Co-Winner: 135th Street Agency—REVOLT TV x Boys & Girls Club "#HelloHarlemNYC" Youth Initiative
135th Street Agency, a full-service experiential marketing and public relations agency, and client REVOLT TV partnered with Park to Park, a network of 75 local businesses committed to community development in Harlem, to launch the #HelloHarlemNYC campaign to raise awareness and funding for music and arts education for the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem. The partners aligned efforts to add to the economic development of the Harlem community while raising community awareness and funds for the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem through the initiative, which included experiential events, press and influencer attendance and social media engagement.
The events of the HELLO Harlem campaign brought together innovative business executives, civic leaders, celebrities, press and major Boys and Girls Club of Harlem supporters. Attendees heard firsthand from children who are a part of the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem, where they shared favorite sports and crafts activities and stories about making new friends. For live music, artists from the New York City area were hand-selected, including Grammy-nominated and winning artists like Luke James, Raheem DeVaughn and Eric Roberson.
Attendees at all events were encouraged to share photos and comments via social media from their experience, which generated nearly 1 million impressions on Twitter and Instagram combined, using the hashtag #HelloHarlemNYC. The agency secured press placements resulting in more than 40 million media impressions, including key media like Reuters, New York Daily News, The Source, BlackEnterprise.com, Harlem Trends and Hip Hop Wired.
Co-Winner: Waggener Edstrom Communications—Boys & Girls Clubs of Bellevue Partnership—Investing in Future Generations
Corporate citizenship and community development are at the heart of Waggener Edstrom (WE). Employees consistently say that education and economic empowerment are the two causes they feel most passionate about in their communities. To support these causes, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Bellevue (BGCB) and WE have developed a deep, trusted partnership founded on the notion of impact for both organizations.
The agency designed engagement strategies for the “BE GREAT Bellevue” campaign to attract and enlist sponsors from local businesses and corporations. WE developed an editorial calendar spanning the pre-campaign, campaign and post-campaign time frame, featuring a mix of stories, merchant promotions, live tweets and posts and visual images to attract audiences. They also engaged social media around the hashtag #begreatbellevue. As a result of their efforts, the BE BREAT Bellevue campaign saw Facebook and Twitter followers increase by 30 percent. Through community outreach BGCB was able to secure 100 corporate and local partnerships from businesses. These partnerships will help 11,000 kids by providing the capacity to serve 70 percent more children within the next five years via the construction of a new Main Clubhouse, Fieldhouse and Teen Center.
Honorable Mentions
- All Points Public Relations - Kona Ice's "Chill Out Day"
- Nebo - Build the BeltLine
- Text100 - Lenovo NA Partner LinkedIn Community