To help raise awareness and get attention for two new product launches, Miracle-Gro’s Performance Organics and Twelve Indoor Growing System, the gardening company’s agency created an experiential program at the 2019 South by Southwest (SXSW) conference. The tech-and-entertainment-focused audience is increasingly interested in sustainability and natural well-being, making SXSW an ideal, if unorthodox, venue for Miracle-Gro’s products. The concept has won the top prize in the “Event Marketing Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

As an official conference sponsor, Miracle-Gro hosted a number of interactive events at a location dubbed “Harvest HQ,” where consumers, influencers and media were invited to try the products out firsthand. The outdoor venue featured not only plants but also signage (bearing plant puns), drinks, food, live music and expert gardening tips.

The media company Cheddar set itself up in Harvest HQ to interview celebrities and guests throughout the weekend. Miracle-Gro also partnered with several organizations at the venue. Event-goers learned about Harvest HQ through email, apps, social media, influencers and on-site promotions, generating nearly 6,500 RSVPs who attended a total of seven micro-events.

The hashtag reached more than 1.5 million people. The media paid attention, too, generating 89 articles and broadcast segments; 28 editors from 26 media outlets visited Harvest HQ in person.

 Congratulations to Emily Gannet, Jackie Banda, Melissa Gamwell and Kim Markus.

The Harris County Department of Education (HCDE) is the last remaining county department of its kind in Texas. Despite origins in 1889, the department is woefully misunderstood by the community, which frequently mistakes it for the Houston Independent School District. Local legislators, meanwhile, have targeted the department for closure every two years.

Hobbled by negative publicity about harm to a student that was ultimately proven to be unfounded, HCDE communicators sought to raise understanding of the department’s work and its impact on the school district, children, educators and the public at large. The 10-month campaign has earned first place in the “Education Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

Elements of the campaign included superintendent meetings with local school districts and legislative delegations, where branded collateral was distributed. A 90-second video was posted on the HCDE website and 30-second ads placed on YouTube, each targeting specific demographics. A 15-second version of the video was placed with local movie theaters, played before several summer blockbusters were screened.

Rotating carousel social media ads appeared on Facebook while the department’s primary Facebook and Twitter accounts hosted organic posts featuring key campaign messages. Full-page print ads appeared in Texas education publications and community newspapers. Advertising included slogans and hashtags, driving audiences to a special landing page.

The metrics from the campaign were impressive, but it is to the team’s credit that it recognized more was needed to build on the campaign’s success, leading to the decision to develop a second phase focusing on the HCDE divisions that work directly with students.

Congratulations to Dave Einsel, Juan Lopez, Carol Vaughn, Angela Hider and Stephanie De Los Santos.

The marketing team at Sphera, an environmental/health/safety management software developer, wanted to generate more interest in the brand from a broad audience and determined a magazine would serve that purpose. That magazine, Spark, has won first place in the “Digital Publication” category of the PR Daily Awards.

The biannual magazine was designed to highlight the ideas and thought leadership of the company’s experts while exploring workplace safety concepts that went beyond software solutions. The team chose a worthy model on which to base the magazine: Red Bull’s Red Bulletin.

The goal was similar to Red Bull’s, building an audience of people interested in workplace safety while creating a new brand for the company’s thought leadership content. The first issue focused on robotics in the workplace, but also included fun features, such as movie reviews that explored the safety aspects that made appearances in films like “Jurassic World.”

The publication has been used by Sphera’s sales team as a vehicle to help them engage with current and new clients. It has also been used as a tool to generate interest at trade shows.

As part of the company’s commitment to sustainability, the publication will be digital-only with its third issue; the print version won an award from the Content Marketing Institute, but the digital version catches attention for its striking original artwork, big pullquotes, mobile utility and outstanding writing.

Congrats to James Tehrani, Michael Oleshko, Eric Anderson, Jasmine Ng, Michele Lavoie, Ellen Bremseth and Stephanie Junca.

Fans of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series of video games knew that the Unity edition, set in 18^th-century Paris, included the ability to explore iconic monuments, including Notre-Dame. When Notre-Dame de Paris was nearly destroyed in a devastating fire in mid-April 2019, online discussions about the video game surfaced and the number of people playing the game surged, with players sharing images.

