Cigna has made progress in its effort to combat the opioid epidemic, reducing opioid use among its own customers by 25%. As 2018 began, the company wanted to know what was behind the growing use of such substances. It found most people with mental health or other chronic conditions also suffer from loneliness, which affects a huge number of people in a variety of substantive ways. Its response has won first place in the “Thought Leadership” category of Ragan’s 2018 PR Daily Awards.

Cigna opted to spark a conversation about loneliness as a root cause of more acute health issues by ensuring the media reported on research about the impact of loneliness. The strategy underlying the campaign began with research; Cigna found nobody had performed a comprehensive study to understand the impact of loneliness on Americans, leading the company to launch the U.S. Loneliness Index, which found a majority of Americans are considered lonely. The survey results led to Cigna’s action to expose loneliness as a national epidemic and discuss interventions to address the challenge.

Ahead of the campaign launch, the company targeted media outlets during Mental Health Month, including a loneliness series on NBC’s “Today” show. The company’s CEO hosted an influencer event to explore the link between physical and mental well-being and highlight solutions for the loneliness epidemic.

Media outreach resulted in 1,800 placements—including many in A-list outlets—and 5 billion earned media impressions. Message pull-through for all coverage reached 94%.

Congratulations to the team of Ellie Polack, Gloria Barone Rosario, Jessica Buechler, Jackie Kahn, Brian Roy, Amy Larkin Long, Monica Huang, Joe Malunda, Melinda Boisjolie, Alex Abrahamson, Tyson Greaves, Josey Feltes, Todd Ringler, Catherine McCormack, Shannon Fox, Meagen Hagans, Kaitlynn Grady, Matt Bishop, Carolina Rincon Sato, Mary Kate Polanin, Jenn Hoker, Stephanie Lesser, Neha Jain, Adele Kikuchi, Cherise Adkins and Alexandra Kenway.

For three years, communicators at MD Anderson Cancer Center were prepared to undertake an online campaign should James Allison, Ph.D., win the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. All the planning paid off in the fourth year, resulting in not just the Nobel Prize, but also a first place win in the “Social Media” category of Ragan’s 2019 PR Daily Awards.

Allison is the chair of Immunology at MD Anderson. Along with another researcher, he had been working on a pioneering new way of attacking cancer by treating the immune system rather than the tumor. Anticipating a possible Nobel nod was not wishful thinking. Allison had already won every other major scientific award.

The various integrated media and video services teams at MD Anderson sought to maximize the announcement to recognize Dr. Allison, highlight the Center’s reputation, raise awareness about immunotherapy and drive people seeking information to MD Anderson.

The social media campaign began at 4:30 a.m. on Oct. 1 and continued through the next Sunday. The team developed a landing page on its website where people could learn more about Allison and his prize, serving as a resource for media as well as people seeking information about cancer treatments. It was also a destination to drive traffic from social media.

Social media was employed to announce the award (including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram); an Instagram Story was also posted linking to the MD Anderson news release. Cover photos were changed to Dr. Allison’s image across social media channels, along with a Snapchat geofilter and a Facebook photo frame. Employees were encouraged to share the news using the Snapchat filter.

A media event was livestreamed, and the team created a YouTube playlist featuring videos spotlighting Dr. Allison and immunotherapy. The landing page was visited more than 35,000 times, Facebook posts resulted in more than 100,000 engagements and other social channels performed equally well; the Snapchat geofilter was swiped 15,000 times.

Launched to preserve the land on the Glencoe Wood Nature Reserve in Scotland, Highland Titles lets anybody buy a plot of the Reserve’s land—from one square foot (for $46) to 1,000 square feet (which goes for $770). The purchase gets you a gift pack that includes the title certificate and a title—you can call yourself a Lord, Laird or Lady of Glencoe. The purchase ensures the land remains protected. Because the Reserve’s PR agency BML Public Relations achieved results for the organization with a budget of $0, it has won first place in the “PR on a Shoestring” category of Ragan’s 2018 PR Daily Awards.

With a kilt-wearing spokesperson, broadcast coverage was easy to obtain, but the worlds of online and social media proved a tougher nut to crack. BMLPR innovated an attention-getting scheme to overcome that challenge.

They identified a town in Connecticut called Scotland and worked with the local government to gift each of its 1,694 residents a plot of Glencoe land during the holiday season, complete with the title that goes with it.

The story of a town full of lairds and ladies was an easy pitch to features, lifestyle and seasonal writers from the top 100 designated market areas. By targeting writers at national outlets that covered hyperlocal beats, BMLPR secured an article on APNews.com, which was shared by more than 125 outlets throughout the country, including FOXBusiness.com, ABCNews.go.com, CNBC.com, NYTimes.com, BostonGlobe.com and more.

