The vacation time that people earn at work—especially in the U.S.—goes unused to alarming degrees. In 2018, 768 million vacation days went unused in America, despite the psychological and physical benefits of taking the time to get away with the people you care about.

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts saw this trend of all work and no play as an opportunity to encourage people to spend time with their loved ones. The campaign, “Take Your Time,” employed a full spectrum of channels and approaches but was anchored in video. The videos have earned first place in the “Video” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The videos feature conversations with three individuals facing the real-life challenge of longing to spend more time connecting with their loved ones. They reflect on their lives after listening to messages from their friends and family while the walls around them come alive with projections of their memories. As the point is made that time is slipping away, a loved one enters the room for an embrace. The videos conclude with scenes of the characters reconnecting with those they love the most.

The videos were distributed through all social channels linking to the campaign landing page; a press release leaned into the messaging and drove additional traffic. After the launch, social media further amplified the message. The campaign has racked up 3.7 million social media engagements. The video content has been seen 31.7 million times.

Congratulations to Felicia Yukich, Kristen Lewarne, Cara Gresser, Timothy Dunkin, Hannah Atkins, Sarah Tuite, Brennan Holder, Margot Reilly, Stephanie Bridge, Anthony Field, Peter Nowlan and Ashley McClinton.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Discovery Education launched “Operation Prevention” to educate K-12 students about the consequences of opioid misuse and heroin use. A video competition that produced 300 entries in 2019—and powerful new content for the team to use—has won first place in the “User-Generated Content” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The program provides free, standards-aligned content available to students across the U.S. that teaches students the science of addiction. The goal is to kick-start conversations in the home and the classroom. Knowing social media is vital to reaching the young adults disproportionately affected by the opioid crisis, the DEA and Discovery Education employed it to reach the audience.

The competition, the Operation Prevention Student Video Challenge, invited teens to create a unique public service announcement (PSA) designed to reach their peers. The challenge encouraged students to find a message that would resonate with their peers, asking students to bring their unique perspective to answer the question, “If your friends—and teens throughout the United States—were going to watch ONE video that made them think twice about making bad decisions with prescription opioids, what would that video be?”

Prizes included scholarships and a two-day trip to Washington, D.C., including a day at the DEA’s training academy in Quantico, Virginia. The winning video, “What Could’ve Been,” demonstrates how a teenager’s opioid addition shortens his or her life, cutting teens off from all the events that might have occurred as they grow older. The video has earned 1.2 million impressions and 30 media pickups.

Congratulations to Lori McFarling, Helena Poda, Lauren DeNu, Sumner Byrne, Andrew Izkowitz, Charmion Kinder, Brianna Burnette, Sean Fearns, Cathleen Drew, Tammy Lomax Simpson and Katherine Pfaff.

The Four Seasons Private Jet Experience has been a wildly successful travel offering for the hotel brand. Hundreds of guests have traveled to exotic destinations, opening the door to exclusive and sometimes life-changing experiences. In 2021, the Jet Experience will introduce a new custom-outfitted Airbus 321neo. An integrated marketing campaign was devised, which has won first place in the “Travel, Hospitality and Tourism Campaign” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The services offered on this spectacular new aircraft include connecting with Four Seasons staff who showcase their regional specialties in intimate engagements with guests. The campaign created to bring the Private Jet to life featured rich storytelling, at the center of which is a documentary-style video series.

The prelaunch on social media began with the posting of clues on Instagram to build anticipation and tease an upcoming brand announcement. Instagram Stories was used to make users part of the countdown. The official announcement launched on social media as well as the channels of more than 100 Four Seasons properties around the world.

Media outreach ensured solid press coverage, and a Private Jet content hub was launched to house immersive imagery of the journeys available from the service. The campaign has generated 8.9 million impressions, 379,000 engagements and 1.6 million three-second video views. Video performance has been impressive, producing an 89.3% lift in ad recall and a 670.3% lift in brand interest. The PR campaign resulted in 511 media placements, including Travel + Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler and Vanity Fair.

Congratulations to Felicia Yukich, Kristin Rabbior, Pinky Tang, Peter Nowlan, Ashley McClinton, Javier Loureiro, Dana Kalczak, Kerry Sear, Sarah Tuite, Brennan Holder, Scott Taber, Cara Gresser and Lisa Reyes.

