Public Relations Awards

The Dow Chemical Company of Freeport, Texas, won the Stevie® Award for Best Communications or PR Campaign of the Year in Community Relations in The 2011 American Business Awards. (The 2012 American Business Awards are now open for entries. Request your entry kit.) Here we look at how the communications awards recipient, Dow Texas Operations, enhanced its reputation in the local community.

The PR awards winner is not only the largest integrated chemical facility in the Western Hemisphere but is also Freeport's largest employer. In 2010, The Dow Chemical Company, sought opportunities to recognize Dow Texas Operations’ WWII veteran retirees in a way that would also benefit its community relations. With its more than 6,000 near neighbor retirees, including several veterans, the communicator awards receiver decided to join forces with Honor Flight, a nonprofit organization that transports veterans to memorials.
                                                                                 
Dow Texas Operations established three community-relations goals:

1. to thank Dow retirees who are WWII veterans for their honorable service,
2. to strengthen outreach to Dow retirees in Brazoria County and;
3. to increase the positive reputation of Dow Texas Operations in the local community, especially among key influencers in local government.

To meet these goals, Dow:

1. Got their employees involved
   On September 27, 2010, 74 Dow WWII veterans—along with 43 Dow “Guardians”—flew from Lake Jackson, Texas, to Washington, D.C. 
2. Used social media to spread the word
   By establishing a Facebook page, Dow was able to engage thousands more in the experience. More than 340 images were posted to the page throughout the day.  By week’s end, nearly 1,300 people “liked” the Facebook page (slightly more than the target of 500). Of those “likes,” more than 50% lived within 50 miles of Texas Dow Operations.  There were 8,761 photo views on September 27, and 18,540 page views during September and October. 
3. Organized a Heroes’ Welcome to involve the community
   At the end of the Honor Flight day, Dow hosted a “Welcome Home” party. The veterans were escorted down a red carpet, and were honored by more than 700 local elected officials, other Dow retirees, Brazoria County veteran groups, and family members, all waving flags or holding patriotic signs. 
4. Reminded local residents of Dow’s history in the community
   Dow Texas Operations posted service photos and personal war stories of the veterans to the Facebook page.  Dow also chronicled the company’s role in WWII by posting newspaper articles from the 1940s about its efforts to mine seawater for magnesium as part of the war effort.

A Grand Success
By any measure, the business in the community awards winner's event was a grand success.  Hundreds of positive comments were posted to the Facebook page. Dozens of expressions of gratitude were voiced in community forums, including the Dow Community Advisory Panel and local Rotary Clubs, and at Chamber of Commerce meetings. A survey of influential people in the community, conducted one month after the Honor Flight, indicated an 82.4% positive perception of Dow’s corporate
citizenship. 

The Brazosport Chamber of Commerce honored Dow Texas Operations with a special award in recognition of outstanding community support for honoring WWII veterans/Dow retirees.  The local newspaper, The Facts, carried extensive coverage of the trip, including an ad-free special section, a first for the newspaper.

Gary Hockstra, who was at the time the Vice President and Site Director for Dow Texas Operations, was one of the driving forces behind the project. On learning that it had won a Stevie Award, he commented: 

“Those of us who took part in the 2010 Dow Honor Flight know just how special it was and we are honored by this national recognition from the American Business Awards. It was an amazing initiative that brought our community together to provide some much-deserved appreciation to these heroes. It is wonderful to be receiving such a prestigious award for the project.”

Hockstra has since been promoted to Vice President of Dow’s Advanced Materials Division and is now based in Philadelphia; however, before departing for his new job, he initiated and participated in a second Dow Texas Honor Flight, in 2011. “We cannot do enough for these men who were willing to sacrifice their lives for our freedom,” he said. “I am very proud that my company provides them with the opportunity to see the memorial that was built in their honor.”

