Campaign: Building Homes of Our Own Interactive CD-ROM Education Game
Winner: National Association of Home Builders
Interactivity is an appealing characteristic of any PR campaign, especially when the target audience is kids and teenagers. That fact, coupled with the soaring
popularity of interactive games like SIM City and, more recently, Second Life, poised the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) for a tremendous tech opportunity; it
was just a matter of positioning it.
The NAHB, which works to advance the public image of the home-building industry, wanted to hop aboard the interactive bandwagon to educate middle and high school
students about the industry and the career opportunities it offers through a SIM City-style CD-ROM game. First, though, the PR/marketing team would have to get teachers on
board to include it in their curricula. To overcome this hurdle, they positioned the game as meeting the requirements of President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" Act, which
mandates the use of technology in education. The team also ensured the game was designed to meet national content standards of learning for middle and high school
coursework, and they supplemented the CD with a Teacher's Guide that provides suggested lesson plans and benchmarks.
Once teachers were aware of the new game and got onboard - thanks in part to widespread advertising efforts, direct mailings, national media placement and extensive
media outreach - the NAHB executives had to sit back and wait for the kids to catch the "Building Homes of Our Own" bug.
They didn't have to wait long; surveys of educators who use the program indicated that 99.99% rated it anywhere from above-average to excellent. Furthermore, 90% of NAHB
affiliates reported that they value providing the "Building Homes of Our Own" game as a free, high-quality education resource.
Approximately 42,000 teachers have requested the program to date; in turn, an estimated 3 million students have access to its content, thus raising the profile of home-
building as a viable and rewarding career opportunity, all through the click of a button.
Honorable Mentions
Every educational institution wants to recruit more students; the problem is how to go about it. Rollins College in Florida did so in part by launching its R-
Journals, which feature the day-to-day life of real Rollins students. Five students were chosen from 12 first-year applicants to participate in the pilot, and their
stories and photos were featured on the college's Web site starting in 2004. Now, the program receives nearly 30 applications to participate in the journals, which are
refreshed at least 10 times per month. A 2005 freshman survey showed that 21 percent of entering students had read the R-Journals during the pilot program, surpassing the
goal. This effort gets an A for its outstanding results.
The National Security division of Battelle's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the Department of Energy helps analysts zero in on potential threats. When its
current initiative was approaching its deadline, the team found new ways to show off its work to encourage further development. A dramatic, six-day, mock scenario was
compressed into a 90-minute, fast-paced presentation, with PNNL's information analysis and detection tools written into the script. The Threat Alert 2006 show would
be presented for a live audience, as well as recorded on a DVD. The show was such a success the DVD had to be reprinted to meet demand. Most importantly, the department
received word that it earned its funding for further initiatives.
Chronic and debilitating movement disorders like Parkinson's affect more than 40 million Americans, and WE MOVE PR professionals didn't take that fact sitting down;
rather, they orchestrated an interactive campaign that engaged the media to bring these disorders to light. With creative interactive tactics including a video of a mime
conveying the experience of having a movement disorder and an interactive Web site that serves as a resource center for patients, the team generated buzzing interest that
resulted in increased awareness of the disorders and their many victims.
The American Society for Microbiology harnessed the power of podcasts and new media with their public radio outreach program, MicrobeWorld Radio. PR practitioners
converted the radio show - a daily 90-second news capsule designed to promote microbiology - into a format suitable for iPod use. The nod to new technology worked: Since
the launch of the radio podcasts in August of 2005, there have been more than 700,000 downloads and 1,100 regular subscribers.