The media noticed the connection between the game and the fire. All this interest led the Paris-headquartered game developer, Ubisoft, to mobilize internally to respond to players and contribute to the cathedral’s restoration. The quickly-launched campaign has earned top prize in the “Corporate Social Responsibility Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

Ubisoft first shared the message with its 17,000 employees so they could serve as ambassadors to their gaming communities. The message was reiterated on the Ubisoft blog and through its social media channels, encouraging others to donate while announcing that the game would be available for free download for one week; Ubisoft also donated €500,000 to restoration efforts.

The team drafted a statement and scheduled interviews with the historian who led the Notre-Dame research and the Assassin’s Creed brand director. The effort led to 34 local and national broadcast segments (including the “Today” show) and 164 articles in the U.S.

The campaign produced an all-time peak of active players in the online game (a 2,142% increase from the previous week) and social media delivered more than 18 million impressions and 1.2 million engagements.

For conceiving and executing a CSR campaign in crisis mode, congratulations to Heather Haefner, Arnaud Antoine and Nicholas Ross-Edwards.

The recall of Takata airbags was prompted by repeated instances of the airbags exploding, shooting sharp metal fragments into the vehicle. More than 16 people have died from the defect, including one driver who had ignored more than 20 attempts to contact him about the recall. Only a little more than half of Toyota owners (one of 19 automakers recalling the airbags) had their vehicles repaired.

That led Toyota Motor North America to bring Jackson Spalding on board to launch a series of marketing initiatives to heighten awareness of the life-threatening nature of the defective part and urge Toyota owners to schedule a free repair. The effectiveness of Jackson Spalding’s strategy has won first place in the “Crisis Communications Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

The team’s research found the U.S. Hispanic population was least likely to have had their vehicles repaired. Combined with the fact that the airbags were more likely to explode in hot, humid climates, the data led the team to focus on 10 key markets.

The team identified events that drew more than 10,000 people and overlapped the target audience, adorning their presence with bright red “Don’t Risk It, Fix It” banners, signs, tablecloths and giveaways. Event staff entered license plate and VIN information to identify vehicles in need of repairs. The team also built an event toolkit that would allow Toyota dealerships to host their own awareness events.

More than 200 dealerships have taken advantage of the toolkits. A nationwide radio PSA has also aired nearly 7,000 times. Dealers have seen repairs skyrocket as a result.

Congratulations to Pat Hill, Elizabeth Sarrazin, Carlyle MacPhail, Sarah Bunbury and Lee Smith.

ADT’s corporate communications campaign, LifeSaver Celebrations, had two objectives. The first was simple: Differentiate ADT from the growing competitive pressure from do-it-yourself home security providers, which are self-monitored, while ADT is professionally installed and monitored. The second objective was less obvious: Raise awareness about the need for volunteer firefighters, whose numbers have been dwindling across the U.S. The LifeSaver Celebrations media program developed to address these issues has won the top prize in the “Corporate Communications Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.  

LifeSaver Celebrations was designed to attract local news coverage and serve as the basis for content on ADT-owned social media channels, notably Facebook and YouTube. The stories are based on actual ADT customers whose lives were saved as a result of first responders acting quickly when an ADT alarm was triggered.

Told in documentary-style short videos at the customer’s home and at a LifeSaver Celebrations ceremony, the videos featured customers telling their stories of survival with scenes of meeting the ADT dispatcher who came to their aid (in one instance, waking a family when the ADT device detected dangerously high levels of a chemical in the house).

Thirteen such tales were developed, all of which were covered by news outlets, with five achieving coverage by all four local-market TV news affiliates and at least one local newspaper. A total of 55 stories were published; the videos have had nearly 300,000 views. The company attributes a 3% increase in lead generation in part to the campaign. 

Congratulations to ADT’s Bob Tucker.

Manufacturing entrepreneur and serial business owner Chris Graff approached The TASC Group with the goal of creating a $500,000 competition to identify the strongest business plan to source and convert New York City’s recycled waste for use in a manufacturing product. The resulting campaign has earned the top prize in the “Contest or Giveaway” category of the PR Daily Awards.