About Gary Hockstra
Gary Hockstra is the Vice President of Dow’s Advanced Materials Division in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Until 2011, he was Vice President of Dow Texas Operations in Freeport, Texas. Before being named Vice President and Site Director for Dow Texas Operations in December 2007, Hockstra worked in various manufacturing roles for the company all over the world. Hockstra joined Dow in 1980 after earning a degree in Chemical Engineering from Michigan State University. He considers the Dow Texas Operations Honor Flight one of the greatest community projects he has had the opportunity to work on during his Dow career.

About Dow Texas Operations
Texas Operations is Dow's largest integrated site. The three major complexes—Plant A, Plant B, and Oyster Creek—operate as an integrated unit serving all eight of Dow's Global Business Groups. Texas Operations manufactures 44% of Dow's products sold in the United States and more than 21% of Dow's products sold globally.

About Dow:
Dow combines the power of science and technology with the “Human Element” to innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company connects chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, renewable energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's diversified industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences, and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 160 countries and in high-growth sectors such as electronics, water, energy, coatings, and agriculture. In 2010, Dow had annual sales of $53.7 billion and employed approximately 50,000 people worldwide. The company's more than 5,000 products are manufactured at 188 sites in 35 countries across the globe. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

We've just updated our 10 Tips for Winning PR Awards in the Stevie Awards tipsheet for 2012.  Get it here.

There are many opportunities for public relations professionals - public relations directors, event planners, SEO specialists, email marketing strategists, communications managers, and more - to be recognized in the Stevie Awards, the world's premier business awards programs.  This brief tipsheet will outline the 10 best ways that public relations professionals can be honored in the four Stevie Awards programs in 2012.  The programs are:

• The American Business Awards
• The International Business Awards
• The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service
• The Stevie Awards for Women in Business

There are categories to recognize PR departments, campaigns, teams, and individuals, categories for work such as produced tools including web sites and videos, and much more.  This tipsheet will help you to choose the categories and competitions in which you'll have the best chance of winning a 2012 Stevie Award.

What Stevie Awards for Public Relations will you be applying for?

Q&A with Edward de Valle, CEO of AMGW Agency of Brazil and Miami, Florida, USA, which received the Stevie Award for Public Relations Agency of the Year in Mexico, Central, and South America in the PR awards categories of The 2011 International Business Awards.  The IBAs are open to all organizations worldwide.  This year’s awards ceremonies will be on October 11 in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

What are your top tips for U.S. and European companies or organizations thinking of doing business in South and Central America?

1. Do not try to take on the entire region at once, as it is extremely large.  Focus on key markets that are of interest to your organization. Each section of Central and South America has a different cultural working environment. For instance, if you want to focus on Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile that would be considered a Southern Cone business push. On the other hand, if you prefer to work with Venezuela, Peru, and Colombia, that is known as the Andean Pack. Focus on the markets that would best utilize your goods or services.

2. Tailor your goods or services for the markets you decide to work in. For example, if your company is a marketing consultancy like my own agency—which offers public relations, media placement, translation, and creative services out of our Miami offices—you might do well to offer just a few of those services in Central or South America.  Not all of your products or services may make sense in the competitive make-up of such widely different markets. In Brazil, for instance, we have found it best to offer media placement and public relations, but not our creative services.

What item of news recently caught your eye and why?

I am fascinated by news stories on the ever-changing global economy. When I learned recently that American corporations were working very hard to increase their global sales rather than focusing on the U.S. and Canada, I felt that finally someone was listening to what I have been trying to tell people for years. The profits of American corporations will be over 50% of their P&L by 2015 (right now it is at 40%) so I feel that AMGW Agency is in the right place at the right time to help these companies expand their ever-growing businesses into new areas.

Do you have a favorite business app?

Not an app per se, but I follow an applicable way of thinking and working using ZMOT from Google. Amazing! It’s incredible how quickly marketing is changing and I am constantly going back to ZMOT to reference great new thinking and ideas.

If you could choose another profession, what would it be?