Ultimately, the stunt delivered 268 media placements and close to 1 billion impressions, along with a holiday sales increase of 34%. It’s a great example of taking a typical holiday gift guide pitch to a new level.

Congratulations to Brian Lowe, Michelle LoGuercio and Kelsey Moran.

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts has a well-established reputation for luxury, but the heart and soul of the brand are the passionate craftspeople who create memorable guest experiences around the world. Four Seasons sought to celebrate the artistry and imagination of these people through a series of experiential and immersive events dubbed Pop Downs (a take on the popular idea of pop-ups). The concept, its execution and the results have won first place in the “Event Marketing” category of Ragan’s 2018 PR Daily Awards.

Pop Downs—all held in venues away from hotel and resort properties—were designed to excite the marketplace with new, authentic brand experiences; increase brand awareness; stand out in the luxury hospitality space; inspire engaging content; create connections with new and existing guests; and foster media and social media buzz. Always hosted in unexpected and unique locations around the world, the events celebrate staff like Michelin-star chefs, mixologists and florists—the people who bring the brand’s hotels and resorts to life. By holding the events away from Four Seasons properties, the focus is squarely on the artistry of its people.

The first Pop Down was held in Toronto, where Four Seasons is headquartered, followed by Philadelphia on the rooftop of a former high school, then on a superyacht in Miami, and most recently in a vacant retail space in Central Hong Kong. With each Pop Down, the brand transforms these unexpected spaces into one-of-a-kind events and experiences that are highly shareable across platforms. They also engage the public by hosting consumer activations in each destination, including floral picture frames throughout downtown Philadelphia; an artistic installation in Miami with the debut of Glass Horizon, an airborne skynet sculpture; and a surprise bakery where Michelin Star Chef Chan Yan Tak handed out his famous Pork Buns for free in Hong Kong.

Pop Downs are fun and engaging, they are a first in the hospitality industry, and feed the millennial desire for personal experiences.

A comprehensive media and content plan accompanies each Pop Down, securing journalists and social media influencers to attend press trips with curated itineraries that deliver behind-the-scenes access to the brand, the Pop Down and the participating craftspeople. Video content is developed to be optimized across platforms, and gives Four Seasons global audience a chance to experience Pop Down no matter where they are in the world.

Congratulations to Sarah Tuite, Brennan Holder, Stephanie Bridge, Anthony Field, Eleanor Deacon, Margot Reilly, Andrew Galloro and HL Group and HALO PR.

The government of Orange County, Florida, is the primary conduit of information for residents before, during and after any severe weather event. With Hurricane Irma set to make landfall in 2017, the county’s various agencies were activated, including the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), tasked with communicating lifesaving information to residents. For its success, Orange County has won first place in the “Crisis Communication” category of Ragan’s 2018 PR Daily Awards.

The goals the EOC sought to achieve included ensuring the team responded to 100% of inquiries within 24 hours, engaging with online audiences on social media (including increasing the number of followers by 10%), ensuring residents adhered to a curfew the county had called and abided by mandatory evacuation notices, and reaching 50% of the population via the county website.

Research conducted before the hurricane hit included focus groups after the previous hurricane (Matthew) and analytical research from its social media accounts to determine which posts performed best. An audit of the crisis communications plan and an overhaul of its existing plan for the Office of Emergency Management were also undertaken.

Before landfall, the team embedded local media at the EOC to report information in real time. More than 400 media calls were handled, and public information officers held 15 press conferences that were also streamed across the county’s Facebook page. The newsroom was updated 54 times, and special web pages were created to help residents get specialized information.

Other tactics included push notifications, social media updates, queries from social media channels addressed and more. The county’s social media pages attracted nearly 10,000 new followers during the event, and the team’s other goals were handily achieved.

Congratulations to all the Orange County employees whose efforts had a positive impact on residents during the emergency.

Belden Inc., a leader in end-to-end signal transmission solutions, has felt the impact of the opioid crisis in the U.S. directly. In an economy in which skilled manufacturing workers are hard to find, the company found that 10% of prospective employees failed the company’s pre-employment drug screening. While the situation is not unique to Belden, the company’s solution is, earning first place in the “Corporate Social Responsibility” category of Ragan’s 2018 PR Daily Awards.

In February 2018 the company launched “Pathways to Employment,” an 18-month program that provides a personalized drug rehabilitation program to potential employees who have failed the screening at Belden’s Richmond, Indiana facility.