AmTrust Financial is a major worker’s compensation insurance carrier, which has put the financial services company in the middle of the opioid addiction issue: Opioids are the go-to medications for managing pain from workplace injuries. Over the last year, adjusters at AmTrust and licensed nurses at Optum Workers’ Comp and Auto No-Fault have joined forces to review claims and decrease the number of opioids in the system, assuring claimants get the right treatment at the right time and for the right length of time.

The program has led to a reduction of 13,000 opioid prescriptions compared to the prior year. The AmTrust marketing team saw the value of sharing these results in a social media campaign designed to ensure agents and policyholders learned about options to reduce opioid prescriptions and identify safer alternatives for pain management. The campaign has earned AmTrust Financial first place in the “Thought Leadership Campaign” category of PR Daily’s Content Management Awards.

Working with Dr. Melissa Burke, AmTrust’s head of managed care and clinical and the leader of the partnership initiative, the marketing team created a report detailing the results of the partnership. The AmTrust Opioid Prescription Risk Report was launched with paid and organic social media campaigns, a landing page, emails to agents, an animated YouTube video and blog posts.

A media campaign shared the report’s results with the press. Since the release, there have been 3,040 page views of the landing page; related blog posts have accumulated 1,200 views. The click-through rate for the first agent email was 45% greater than the insurance industry average; the second email surpassed industry averages by 56%. In addition to impressive social media results, the campaign earned considerable media coverage.

We congratulate the AmTrust Marketing Team; Matt Zender, senior vice president of AmTrust’s workers’ compensation strategy; and Dr. Melissa Burke.

To tell the tale of an innovative technological solution to the challenge of bringing vessels safely into part, TM&I opted to create and release a 360-degree, virtual reality-ready video to promote the benefits of SafeTug, the software aid that gives tug masters complete, real-time visibility over tug teams and the cargo ships and tankers they maneuver. The 360-degree video that demonstrates the SafeTug experience has earned first place in the “Technology Campaign” category in PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The video was designed by TM&I’s marketing partner, Stein IAS, to create awareness among the target audience of tug masters, marine pilots, tug companies and harbor masters. Stein IAS gained access to Teesport, the UK’s third-largest port, to record the berthing process of a 57,000-ton tanker.

Using specialized gear, the team filmed the docking process from the bridge of the lead tugboat while drones got aerial shots; additional footage was taken from the tanker. The result: a 360-dgree video that can be viewed on desktop or in VR.

The immersive experience demonstrates how SafeTug makes a difference to the safety and efficiency of the harbor approach and berthing processes. A campaign was undertaken to introduce the video to the target audience, including an email campaign, sponsored LinkedIn posts, organic social media and press advertising and coverage.

Congratulations to TM&I and the Stein IAS team.

Cisco Systems’ Talent Brand team is a frequent award winner for its innovative and daring use of social media to attract the best recruits for the company. The team is well-known for its Snapchat account, WeAreCisco, which was taken over every single day by an employee who conveyed what it’s like to work at Cisco.

In 2018, the team shifted the takeover to summer interns in a program it labeled, “Summer of Interns.” Although the program helped boost metrics, when the interns returned to school an audience analysis identified a clear preference for Instagram Stories. The team made the bold decision to retire the Snapchat account that had served them so well and shift its emphasis to Instagram Stories, and also go all in on live video, earning first place in the “Talent Recruitment” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

Having already gained experience with Facebook Live, the Talent Brand team embraced Instagram Live. The team measures each channel it uses, including its recent adoption of an attention metric.

One example of how well the program works: A single 30-second video produced to create social media awareness influenced more than 3,400 company and career page visitors and produced more than 8,000 job views—all from a single boosted LinkedIn post. The team is able to determine how many of those views are from people who have not visited the Cisco website before.

The campaign also features video series and the Life at Cisco blog.

Congratulations to Macy Andrews, Carmen Collins, Casie Shimansky, Jennifer Burns, Lauren Grimaldo, Ileana Cates, Raymond Leung, Drew McInnis, Tamar Glasner and Janani Vijayakumar.