Motivational speaker. I believe that youth globally is headed in a very dangerous direction. Expecting instead of creating has become the norm. We need to create, create, and create.

What quality or qualities do you most value in your business associates?

That they love what they do and are eager to help our clients get a return on their marketing investment—which can be very difficult at times.

What do you think is the worst bad habit to have at work? 

Counting how much money you will make off each paycheck or client profit. If you work thinking only about what you earn, you do not have passion. Passion comes first and money later. Also, people first and money later.

As someone at the top of your profession, what keeps you inspired or makes you hit the ground running in the morning?

To be honest with you, sometimes I do not know. I think it must be the drive inside me that never stops wanting to make things happen for others. I love helping people and I work every day with this in mind. I see a great company with bad marketing tactics and I salivate to get them on track. That’s the real thrill for me: getting results for clients.

About Edward de Valle

Edward de Valle established AMGW Agency ten years ago.  Prior to that he worked in the publishing industry, most recently as Director of Sales at Newsweek Latin America.  His career began at General Electric as the Marketing Manager for GE Power Systems Latin America.

Edward is Cuban American. His great-great-grandfather, Alfredo de Zayas y Alfonso, was the 4th President of Cuba and his great grandfather was the owner of one of the largest newspapers in Cuba, El Avance. More recently, his father ran a construction and real estate business in Florida, while his mother is a director and principal of education. His formal education includes a B.S. in International Business, an M.B.A. in corporate marketing, and three years of completed doctoral work in the science of organizational behavior at Nova Southeastern University.

About AMGW Agency

AMGW Agency provides essential services for luxury brands, developers /hoteliers, and medical/healthcare companies around the world. With its core services in media planning and buying, public relations, sales consulting, and interactive marketing, AMGW executes marketing strategies in all seven continents. The company has regional offices in the United States (Miami, New York, San Francisco); Mexico; Panama; Colombia; Venezuela; Dominican Republic; Brazil (Sao Paulo, Goiania, Brasilia); United Kingdom; Italy; Netherlands; Russia; India; Dubai; Qatar; and Lebanon. Recently AMGW Agency formed a global alliance with El Taller Creativo of the Dominican Republic, making AMGW the number one advertising, PR, and communications firm for The Americas and Caribbean. Its newest offices are located in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. To learn more about the agency visit http://www.amgwagency.com.

Owned by PR expert Jocelyn Johnson, Gravitas Communications of New York, New York, USA, won a Stevie Award for Communications Campaign of the Year in the 2010 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.  The 2011 edition of this global program, which honors women executives, entrepreneurs, and the organizations they run, is accepting entries through September 30.

Hard Times in Detroit

2009 was a dark year for the American automotive industry, with US automotive manufacturers desperately shuttling between Washington, D.C. and Detroit in an effort to save their businesses and get back on track.

In the context of this bleak environment, the editors at Motor Trend magazine decided that the 2010 Car of the Year (COTY) award—announced in November 2009—needed to be a bigger event than ever before.

Motor Trend magazine recognizes the best of the automotive best each year with its COTY award. This venerable award, in its 51st year in 2009, was faced with an unusually narrow field of contenders, but there was a poignancy associated with the ultimate winner, the Ford Fusion.

As the nation and the world worried about whether Detroit could be saved, it seemed fitting that the oldest and strongest of the “Big Three” would emerge triumphant among the field of global contenders.

Motivating the American Auto Market

Gravitas Communications was tasked with launching a campaign for the 2010 award that would reach new levels of coverage and serve as a positive and motivating boost to the American auto market—but with half the budget of previous years.

The goal was to appeal to a mass audience with the widest possible national
and international media coverage.

Publicity Plan

There were several challenges to overcome, including tight timing from completion of testing to the announcement, maintaining the editorial integrity and ownership of the announcement, and executing a huge announcement with a relatively small budget.