The winning business would operate in NYC, creating jobs locally and selling its product to the largest potential market. TASC was engaged to design the NYC Curb-To-Market Challenge (CTMC), including contest timeline, communications materials, partnership, stakeholder recruitment and development, website creation and applicant recruitment. The agency was also tasked with turning Graff into an expert in recycling.

TASC began with research to understand the NYC recycling landscape; it also established relationships with key stakeholders in the recycling and circular economy space. Three primary target demographics were selected based on their likely interest in the competition: recycling advocates, manufacturing and efficiency experts and prospective university-affiliated applicants (like students, professors and researchers).

Green, design and sustainability-focused social media influencers were identified to boost interest among the target groups; the team also partnered with the hosts of Circular City Week to maximize the impact of the launch. TASC engaged nearly 50 universities and, through Circular City Week, put CTMC in front of more than 2,000 industry thought leaders and experts. Media placements in major trade publications also got the word out.

Dozens of submissions followed from five countries, narrowed down by the judges to six finalists, then to two co-winners (each receiving a $250,000 equity investment). More coverage was pitched and earned to spotlight the winners. Overall, TASC’s publicity work resulted in millions of media impressions.

Congratulations to Kaitlin Stewart Hollander and Nico Ericksen-Deriso.

Communities nationwide are struggling to find a solution to homelessness. In Orange County, California, United to End Homelessness (U2EH) engaged the agency Idea Hall to help build support for a proven solution: permanent supportive housing. The resulting campaign has won the top prize in the “Community Relations Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

The agency’s goals were ambitious: 100 million impressions, 3,500 local pledges of support and at least $100,000 in value-add media. Research was vital to the effort, given the need to understand local residents’ perceptions and attitudes toward the proposed solution. Research also included a media landscape assessment and other media insights, journalist interviews, case studies for solving homelessness and more.

The campaign featured public-facing collateral including bus shelter ads, billboards, digital ads, video ads and print ads, along with media outreach (with op-eds supplementing press releases and pitches).

The media program kicked off with an exclusive for the Orange County Register telling the tale of a homeless individual suffering from multiple sclerosis. Idea Hall also implemented a media buying plan that included a 12-page custom magazine-style publication distributed with the Register and the Orange County Business Journal.

The team surpassed its impressions goal by more than 90%, with 191.9 million total impressions. It also exceeded its pledge goal, mobilizing 4,286 community members to pledge their support to the permanent housing solution. Finally, it secured a total of $200,000 in value-add media (for example, two free digital billboards and 208 free bus shelter ads).

Congratulations to Rebecca Hall, Anita Mellon, Kristina Sarenas, Nicole Deermount and Angelyssa Granillo.

For World Refugee Day 2019, the International Rescue Committee created a multiplatform campaign designed to inspire people around the world to support and welcome refugees. The need is acute: There are nearly 71 million displaced people globally and a rising resistance to accepting them. “The Power of Welcome” was devised to show that refugees, when embraced and offered a home, often go on to shape the world for the better. The execution of this theme has led to a first-place prize in the “Cause-Related Marketing Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

The campaign focused on refugee accomplishments in the arts, science, business, sports and pop culture, as well as in local communities. The committee isn’t alone in promoting the need for countries to provide refuge to the displaced. Some of the videos were narrated by A-list celebrities, including Mandy Patinkin (a tribute to author Elie Wiesel), “Game of Thrones” star Lena Headey (saluting Queen’s Freddie Mercury) and comedian Keegan-Michael Key (celebrating Albert Einstein).

The theme was also employed by three museum partners. For example, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art shrouded a painting by refugee Marc Chagall. Supporters were invited to sign an open letter thanking refugees for their contributions.

The videos earned 9 million video views (aided by other celebrities sharing them); the campaign was also featured in high-profile media outlets. Ultimately, the campaign earned the committee a 20% media share-of-voice for World Refugee Day.

Congratulations to Collen Ryan, Giselle Benatar, Mary Engelheart, Cathe Neukum, Sandee Borgman, Matt di Taronto, Marina Adese, Alexandra Nowacki, Jamie Wright, Heidi Blobaum, Sarah Arnold, Mica Medoff, Chrstine Gratton, Lindsay Molsen, Jordan Makow, Meg Winter, Conrad Dundorf, Cedric Devitt and Johan Anderson.