The participant is referred to a treatment provider who assesses the individual’s risk of substance use disorder. Participants voluntarily enter a program tailored to their needs. When the treatment provider determines it’s safe for a participant to return to work, he or she joins Belden in a safety-sensitive role, such as cleaning. After participants have been deemed ready, they can graduate to machine-operating roles.

Belden funds the program with community partners. To raise awareness of the program—which 15 people have completed treatment and joined Belden—the Belden communications team issued press releases, posted an item to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation blog, targeted local media outlets and applied for Corporate Citizenship awards, among other outreach.

The PR effort earned considerable media coverage. A roster of noteworthy individuals have toured to highlight the program, and company leaders have been invited to speak about it. The company’s president and CEO joined other executives at the White House to present the program as an example of how Belden is leaning into the problem of addiction in the community and the workforce.

Congratulations to Leah Tate, Doug Brenneke, Paul Mottershead, Ellen Drazen and Jasmine Spirk.

CSL Behring, one of the world’s largest biotech companies, had a clear goal: Assume the mantle of brand leadership and differentiate itself from its competition. For achieving these goals, CSL Behring has won first place in the “Content Marketing and Brand Journalism” category of Ragan’s 2018 PR Daily Awards.

The company’s global corporate affairs and communications team decided to establish a brand journalism-driven storytelling platform dubbed Vita (“life” in Latin) to serve as a source of emotionally compelling and inspiring stories about the promise of biotechnology. The team planned to use the site as the hub of its content strategy and reduce the amount of work it performed as it aligned its efforts with the goals of the site.

The content the team produces is obviously from CSL Behring, but it’s not about the company. It is deliberately about and for patients and employees. Articles have included an original animation explaining hemophilia, a guide to storing infused medicines at the right temperature and guidance for how college students with rare diseases can thrive on campus.

Traffic to the site has doubled since its launch, and time spent on Vita stories is higher than any content on the company’s other sites. Patients and patient organizations have amplified the content from the site through their social media channels, and subscriptions to the Vita newsletter have spiked worldwide.

Congratulations to the CSL Behring Global Corporate Affairs and Communications team.

Jack Daniel’s, the legendary spirits company, sought to celebrate Pride Month and honor the modern LGBTQ experience. The company had joined a coalition against LGBTQ discrimination in Tennessee in 2016 and continues to support the community, encouraging partnerships with LGBTQ-certified suppliers. Its approach has earned Jack Daniel’s—activated by its agency, IW Group, Inc.—first place in the “Community Relations” category of Ragan’s 2018 PR Daily Awards.

The company wanted to make sure the brand activation didn’t appear opportunistic, even though it was designed to promote the Jack Daniel’s Country Cocktails product line. It sought to engage its audience and demonstrate its commitment.

To achieve its objective, the company created a technology-based experience to launch at the 2018 LA Pride Festival, which draws more than 170,000 participants over its two days. The mobile interactive art project featured a three-minute video show that took advantage of two 3D-printed polygonal mannequins and three of Jack Daniel’s iconic wooden barrels as its primary canvases.

Through the use of facial capture technology, the installation let spectators star in the show with their faces featured on the mannequins. On the day of the show, brand ambassadors approached festivalgoers to have their photos taken; the photos were captured on a tablet app and from there integrated into the show content.

In addition, “Flavors of Price”-branded merchandise was distributed to guests. At dusk, the show truck was transformed into a multimedia art installation; the show ran every three minutes.

The carefully-crafted campaign drew the attention of social media and the mainstream press, earning coverage in LGBTQ Nation, Adweek and others. Ultimately, the experience earned 254 media pickups.

Congratulations to the team of Telly Wong, Raphaelle Oriol, Evan Stainsby and Ryosuke Hoshiyama.

Like most companies, BIC—the iconic pen company—understands the need to support a cause. BIC and its employees are part of the global effort to promote access to education. The company is proudly contributing to “ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning,” one of the 17 sustainable development goals defined by the United Nations in September 2015. For this campaign, BIC chose teachers as the focus, motivating others to donate in addition to making its own contribution. The results have earned first prize in the “Cause-Related Marketing” category of Ragan’s 2018 PR Daily Awards.

The company’s choice reflected a genuine need: Teachers—already among the lowest-paid of professionals—often use their own money to buy supplies for their classrooms. Partnering with DonorsChoose.org, BIC donated $10 in “BIC bucks” to a local teacher or project whenever a consumer bought $10 worth of BIC back-to-school products during their back-to-school shopping.

A video was devised to promote the campaign. Three parents were asked to assist their child’s teacher with a class project. None of them knew they would be left alone with their classrooms, each of which had at least 15 students. The video documents each parent’s discovery of how quickly a project can stagnate without adequate supplies, and concludes with a call to action: Use your back-to-school receipts to donate to a local teacher.