The Gravitas team put together a comprehensive yet cost-effective publicity plan designed to reach the broadest audience possible, and using all major communications channels including print, television, radio, web, social media, and online video.

Social Media

The buildup began with social-media teasers two weeks before the COTY award
announcement. These appeared on the brand’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and included social-media press releases promoting the announcement date. The Gravitas Communication’s team coordinated and shot b-roll footage for use among local media and via satellite distribution.

Live Webcast

Gravitas also approached the winning manufacturer to stage a live Webcast from its global headquarters. Not only did this approach leverage the resources of the award winner to promote the COTY award, the event also served as a high-energy morale booster for Ford’s executive management team and employees.

This event also proved to be the ideal backdrop for Motor Trend magazine’s first live Webcast, and Fox Business also provided live broadcast coverage of the announcement.

Amazing Results

The 2010 Motor Trend Car of the Year awards program was considered a great success. It resulted in 1,200 Tweets, 175 television hits, 400 online articles, 4,187 streams on the Webcast—6 times more than was hoped for—and the winner’s video garnered more than 67,000 views on YouTube.

The story was nationally syndicated in an Associated Press article. It was the main story on FoxNews.com, CNBC.com, MSNBC.com, CNN.com, USA Today.com, and Yahoo.com.  MotorTrend.com broke a million page views overall, only the second time the site had achieved that level of traffic.

”The COTY award is one of the most prestigious awards in the automotive industry and we felt honored and motivated to make it the biggest announcement in the history of the awards,” said Jocelyn Johnson, founder, Gravitas Communications.  “It was thrilling to watch the press react and the coverage come in. The client was ecstatic and that is what counts.”

About Jocelyn Johnson

Jocelyn Johnson founded Gravitas Communications in 2005 with more than
fifteen years of experience building and executing smart, strategic public
relations and communications programs for her clients. Jocelyn has worked with
industry goliaths and start-ups alike. From Google to Thwapr, Jocelyn has
worked with nearly 100 companies over her career and has launched more than 36 start-ups. She has a passion for technology, digital media/entertainment, retail, and media companies and is obsessed with how technology is changing the way we communicate and interact. Jocelyn is also proud to be a co-recipient for several PR industry awards.

About Gravitas Communications

Gravitas Communications is a strategic communications firm that operates at the nexus of PR, social media, and search engine optimization. Founded in 2005 by Jocelyn Johnson, Gravitas understands the constantly evolving landscape of media and how technology has forever changed how we communicate and interact. 

ING Commercial Banking, Amsterdam, The Netherlands won the Stevie Award for Best Communications or PR Campaign of the Year-–Issues Management in the Public Relations Awards categories of The 2010 International Business Awards.  (The final entry deadline for this year’s IBAs is June 30.)  Here we look at a successful program developed by ING’s Internal Communications team.

Following one of the most turbulent periods in the banking industry’s history—and consequent structural changes at ING—management at ING Commercial Banking (CB) Belgium found that it needed to address key organizational issues within a short timeframe. 

At the top of the company’s agenda were:

-       defining a clear strategic direction for prevailing market conditions;

-       maintaining employee engagement; and

-       empowering employees to get involved in ambitious plans for growth.

To address these issues, ING’s Internal Communications team in Amsterdam, headed by Leanne Carmody, designed “Going Further” as a bottom-up style program that would accelerate ING’s ambition to become the leading commercial bank in Belgium with active staff participation.

Employee Involvement

The most challenging of the key issues, however, was tackling employee empowerment. Ongoing research had indicated that employees did not feel involved in delivering the ING CB strategy in Belgium.

Having alerted management to the issue, the Internal Communications team developed an additional 2-step implementation plan to ensure that all employees in Belgium were fully invested in the Going Further program. 

The implementation plan motivated both management and employees to share their views while actively supporting the project teams—made up of colleagues from across the business—that were tasked with developing feasible plans for achieving the company’s business goals.