Faced with the same challenges experienced by many organizations—newsroom cutbacks leading to reduced media coverage—BNSF Railway, one of North America’s leading freight transportation companies, turned to brand journalism/content marketing to tell its story. The use of a blog to produce a full-scale brand journalism outlet has earned BNSF the top prize in the “Content Marketing and Brand Journalism Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

The Rail Talk blog is the home to this effort, but Rail Talk goes beyond the basics of blogging. Its sections cover community (with stories demonstrating strong relationships with communities and tribal nations), heritage (covering the organization’s 170-year history), safety (because it comes first) and service (reporting on the importance of investing in the BNSF network, the advantages the company brings to the marketplace, technological innovations, sustainability and more).

Targeting a broad audience of public policy makers, employees, current and prospective customers, industry groups, the media and more, the team has used social media and internal communications to promote Rail Talk content, including $1,500 in paid promotions for every story (spent on either LinkedIn or Facebook, depending on the audience for the piece).

A little more than a year after its late 2018 launch, Rail Talk has achieved more than 300,000 page views. The brand journalism approach has paid off with media coverage, too, with articles repurposed in Aviation Week, Railway Age, the Dallas Business Journal and even The Wall Street Journal. The articles and accompanying imagery are best-in-class.

Congratulations to Amy Casas, Stephen Manning, Benjamin Wilemon and Anaisa Kalita.

Law firms are notoriously conservative, which could explain why the visual identities of so many of them look the same. Among the top 200 firms, 15 featured blue in their logos and brand palettes, including McDermott Will & Emery. Observations that the existing brand did not accurately reflect the nature of the firm’s work led the communications team to undertake a rebranding initiative to make the firm stand out, become more competitive and attract and retain staff better. The result has earned first place in the “Branding Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

To convince the firm’s leadership, the team tapped into six sources of research, from an employee engagement survey to industry insights. They interviewed current employees and outside experts, spoke with clients and solicited feedback from prospects.

Among other things, the research found that most executives begin their search for a new law firm online; they are nearly 60% through the selection process before they even contact a firm. The research also revealed how employees perceived the McDermott Will & Emery: passionate, creative and ethical—themes that infused the new branding, along with points of differentiation identified by clients.

The team worked with brand agency Siegel+Gale to develop the visual brand elements (introduced at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in January 2019) but didn’t stop there, implementing the new brand voice across the web, in pitch materials and at industry events. The team introduced a series of brand updates internally and externally, revised the website and updated signage and other assets.

Congratulations to Leslie Tullio, Donavan Thomas and Jackie Sinn.

The “Life at Cisco” blog—one of the best in corporate America—avoids the typical business blog approach, taking the stance that a post should be akin to sitting down at a coffee shop where someone asks how work is going and then telling engaging tales. Although the blog—from the Talent Brand team, so its objectives are recruitment-driven—features stories from key hiring areas, the stories come almost entirely from employees. This approach has earned Life at Cisco first prize in the “Blog” category of the PR Daily Awards. 

Most of the stories posted to Life at Cisco are sourced through social posts shared by employees using the #WeAreCisco hashtag. The team reaches out to employees to ask about the story behind the photo or message they submitted. The team encourages the employee to write a draft; the team, which provides an outline and guidelines templates, is there to guide and edit the author, then to enhance the story once the employee submits a rough draft; the goal is to maintain the author’s voice in the post.

Authors are part of a Life at Cisco Community + Ambassadors group, which has grown to more than 100 participants who support one another through difficult times and congratulate each other on uplifting moments. In 2019, the team implemented a tagging strategy based on role, region and topic. The tags are added to the recruiters’ RSS feed in Outlook, so recruiters get an email any time a new post goes live in the tags to which they have subscribed.

The blog continues to deliver for Cisco, with the best-performing posts of the year earning more than 3,300 unique views each.

Congratulations to Macy Andrews, Carmen Collins and Casie Shimansky.