The video was viewed more than 2.3 million times, leading to support for 770 projects and 684 teachers in 632 schools with a combined student population of 73,396.

Congratulations to the team of Ross Ullman, Janel Lewis and Linda Palladino at BIC, and Catherine East, Chris Healey, Heather Donner and Amy Blod of Doner CX.

Oracle isn’t the first tech company to leap to mind when you think about marketing. Nevertheless, It has made big strides in the digital marketing ecosystem, offering an array of products to support clients’ marketing efforts. For its work on one project, Oracle has won first place in the “B2B Campaign” category of Ragan’s 2018 PR Daily Awards.

Recognizing that blowing its own horn has limited impact, Oracle opted to produce an integrated marketing campaign for Mack Trucks’ introduction of its first new highway product in 15 years, the Anthem, that would also shine a light on Oracle’s marketing capabilities.

Oracle’s approach was based on the team immersing itself in Mack’s culture. Team members spent time at Mack’s headquarters in Allentown, Pennsylvania, developing a deep understanding of the company’s heritage, tradition and values. During the visit they shot enough video to produce five videos about how Oracle’s tools were helping Mack market its new vehicle.

The videos were optimized for social media and showcased across earned, paid and owned media channels. The team also secured coverage in top-tier business publications, created paid media opportunities in The Wall Street Journal and other publications, and used its own channels to build momentum for the campaign.

Some 106 million unique viewers of paid media saw the campaign; another 10 million impressions were earned on Oracle’s social pages. Most important, Oracle calculates 1,700 sales leads emerged from the campaign.

Congratulations to the team of Simon Jones, Angela Wells, Philip Behnke, Kimberly Guillon, David Hope-Ross, Robert Preston and Molly Ambrogi Yanson.

Faced with harsh criticism for its perceived lack of activity in renewable energy, TriState G&T took action to correct the misperception. The utility—a power supplier to 43 electric cooperatives in Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and New Mexico—had been actively developing renewable sources and including them in its mix for some time. The video series it created for a TV ad campaign has taken first place in the “Best Overall Video” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Video & Visual Awards.

Beyond altering public perception, TriState’s goals included obtaining 50 million impressions, increasing traffic to its renewables website by more than 100 percent and encouraging its member companies to participate in the campaign.

“Renewable Randy” served as the face of TriState in the videos. Randy is a likable, funny, self-deprecating, plaid-clad spokesperson who reminded audiences in each spot that “Thirty percent of the electricity you use comes from renewable energy.”

The ad series didn’t appear only on television; it was an orchestrated campaign across multiple channels (including social media) that drove public perception of the utility’s adoption of renewable energy sources from literally zero to 56 percent, a remarkable feat.

In addition to broadcast television, the message was deployed via video, OTT/streaming channels, social, virtual reality, paid and earned media and the web, along with nonvideo media like print and radio, digital, editorial, sponsorships and in-person appearances.

The 30-second videos made for TV placed Randy in a variety of scenarios such as solar farms, wind farms and dams. The effort surpassed its goals in a big way, with 34 member systems participating in the launch, 29 requesting the VR component and 35 asking for the life-sized cardboard standup of Randy.

Congratulations to the team at Tristate G&T.

The rationale for publishing a print document emerged from two challenges faced by Florida Realtors. Its success in meeting those challenges has won Florida Realtors first place in the “Print Design” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Video & Visual Awards.

The goals of the publication, “Take the Lead,” were centered on driving attendance at the WIRE conference, the inaugural Women in Real Estate event set for Hollywood, Florida in mid-September 2018.

The first challenge was competition from two other realty-focused conferences around the same time. The second was a short timeframe for preparing the conference. The publication was identified as a means of answering the question, “Why should I attend?”

The 12-page report was conceived to present data analysis from the Florida Realtors membership around the role of women in real estate. Women dominate the profession, yet questions remained about their role in the industry’s leadership. Knowing that the data-driven content of the publication could be dense and difficult, the communications team created design elements to make the data more accessible and understandable. The design also employed a “soft but rich color palette.”

The project’s art director elected to use an 8×12-inch format to be intentionally tall, conveying the importance of women in the real estate industry. Everything comes together in the book, reinforcing the continuing importance of print: The design could not be replicated on the web, but the tactile experience of the physical product seals the deal. The cover stock is heavy and matte-finished. The cover art resembles something akin to a Picasso work.

