Shepherd Center’s video series exemplifies the best in brand journalism

Editor's note: The following article is from PR Daily's recent special edition featuring the winners of the recent 2012 PR Daily Awards. We will periodically run excerpts from the special edition over the next several months.

It’s hard to fathom suffering a head or spinal injury in the abstract. In reality, it must be terrifying, and given such exceedingly trying circumstances, it would certainly be all the more difficult to grasp the intricacies of such an injury.

Healing, though, must start with some understanding of the therapeutic processes and objectives. To that end, Shepherd Center in Atlanta put together a video series to give the injured and their families and other caregivers digestible information about what has happened, what’s possible and what’s required. Above all, though, the series aims to give them hope.

For its sterling efforts, Shepherd Center won top honors in the Content Marketing/Brand Journalism category in Ragan’s 2012 PR Daily Awards.

There are many reasons for the laurels awarded this tandem video series; here are a few:

• A concerted effort: Shepherd partnered with the American Trauma Society, the Brain Injury Association of America, the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. On-camera and voice-over contributions came from an array of experts.
• Ease of access: The videos, offered online (see below) and as free DVDs, are in short segments so the intended audience can assimilate the content.
• Establishing expertise: From a pragmatic standpoint, content marketing is marketing, and the cornerstone of that is assuming a position of authority—and delivering. Done, and done.  

The success of the videos from a marketing standpoint is easy to see: 5,000 videos in each category—traumatic head injury and spinal cord injury—were ordered and the stockpile was depleted within four months. There are no metrics for the success on the personal level of those who watched them, learned from them, gained strength from them.

We offer our congratulations to Larry Bowie, Shepherd Center’s director of public relations and marketing, and to all those who had a hand in this video series.

To view the video on spinal cord injury, click here; to view the video on traumatic brain injury, click here.

Rob Reinalda is executive editor of Ragan Communications, which publishes PR Daily.