Powerful Visuals

To support the program’s top priorities, ING’s Internal Communications team used various tools to engage employees in helping the project teams to develop practical initiatives.  Powerful visuals and information tools supported the Going Further bottom-up approach, starting with an eye-catching video which captured the essence of where the organization was and where it wanted to be by the end of 2010.

Intranet Site

To promote the interactive element of the program, an intranet site encouraged employees to post ideas and view video reports from the project teams. The working groups each received a Flip camera to film the different steps in the project. Team members used these cameras to post videos depicting the teams as champions for the project. Regular email newsflashes and intranet articles helped employees stay up-to-date with the program, and senior management—playing a strong, visible leadership role—encouraged employees to get involved.

Senior Management Commitment

To demonstrate the commitment of the company’s key leaders to the program, employees were given access to the presentation by senior management of ING Belgium and Commercial Banking Global to the Board of Directors.  Internal Communications also worked with management to provide quarterly updates on the program at Town Hall-style meetings that were attended by at least 250 CB Belgium employees.

Impact

The impact of Going Further became evident throughout the organization:
• it changed the mindset within CB Belgium, where a more solutions-
based approach has now been adopted;
• employees reported they felt they had a greater role to play in the ING
strategy and had a greater sense of ownership;
• the project teams and the colleagues they involved collectively produced no fewer than 36 concrete initiatives; and
• the microsite, launched in October 2009, proved invaluable in engaging
employees, attracting over 25,000 visits by the end of April 2010, when

proposals were finalized.

Going Even Further

Today, ING CB Belgium’s senior management is still using the “Going Further” tools provided by its Internal Communications team to address key issues, and continues to integrate communications with other business activities by linking them to overall objectives and business priorities.

Following the program’s success in Belgium, Going Further launched in CB’s Central, Eastern Europe region in April 2010 and was implemented in other CB business areas later in the year.

About Leanne Carmody:

At the time of this program’s launch, Leanne Carmody was the Head of Internal Communications for ING Commercial Banking. Based in Amsterdam, she led a communications team with global responsibility for strategy and management communications, internal channels, internal branding, and embedding values and performance goals. In 2009, the team won the CiB award for Best Global Campaign. Recently, Leanne was appointed Head of Internal Communications for ING Banking.

Prior to ING, Leanne held senior communication roles at ABN AMRO and was a consultant with Cap Gemini.  She is currently on maternity leave.

About ING:

ING is a global financial institution of Dutch origin offering banking, investments, life insurance, and retirement services to over 85 million private, corporate, and institutional clients in more than 40 countries. With a diverse workforce of more than 107,000 people, ING is dedicated to setting the standard in helping its clients manage their financial future. For more information, visit www.ing.com/group/index.jsp

About ING Commercial Banking:

ING Commercial Banking meets all of the banking needs of corporations and large multinationals, as well as financial institutions. With a history that stretches back some 200 years, ING helps clients build successful businesses.

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Atul Ahluwalia is chair of the final judging committee for the Corporate Communications and Public Relations Awards categories of The 2011 International Business Awards, the competition that's open to all organizations worldwide.  The entry deadline for this year's IBAs is May 11, and the IBA entry kit is here.

What are your top 3 tips on how to plan a PR campaign in India?
To be effective in India, a PR campaign should have a central big idea, which is derived from key stakeholder insights.

It is also critical to identify potential advocates at the outset, engage them effectively, and make them co-owners of the campaign.

Depending on the nature of the campaign, it will need to integrate a variety of media. India is a diverse country with a multilingual population. Consequently, integrating the multitude of media channels spanning print, television, radio, and social media across languages can be a real challenge for people not familiar with the country. 

What item of news recently caught your eye and why?
The Japan crisis involving the crippling of the Fukushima power plant and the resultant potential radioactive fallout is at the top of my mind. While being faced with the daunting task of containing damage at the nuclear plant, the Government of Japan has been measured in communicating with its citizens and with the international community, and I think this has helped prevent panic among the population at large. 

