Winner: General Electric
Campaign: GE's World Health Day: Picture a Healthy World in Times Square, New York
Early detection and disease prevention are an important element of health, and GE tried to encourage consumers to learn more about their healthcare options with the "Picture a
Healthy World in Times Square" campaign. The campaign also would create brand awareness for GE, showcasing its involvement in health care.
The campaign encouraged consumers to post stories and photos of how they stay healthy on GE's Web site: http://www.pictureahealthyworld.com. The site was introduced on February 14, 2005, with an international "takeover" of Yahoo! sites
in six countries, as well as promotions on WebMD and other online media. Employees of GE were invited to participate online.
On April 7, World Health Day, GE used nine digital billboards in New York City's Times Square to display the pictures that site visitors had provided. Street teams and
pedicabs, armed with health information, brought people to the company's studio, where they could enjoy 15 minutes of fame through the super-sized pictures broadcast in Times
Square. The live event and collateral activities made the papers, blogs and a "New York Minute" segment on Fox 5's evening newscast. By May 1, the site had recorded more than a
million page views, with 230,000 unique visitors from 195 countries submitting 6,000 healthy photos and stories. Media coverage reached more than 5 million TV viewers, and
coverage in newspapers, magazines and online media reached 1.8 million people.
The Web site is an ongoing effort; at press time, it had posted 4,117 healthy photos from site visitors, as well as photos and videos of the 789 people who told their healthy
stories during the Times Square event.
Honorable Mentions
CPA Student Recruitment Campaign "Start Here. Go Places.": American Institute of Certified Public Accountants & Wunderman The American Institute of Certified Public
Accountants wanted to increase the interest and participation in their profession among high school and college students, so they created a Web site called StartHereGoPlaces.com.
The Institute reports the number of students planning to declare accounting as a major quadrupled and the number of accounting graduates tripled.
Geek Squad Rescues Star Wars Fans from 'Prequel-it is': The Geeksquad.com 'Absentee Kit': Best Buy & Ketchum When Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith hit theaters,
many Star Wars aficionados decided to skip school and work in order to see it. Capitalizing on this absenteeism and anticipated media surge, Geek Squad created the "Absentee Kit,"
which included tips for using Wi-Fi Internet technology to stay connected to their workplaces and personal lives, wherever they are. The "Absentee Kit's" 184 media placements
reached an audience of more than 35 million and had an ROI of 176 percent.
Meg A. Byte Interactive Online Game: Business Software Alliance & Dittus Communications With the goal of educating graphic designers about the dangers of software piracy
and the importance of respecting copyright laws, Dittus Communications and Business Software Alliance developed a Web site featuring a video game about a super-heroine searching
for a "prince" and battling a few software pirates along the way. After the game was launched, BSA saw an increase in the number of Web site visitors from 204 (before launch) to
more than 3,600.