The 2019 Digital Awards brought out the best in the business, honoring winners that speak on a global level, with the farthest traveling from Bulgaria. PRNEWS hosted the breakfast event on Oct. 18 at New York City’s storied Yale Club, set in the heart of Manhattan.
And while the digital plane constantly evolves, the high standards to which creative messaging resonates on a technological level, does not. This year’s top digital communicators competed throughout many platforms including social media, video, annual reports, websites and mobile apps. The winning campaigns and finalists accepted their awards amongst a room buzzing with innovative ideas and strategies come to fruition.
Keynoter Dr. Julie Albright engaged in a thought-provoking fireside chat with PRNEWS’ senior content manager, Justin Joffe. Dr. Albright, a digital sociologist, has spent her career exploring the digital transformation of society. She recently released, “Left to their Own Devices: How Digital Natives are Reshaping the American Dream.”
While the topic of untethering from devices may have unnerved some of the audience, Dr. Albright acknowledged she was no luddite, but that the time was ripe in our technological history for burnout. Communicators, she said, now hold the important job of creating new experiences that may encourage users to come out from behind the screen and to remember and learn the joy of tactile feelings and expression.
“The rates of anxiety and depression among college students is the highest in 40 years,” Dr. Albright said. “What did we used to do when we didn’t have all these digital things going on? People are craving real moments. It’s up to communicators to bring those experiences back.”
The biggest winners of the day, NYC Pride, may already be on that experience path. The organization took home four awards, including best Content Marketing, best Social Networking Campaign, best Viral Campaign, and best Branding related to the work surrounding this year’s WorldPride NYC. The campaign included more than 20 events throughout NYC, while engaging a very diverse online community.
The most prestigious award of the morning, the Game-Changer Award went to VisitPITTSBURGH for its “Pull Up a Chair. You Are Welcomed Here,” multi-media tourism campaign. Its main video amassed more than 1 million views on Facebook and another million on Twitter. According to the VisitPITTSBURGH campaign press release, “the campaign (was) inspired by the act of offering someone a chair, which is a universal sign of hospitality and respect.”
A complete list of winners is available at our 2019 Digital Awards website.