ALPO & Cone Inc.: ALPO Real Meat Moments (co-winner)
In spring 2008, ALPO tapped Cone Inc. to launch its first PR campaign in years, with the goal of creating excitement around the dog food brand and its Real Meat Moments online contest. The goals: Generate 40 million impressions and 100 contest submissions, and deliver strong traffic to the ALPO microsite.
The team took a phased media relations approach to promote the microsite and contest, first focusing on the call-for-entries phase, in which consumers could submit video entries voicing their ideas for the new face of ALPO. The View host Joy Behar was brought on as a third-party spokeswoman to drum up interest, and media outreach targeted Web sites and blogs to support the viral, consumer-generated nature of the site.
During the contest’s duration, there were 302 video entries, surpassing the goal of 100 submissions. Plus, 750+ users registered for the microsite, and 530,000+ pages were viewed. â–
Edelman & American Petroleum Institute: Energy Tomorrow Through Online Advocacy Today (co-winner)
To upend the energy industry’s bad reputation as a result of skyrocketing oil and gas prices, and enhance the American Petroleum Institute’s profile and perspective in the energy debate, the institute and agency partner Edelman DC shaped an online advocacy program, the centerpiece of which would be an interactive Web presence for API to engage stakeholders.
The team framed the online advocacy campaign around EnergyTomorrow.org, a central hub that told API’s story through man-on-the-street videos and a weekly podcast series. Blogger tours of industry facilities and a search marketing campaign rounded out the initiative.
All told, the campaign’s site has received more than 500,000 visits and 1.5 million page views, and there are more than 400 inbound links to the site from bloggers and online influencers. â–
Honorable Mentions:
Nikon & Peppercom: 2008 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition—To broaden the appeal of its Small World Photomicrography Competition, Nikon partnered with Peppercom and revamped the contest by taking it to the Web, making Nikonsmallworld.com the hub for participants.
Creative Co-op LLC: American Water 2008 Annual Report—After rebranding the company in April 2008, American Water followed suit with a new annual report format, creating a Web site that includes video interviews with execs.
Waggener Edstrom Worldwide: Introducing Windows 7: The Touchy Feely OS—To showcase Windows 7, Microsoft’s new operating system, the team created a demo of its new touch screen features and posted the video on sites like YouTube and the Windows Vista team blog.
Cercone Brown & Co.: America’s Least Wasteful Cities—To regain its image of a badge of environmental responsibility, “The Nalgene Least Wasteful City Study” was conducted on 23 cities across the country and posted under an independent URL (http://www.leastwastefulcities.com">http://www.leastwastefulcities.com).
APCO Worldwide: 3TIER’s “REmapping the World” Campaign—APCO helped 3TIER launch “REmapping the World,” a mapping technology initiative to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy initiatives by mapping the world for wind and solar resources.