The lifestyle and wellness company OLIKA had developed two bird-shaped hand sanitizers and tasked BCENE PR to position the products as “better-for-you” alternatives to other hand through brand messaging, earned media and product seeding. The campaign built around these concepts has earned first place in the “Beauty, Fashion or Lifestyle Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

The second-generation product, dubbed “Minnie,” inspired BCENE PR to develop key phrases to define the product and brand messaging (“Improves skin hydration for up to 24 hours” and “Contains over 350 sprays and lasts 10x longer than comparable gel-based hand sanitizers”).

The campaign began with an exclusive with Fast Company, designed to introduce Minnie to the entrepreneur, business and investor community. With that launch delivering successful metrics, the team introduced Minnie to consumer, beauty and lifestyle editors by sharing the product with them along with key differentiator messaging focused on quality, value and ingredients. The team focused on opportunities to fill niche reporting and take advantages of angles such as the holidays (stocking stuffers under $10) and fall (back-to-school essentials).

Minnie appeared in 70 pieces of top-tier earned media coverage (including Business Insider, “Good Morning America,” O, SELF and InStyle), delivering 521,000 brand impressions. The team also made use of previous product seeding work with celebrities to land high-profile movie placements. Awareness grew by 192%.

Congratulations to BCENE PR’s Brittanie Clement Price.

The A-Class is Mercedes-Benz’s most affordably priced car, designed to attract millennials, which the company views at its next generation of customers. Working with Cookerly Public Relations and other media partners, Mercedes-Benz selected the February 2019 Super Bowl to launch the vehicle. For its efforts, the Cookerly team has earned first place in the “Automotive Campaign” category of the PR Daily Awards.

The plan made perfect sense: The game was placed in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, which is also the company’s U.S. headquarters city. Cookerly handled the PR to generate excitement and visibility for the unveiling. Other agencies handled ad campaigns, brand experience activations and organic and paid social media activations.

The PR elements of the campaign were extensive and well-coordinated, including a celebrity spokesperson (Ludacris), a partnership with the Ron Clark Academy designed to bring millennial appeal to the campaign (and make a community connection), a school surprise event delivering tickets to two deserving students, a video, Twitter memes, a press party and a proactive media relations campaign.

The effort achieved 613 media placements, reaching an audience of nearly 2 billion, appearing in the AP, CNN, Business Insider, The Washington Post, Forbes, TV Guide and hundreds of websites and daily local and business outlets and trade publications.

The school surprise and the video exceeded expectations: The video garnered nearly 2 million views and 93,000 engagements with social reach of nearly 61 million. All the other metrics for the campaign were spectacular, notably the fact that millennials drove the most views and highest view rates, suggesting that the launch was successful in driving target demographic engagement.

Congratulations to Donna Boland, Kathryn Reynolds, Beth McKenna, Stephen Brown, Andrew Agan, Emily Rios, Anne Carlson and Madeline McGinty.

Any annual report can present compelling and useful information. Making that report so appealing that it draws readership like a magnet is a tougher challenge, one that is more difficult when dealing with typically dry themes like sustainability. Paper manufacturer Domtar has achieved spectacular results with its sustainability report, which has earned the top prize in the “Annual Report” category of the PR Daily Awards.

The report was structured around the company’s three sustainability pillars: responsibility, engagement and efficiency. It sought to express what drives the business under each of the pillars and how the company is progressing towards the goals it has set. The report focused on setting an example to the business world of how collaboration with stakeholders can produce a report with content and data that informs and inspires readers.

The editors captured input from more than 100 stakeholders, ranging from employees to advocacy groups, from communities to customers and shareholders. The editors also gathered input from the company’s sales teams and collected personal interviews, precise data and corporate statistics. The production of the report married a creative approach to reporting the company’s approach to sustainability with visuals and text that were assembled across multiple platforms.

The combination of striking photos, large and compelling infographics and top-notch writing makes the report a delight to read. It has produced positive comments from stakeholders, and has been used at university campuses and job fairs to attract new staff; executives have shared it at conferences and speaking engagements.

Congratulations to Paige Goff, David Struhs, Brian Kozlowski, Courtney St. Onge and Marguerite Butler.