Cisco Systems’ Talent Brand team is a frequent award winner for its innovative and daring use of social media to attract the best recruits for the company. The team is well-known for its Snapchat account, WeAreCisco, which was taken over every single day by an employee who conveyed what it’s like to work at Cisco.

In 2018, the team shifted the takeover to summer interns in a program it labeled, “Summer of Interns.” Although the program helped boost metrics, when the interns returned to school an audience analysis identified a clear preference for Instagram Stories. The team made the bold decision to retire the Snapchat account that had served them so well and shift its emphasis to Instagram Stories and also go all in on live video. These decisions have earned Cisco first place in the “Social Media” category of PR Daily’s 2019 Content Marketing Awards.

Having already gained experience with Facebook Live, the Talent Brand team embraced Instagram Live. The team measures each channel it uses, including its recent adoption of an attention metric. The social media analytics for each channel are impressive. For example, the best performer among Instagram Live videos drew 1,300 views. Another example: The reach of Cisco’s Instagram Stories is up 71% year over year and 73% of viewers complete the stories.

Congratulations to Macy Andrews, Carmen Collins, Casie Shimansky, Jennifer Burns, Lauren Grimaldo, Ileana Cates, Raymond Leung, Drew McInnis, Tamar Glasner and Janani Vijayakumar.

FirstEnergy Corp. faced some significant challenges in maintaining and strengthening its reputation among customers in 2018. In addition to economic and regulatory issues, the company had undergone a series of reorganizations that had affected employee morale. A campaign based on the idea of seeking out and showcasing real stories of employees and their work has earned FirstEnergy first place in the “Reputation Management” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The community was feeling the impact of infrastructure upgrades and plant closings. To overcome these challenges, the company tested messages and settled on “Brighter Future,” which customers said conveyed optimism and hope—71% of customers already viewed the company as forward-looking. To bring the campaign to life, the team settled on the idea of featuring employees at work.

The campaign strategies focused on reinforcing the company’s mission to strengthen community and individual quality of life by showcasing employees, new technology and community support; connecting FirstEnergy and its employees to future reliability; building continued equity in the company’s customer-first messaging; and demonstrating the role of employees.

Video was used as the primary means of telling the stories of a diverse collection of individual employees, including a transmission engineer, a substation electrician and a lineman (along with the drone team), with ads bought on TV and radio to drive customers to the videos. Venues for the ads included CNN, FOX News, Pandora and the Weather Channel.

Paid social media was also employed, ultimately earning more than 145 million impressions and nearly 1 million visits to the FirstEnergy website. The organization also achieved a staggering 2.7 million completed YouTube views and nearly 746,000 Twitter video views.

Congratulations to FirstEnergy’s Susan Samuelson.

ESSENTIAL is the customer magazine from Freudenberg Sealing Technologies, a B2B company that develops and markets applications in sealing technology and electric mobility solutions—not exactly a candidate for a stunning magazine. But that’s what Freudenberg produces, winning first place in the “Print Publication” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

ESSENTIAL targets international customers and business partners with topics designed to appeal to employees and engineers in the company’s core markets, such as vehicle manufacturers and suppliers, mechanical engineering and shipbuilding, civil aviation, agriculture and construction machinery, and food and pharmaceutical industries.

The team behind ESSENTIAL has employed “channel thinking” to keep content relevant to all these audiences, with content planning based on identifying great stories that will stand the test of time. Each issue of the twice-yearly publication has a theme, with the stories told from the perspective of users and pioneers.

The print edition focuses on reports, profiles (with strong photos), features and classic user stories. Expert interviews provide an opportunity to gain insights into current company issues. Infographics and large-format picture series supplement the format mix. (The online version is more compressed and uses moving images.)

Promoted on social media, the online version of the publication outperforms the corporate website with impressions in the six-digit range. For 2018, the magazine was viewed by more than 5,200 users in more than 7,700 sessions; those users viewed 107,853 pages, with an average time on-site of more than 5-1/2 minutes.

Congratulations to Ulrike Reich, Isolde Grabenauer, Dr. Claudia Klemm, Florian Damaschke, Tobias Jelen, David Frogier de Ponlevoy, Matthias Kneifl, Johannes Winterhagen, Dr. Laurin Paschek, Stefanie Rihlmann, Catrin Farrenschon, Nadine Hippe and Anke Rabbeau.