The interior paper stock is also substantial, with high-end color printing that is consistent whether displaying images of women leaders in Florida real estate or charts that deliver easy-to-comprehend data. The font, the use of white space and even the inside back cover deliver strong visuals that reinforce the publication’s key message.

“Take the Lead” is a reminder of why communicators should continue to keep print in their toolboxes.

Here’s a quick internal communication lesson: When employees understand the nuts and bolts of how the business works, they are better equipped to look at their own work and see how doing things differently than they have been can contribute to the achievement of organizational goals. That was the idea behind Dignity Health’s “Squirrels and Toasters” campaign, which has won first place in the “Internal Communication Design” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Video & Visual Awards.

The health care system—one of the nation’s largest—was undergoing a transformation effort called Horizon 2020 (aka H2020 Acceleration), designed to employ a more metric-based approach to achieving better patient outcomes and experiences. To support the effort and build long-term employee commitment, staff member Anissa Routon guided the development of a campaign featuring big, bold graphics that helped build employee literacy around the business impact of ground-level actions.

Dignity Health notes this mean the average nurse or aide could contribute by clocking in and out on time, keeping inventory in stock rooms, washing their hands every time they saw a patient and taking better care of equipment so it would last longer. Not wanting to be condescending, but seeking to capture employee attention, the visuals are big, bold and colorful (adopting a color palette for the program), supporting business concepts employees could understand and then translate into action.

“A toaster is not a hammer,” one headline declares (with a graphic of a toaster above it), noting that every piece of equipment has a specific purpose. If you want to hang up a picture, you don’t bring a toaster to get the job done. Then it offers ideas of how this concept applies to a hospital (use paper towels, not a washcloth, to clean up a spill). “When you don’t use supplies we paid for and also pay for others we don’t really need, it’s hard to keep costs down,” the poster states.

Umbrellas, the space shuttle, a VCR cassette and other graphics—all clearly part of a design suite—drew attention to a campaign that produced genuine business results, like an improvement in patient experience and EBITDA margin.

Congratulations to Dignity Health’s Anissa Routon.

The design of Dignity Health’s “Squirrels and Toasters” campaign centered on a poster series designed to support an organization-wide transformation and bring about a more metric-based approach to achieving better patient outcomes and experiences. It’s won Dignity Health first place in the “Illustrated or Animated Design” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Video & Visual Awards.

The idea was to build employee literacy about the big changes Dignity wanted to make and help employees see how their actions would contribute to the achievement of those goals. The campaign featured big, bold graphics unlike any the organization had seen before, yet remained consistent with Dignity’s graphics standards.

The big images of toasters, acorns, umbrellas and other subjects that reinforced the narrative were eye-catching, drawing viewers to short blocks of text that helped build employee literacy around the business impact of ground-level actions. Dignity notes this means the average nurse or aide could contribute by clocking in and out on time, keeping inventory in stock rooms, washing their hands every time they saw a patient and taking better care of equipment so it would last longer.

One poster reads, “Squirrels don’t belong in hospitals,” (with a graphic of acorns above it), noting that employees shouldn’t stash supplies where nobody else could find them. “When you do this,” the poster declares, “it means that needed supplies are being taken out of ‘rotation’ and we run the risk of them becoming outdated before they are used.”

The visuals—all clearly part of a design suite—drew attention to a campaign that produced genuine business results, including improvements in patient experiences and in the EBITDA margin.

Congratulations to Dignity Health’s Anissa Routon.

The communications department at Cherokee Nation Businesses is nothing if not dedicated. Its video series “Osiyo, Voices of the Cherokee People,” has been in production since 2014, and it’s the winner in the “Video Series” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Video & Visual Awards.

The series of 30-minute episodes profiles Cherokee Nation citizens, highlights events and figures from history and passes on the Cherokee language. Underlying the production is a fervent desire to set the record straight and correct misperceptions about the Cherokees through documentary-style stories, a language segment, a history segment and news shorts.

The series is broadcast across Oklahoma on PBS, where it commands a substantial audience. A partnership with another network helps the show reach another 20+ markets across the United States. Its availability on YouTube, though, has expanded its reach considerably, with respectable numbers coming from as far away as Germany, the U.K. and Australia. The show’s Facebook page is followed by nearly 30,000 people.

The content is beautifully and professionally produced, rivaling the documentary-type productions of much better-funded enterprises. Episodes focus on a broad range of Cherokee-related topics, from elders passing on traditional spirituality to young Cherokees making their way in professional sports. The series aims to balance traditional features with less-traditional stories of people living a Cherokee lifestyle that challenges public perceptions.

Congratulations to the communications team at Cherokee Nation Businesses (a wholly-owned corporation of the Cherokee Nation).