Winner: Duke University: The Fuqua School of Business — Basketball Campout 2011
To increase alumni and student participation, the Duke Fuqua School of Business’ communications team targeted a unifying and shared passion among students and alumni alike: Duke men’s basketball. The basketball camp-out tradition—where fans set up tents and wait for tickets to go on sale—is a major social event each year on campus. The happening became the center of the Fuqua campaign, with a contest offering two winners the opportunity to accompany the men’s team to China and the United Arab Emirates.
A virtual camp-out—a time-delineated game—was developed as an online application and offered campers a series of mechanisms to earn participation points by taking action on behalf of the school: including updating their alumni records and job/internship statuses, and providing testimonials for use in marketing. Campers also earned participation points from quizzes educating them about faculty areas, programs, alumni services, Fuqua and men’s basketball history. The application featured a leaderboard and encouraged intra- and inter-group tournaments and communication, including rewards for inviting classmates via e-mail or Facebook. —BM
Honorable Mentions:
American Society of Anesthesiologists – Building Connections at Anesthesiology 2011: To encourage members, exhibitors and media to join the online conversation at its annual meeting, ASA relaunched its Facebook fan page and launched a mobile app that featured all tweets using the hashtag #ANES2011.
Association of American Railroads and SKDKnickerbocker – Developing a Social Media Following and Building a Conversation Online: To increase its digital footprint and create a more influential and vibrant forum for advancing its policy agenda, the AAR spun a web of social interaction on Facebook and Twitter highlighting the industry’s contribution to the overall economy and demonstrating railroads’ cutting edge applications and infrastructures.
Audubon and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners – Birding the Net: In an effort to reach younger audiences, Audubon let birds loose all over the Internet, challenging people to find them across partners’ Web sites. This resulted in 14% more online membership signups and 52% more online donations.
The Foundation for Eye Health Awareness and Weber Shandwick – Think About Your Eyes Thursdays with IWearYourShirt.com: For five Thursdays in fall 2011, humorous eye health videos were sent through IWearYourShirt.com’s Facebook and Twitter, generating 5,500+ new social media followers.