Like many blogs from health institutions, Healthy Balance from UVA Health sought to position the system as a leading source of health and wellness information, drive traffic to the system’s website and build relationships with prospective consumers of UVA’s health system. Its strategy for increasing the blog’s reach has earned first place in the “Newsjacking or Trend-Related Content Marketing” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The blog had performed well, with more than 162,000 sessions in 2017. However, the team noticed increasing competition from other sites providing similar content, even though most were not affiliated with hospitals or reputable national organizations. In an effort to regain momentum, the team embraced newsjacking, along with timely reporting of health trends (like probiotics) as a new focus for its content strategy.

The strategy included updating old posts. When actor Luke Perry died of a stroke, for example, the team edited a two-year-old article about stroke symptoms, adding information from the American Stroke Association and other sources. Within two hours of the first story appearing about Perry’s passing, the team shared the updated article on Twitter, leading to it becoming UVA’s most popular tweet ever, producing more than 10,000 engagements.

New stories were based on such topics as Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek’s announcement that he was being treated for pancreatic cancer and the Washington state measles outbreak. Trend reporting focused on topics like the HPV vaccine, spotting distress in teens and the risks of vaping.

The team set a goal of achieving 500 page views for each post; those based on newsjacking and trends achieved at least 1,000. Time on page has also improved, along with overall blog sessions.

Congratulations to Megan Rowe, Amy Sarah Marshall, Elizabeth Timms, Eric Puffenbarger, Leigh Thraves, Luis Soler Rivera, Nate Braeuer and freelancer Holly Ford.

For a third consecutive year, the BMW i #RoadtoCoachella campaign blended music, design, technology, sustainable mobility and the journey that fans and artists take to get to Coachella. In previous years, the brand, along with its partner Mirrored Media, turned to artists including Hans Zimmer, Marshmello and John Gourley of Portugal. the Man to serve as partners to establish the connection between the music festival and BMW i. Its work in 2019 was no different, earning the agency first place in the “Media and Entertainment Campaign” PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The 21-year-old global superstar Khalid was selected based on his recent performance on Saturday Night Live and the release of his new album days before his appearance at Coachella. The campaign had numerous objectives, including creating an authentic conversation between BMW i and the Coachella audience, developing original art, integrating the BMW i fleet into the campaign, partnering with influencers to expand the reach of the campaign, creating live experiences that drive online conversation and content sharing, and more.

Mirrored Media has executed flawlessly in the past. Building on the two previous campaigns, the agency took elements of Khalid’s art—already painted on a van for his album cover—to wrap a fleet of BMW i8 Roadsters. The team also partnered with more than 30 influencers, sending them on the road to Coachella in the fleet of custom-wrapped Khalid BMW i8s.

Khalid also partnered with Mirrored Media to build a unique pop-up experience during the festival’s first weekend; Khalid made a surprise appearance to meet and take photos with influencers. The campaign, as it has in the past, generated more than 1 billion impressions, achieving each of its goals, notably drawing attention to the BMW i series.

We offer our congratulations to the entire Mirrored Media team.

The world’s marine ports are due for change following a decade of underinvestment; the decision makers in port systems were starting to talk about automation, which was also a growing focus of web searches, according to analytics. These conditions were perfect for Trelleborg’s marine and infrastructure operation (TM&I) and its agency, Stein IAS, which has won first place in the “Lead Generation” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

TM&I had already invested resources in owning the content space for all things port-related: If there was an event, a TM&I executive delivered the keynote. If there was an article, communicators made sure TM&I spokespeople were quoted. The company produced the most prominent white papers and reports in the business. The company had also built solid relationships through deep research into the key players in the industry.

TM&I’s efforts began with a report on “Big Data in the Maritime Industry,” promoted via outbound email, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and media placements. An email campaign promoted two follow-up assets to those who downloaded the report: a video series looking at port automation and a product showcase. The campaign well and truly ultimately delivered. Congratulations to the Stein IAS team for their efforts on behalf of TM&I.

