Winner: FleishmanHillard – AT&T’s It Can Wait: The Power of a Movement
When does a corporate communications campaign become a social movement? When a company’s biggest competitor and rival calls to ask, “How can we join forces?”
That's precisely what happened in early 2013 when Verizon Wireless asked if it could participate in AT&T’s It Can Wait program—which seeks pledges from folks to not text while drive—to eliminate texting while driving. Suddenly, AT&T’s multi-year program was reborn as a social movement. Not only was it an objective to expand the It Can Wait message to new audiences in 2013 but also to bring in a host of additional organizations, including AT&T’s rivals in the wireless industry, to help spread the message. Why? Because a movement is accomplished through the voices and actions of many.
The 2013 It Can Wait program focused on getting the public and supporting organizations to not only take the pledge to not text and drive but to also go one step further and speak out to others about the issue, urging those who were unfamiliar with the campaign to put down their phones while driving.
At the end of 2012, the It Can Wait program had generated 1.3 million no-texting-while-driving pledges, and in just the first nine months of 2013, the number of pledges jumped by 1.7 million to a total of 3 million-plus, with the Sept. 19, 2013, Drive 4 Pledges Day generating 211,723 pledges alone.
Honorable Mentions:
- Blick&Staff Communications – Energizer and the 4 S’s of Coin Lithium Battery Safety
- Clear Channel – iHeartRadio’s Show Your Stripes
- Health Care Service Corporation – HCSC and KaBOOM!: Working to Ensure a Healthy Future Through Access to Play
- Toys “R” Us, Inc. and Shaquille O’Neal Encourage Customers to “Give Back With Shaq” to Benefit the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation
- Wells Fargo & Company – NeighborhoodLIFT