Winner: APCO Worldwide—APCO's Studio Online
Ikea turned to APCO Worldwide, its U.S. agency of record for corporate communications, to deepen understanding of IKEA as a good and responsible company, and to devise a strategy to roll out a new hourly minimum wage structure at its U.S. stores. By connecting IKEA with targeted stakeholders, APCO was able to immediately leverage a Twitter campaign around the announcement with great success.
APCO approached top labor and economic reports at major U.S. outlets, senior White House officials and other influencers, facilitating conversations garnering attention for IKEA’s news. On the day of the announcement, APCO launched a Twitter campaign via @IKEAUSANews and encouraged stakeholders to engage by tweeting and retweeting the campaign tweets. In addition, APCO implemented a thoughtful mix of social media engagement including owned, borrowed and paid channels. Prominent voices—including Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton—praised the news, helping position IKEA as a good employer in the eyes of government officials, policymakers, stakeholders, IKEA employees and consumers. The Twitter campaign garnered nearly 231,000 impressions, nearly a 16 percent increase in new followers to IKEA’s twitter handle and the announcement was a top trending topic on Facebook on June 26. The White House tweeted an original tweet and retweeted the news to its 5 million followers, as did former President Clinton and White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett. Finally, IKEA was invited to attend President Obama’s speech on the economy and IKEA met privately with the president to discuss the wage news.
Honorable Mentions
- Blonde 2.0 – Yo: the one word campaign
- Cardinal Web Solutions - Papa John's Atlanta - Interactive Marketing Campaign
- Coburn Communication - Walgreens Boots Alliance - #ArchMadness Initiative
- Kaplow Introduces Millennial Women to the World of St. Ives
- Klick Communications - Durex Someone Like Me
- MWWPR - Making MWWPR Matter More
- NJI Media - Business Roundtable Sustainability Report Landing Page
- Pac/West - Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development (CRED)
- Rainier Communications - On a Mission: Tell the Rest of the World
- rbb Public Relations - "Choose Your Own Escape" Spring Blogger Campaign