KIZIK shoes are “handsfree”—people simply step into them and they “pop on.” The brand would launch on Nordstrom.com as an additional point of purchase. TruePoint Communications was assigned the challenge of driving awareness of the brand; its goals included solidifying KIZIK’s position as an industry leader and growing overall sales. Its success has won TruePoint first place in the “Influencer Content Marketing” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The heart of the campaign involved establishing relationships with a variety of digital influencers who could help introduce the relatively new category of handsfree footwear. TruePoint’s team determined that travel and fashion influencers who embodied KZIK’s idea of merging comfort and convenience would best position the pricey shoes.

TruePoint developed messaging that highlighted the technology and high-quality materials built into the product, setting the shoes apart. Ultimately, the team identified 10 top travel and fashion influencers to introduce the launch, sending each influencer their preferred style of KIZIKs along with a travel-themed Nordstrom package to promote the shoes as a top travel shoe. Two of the influencers were then chosen for a paid engagement and given a deal memo outlining key brand messaging that promoted the product launch.

Once the influencer posts had gone live, TruePoint’s digital team monitored comments for engagement opportunities, ranging from answering questions to joining conversations about why consumers should try a pair. The team also followed up with influencers after each post, securing permission to repurpose their photos, further solidifying the team’s relationship with the influencers while providing new assets to share across KIZIK’s social channels.

Ultimately the initiative generated more than 4.7 million media impressions through 34 online and social media placements. The two paid influencers delivered sales of 130 pairs and more than 10,000 visits to KIZIK shoes on Nordstrom.com.

Congratulations to Jessica Nunez, Blair Krumme, Hannah Tichacek, Morgan Gunnels, Eva Coke and Madeline Clark.

Although the insurance industry may provoke yawns among consumers, it’s like any other business: It runs on the work of real people engaging with customers and other stakeholders. AmTrust Financial launched its content campaign, AmTrust Inspired, in April 2019 to showcase the strength of the relationships between the company and its agents and customers. The campaign has earned AmTrust Financial first place in the “Financial Services Campaign” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The brand awareness campaign was aimed primarily at AmTrust appointed and nonappointed agents, with small business owners serving as a secondary target. The kickoff video from the Los Angeles Farmers Market anchored the campaign, with subsequent videos focusing on different insurance businesses each quarter.

The campaign has been amplified through a variety of sources including a website landing page, social media (mainly Facebook and LinkedIn), quarterly emails to agents and a blog. Since the campaign launched, the landing page has had 4,900 views.

The blog for the initial phase of the campaign attracted 561 page views; posts will be further amplified in the quarterly email sent to agents. The introductory email, which featured a video and links to the landing page and blog post, led to 561 landing page views in a single day; the click-through rate of 3.2% represented a 56% increase over the insurance industry average. The social media effort has delivered more than 900,000 impressions with an average engagement rate surpassing previous campaigns.

Congratulations to the entire AmTrust marketing team.

Tarrant County College (TCC)—the seventh-largest college or university in Texas—launched REACH magazine, a digital and print publication, to highlight its efforts to put students on their paths to success. REACH has won first place in the “Electronic Publication or E-newsletter” category of PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards.

The magazine publicizes the strides TCC is making to help students succeed, along with the impact the college has on the community. Along with institutional excellence, these themes form the pillars of REACH’s editorial platform.

Produced in-house by the seven members of TCC’s communications, public relations and marketing department, the magazine features custom artwork and photography to keep readers engaged. The team selects stories designed to inspire them to hang onto the print copy; the team avoids publishing upcoming events so the magazine won’t appear dated.

Each issue includes recipes from TCC’s culinary department, along with practical tips from various campus programs. Although the magazine is available in print, the digital version is more than just an online archive of the print magazine. Readers can download the PDF of the print version, but each article is posted to the issue as an independent content unit; the table of contents is a series of tiles that include a compelling image, a big headline and a short description of the story.

The stories themselves are given a powerful digital treatment with a large hero image, strong pullquotes, appropriate images scattered throughout many stories and social sharing buttons.

Congratulations to Suzanne Groves, Sara Tucker, Connie Wiebe, Rita Parson, Reginald Lewis, Kendra Prince, DeeDra Parrish and Brandon Tucker.