great effect, with the complimentary Web site not only advertising the contest but containing links to
literacy sites.