The PRSA Gold Pick Awards recognize the most impactful PR campaigns executed throughout the year. This year, we were honored to win gold in the media campaign category for our media relations work with our client Donor Alliance.
During the 2018 holiday season, we partnered with Donor Alliance to execute a large media campaign that resulted in extensive media coverage throughout their Colorado and Wyoming service area. The media campaign leveraged newsworthy holiday stories to inspire organ, eye and tissue donation across the two-state area, and included several touchpoints and multiple angles for local journalists throughout the holiday season:
Denver Parade of Lights and Cheyenne Christmas Parade: The Donor Alliance “Gift of Life” balloon and the “Infinite Hope” float are well-known fixtures in their respective annual holiday parades. The balloon and float are escorted by volunteers, employees, transplant recipients and families of donors. We leveraged their inspiring stories and participation in the parade to generate media interest.
The Rose Parade and sendoff event: Donor Alliance also sponsored local transplant recipient, Colleen Reed, to ride the Donate Life Rose Parade float, and leveraged Colleen’s participation to generate interest with Colorado media. Ahead of the parade, at a sendoff event, Colleen thanked her care team and surgeon at the hospital where her transplant took place. Donor Alliance decorated a Rose Parade/Donate Life themed Christmas tree to serve as a backdrop for the event and remain in the hospital throughout the holiday season. Media were invited to attend and interviewed Colleen about her transplant journey.
The goal of the campaign was to inspire organ, eye and tissue donation in Colorado and Wyoming using media relations, social media and Donor Alliance’s network of volunteers to deliver relevant messages and real donation and transplantation stories to Colorado and Wyoming residents. By utilizing strategic media relations, social media and Donor Alliance’s network of volunteers, the objectives for the overall campaign were either met or exceeded. For our part, we were able to secure 33 pieces of local media coverage during the two-month-long campaign and help to increase traffic to the donor registration websites by 66 percent year-over-year, which most importantly, contributed to an increase in the donor designation rates, or the percentage of Colorado and Wyoming residents joining the state registries.
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