Winner: Coburn Communication—AARP: Boomers@50+ Initiative
As the youngest members of the influential Boomer generation turned 50 in 2014, Coburn Communication worked closely with AARP to devise a strategic media relations and social campaign to publicize the “Year of the Boomer.” The Boomers@50+ initiative was created to increase national consumer brand awareness, visibility and engagement through multiplatform activations. One of the overall goals of the Boomers@50+ initiative was to position AARP as the best thought leader for all boomer-related conversations in 2014. The strategy to achieve those goals featured several forward-thinking, creative campaign elements that were ideated, planned and executed by Coburn and AARP.
To elicit top-tier consumer and media buzz, as well as significant social media engagement, customized AARP Membership Cards were presented to several high-profile celebrities and pop culture icons, including Michelle Obama, the Ford Mustang and Hoda Kotb. For keystone media placement of the campaign, Coburn leveraged the impending advertising campaign to pitch Stuart Elliott’s “In Advertising” column in The New York Times. By offering Stuart the exclusive on the first ad, Coburn secured an in-depth feature on the overall Boomers@50+ campaign. All in all, publicity efforts totaled 572 placements and resulted in nearly 2.5 billion media impressions throughout the course of the campaign.
Honorable Mentions
- Burson-Marsteller and GPY&R - Australian Red Cross: Embers of Empathy
- DStreet - Making Heroes and Managing Villains for Comic Book Classroom
- Nebo - Build the BeltLine
- PRR Inc.
- Volume Public Relations - Marrying PR & Psychology to Raise $3.5 Million for Caddies