If you could choose another profession, what would it be?
Filmmaking, as it is also a creative profession.

What quality or qualities do you most value in your business associates?
A desire to excel in every aspect of work.

What do you think is the worst bad habit to have at work?
Lack of proactivity and a pushback attitude.

As someone at the top of your profession, what keeps you inspired or makes you hit the ground running in the morning?
An opportunity to make a difference to the discipline of Public Relations.

About Atul Ahluwalia:
Atul Ahluwalia joined Corporate Voice | Weber Shandwick when the Delhi office was first set up in 1994.  With an astute focus on client business outcomes and strong leadership, Ahluwalia rose to become head of North and East India operations for the agency, and was appointed president in 2009.

Ahluwalia's core strengths include corporate and industry-related strategic counseling, media, and crisis management.  During his time at Corporate Voice | Weber Shandwick, Ahluwalia has successfully won a range of impressive clients spanning diverse industries and has led many challenging assignments. With over 20 years in public relations, Ahluwalia's industry experience includes hospitality, consumer electronics, aviation, FMCG, information technology, telecommunications, and banking, among others.   Prior to joining Corporate Voice | Weber Shandwick, Ahluwalia spent five years in advertising.

Ahluwalia has been instrumental in making Corporate Voice | Weber Shandwick the most consistently awarded PR agency in India, winning such global awards as the IPRA Golden World Award, PR Week's Asia-Pacific Campaign of the Year, an Asia Pacific SABRE Award, the United Nations Grand Prize for PR Excellence, a Stevie in The International Business Awards, and a PR Silver Lion at Cannes.

Ahluwalia is an alumnus of St. Columba's High School and Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University.  He is a founder member of The Public Relations Consultancies Association of India (PRCAI), and is a regular guest speaker at advertising and PR institutes.

About Corporate Voice | Weber Shandwick:
Corporate Voice | Weber Shandwick (CVWS) is a joint venture company owned by Weber Shandwick, a unit of The Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG) headquartered in New York, and MAA Group Holdings headquartered in Bangalore. Founded in 1992, the firm has grown to become one of the largest and most-awarded consultancies in India, providing a suite of services in corporate reputation development, management, and public affairs.

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The final entry deadline for The 2011 American Business Awards is fast approaching (it's March 31, although late entries will be accepted through April 27 with payment of a late fee). The corporate communications and public relations awards categories are among the most popular in the competition, so we thought we'd take this opportunity to publish Hilton Hotels' Stevie Award-winning Communications or PR Campaign of the Year entry from last year, in order to remind you that virtually all of the past Stevie Award-winning entries are published on the awards' website. You'll find the 2010 honorees in the ABAs here.

Hilton Hotels was honored last year in the category of Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Reputation/Brand Management. The nomination was submitted by Hilton's agency partner, Covalent Logic. 30-40% of all entries submitted to Stevie Awards competitions are submitted by agencies on behalf of their clients, and the entering agency's role in preparing and submitting the nomination is always acknowledged.

You'll find the entry kit for The 2011 American Business Awards here.

We recently published a tipsheet called 10 Tips for Winning PR Awards in the 2011 Stevies - get it here.

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IndoPacific Edelman of Jakarta, Indonesia, won the Stevie Award for Communications or PR Campaign of the Year in Crisis Communications in the PR awards categories of The 2010 International Business Awards. Here we look at their work that earned the Stevie.

On September 30, 2009, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck in the Indian Ocean, approximately 120 km offshore from the densely populated coastal region of Indonesia’s West Sumatra Province. Despite the epicenter being offshore, the earthquake caused substantial damage throughout the coastal communities, including in the region’s capital, Padang City.

Most of the inhabitants of Padang (population: 750,000), as well as an additional 884,500 people living in surrounding areas, were affected in some way by the earthquake. The final death toll came to 1,117, with an additional 1,214 seriously injured. The quake also destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses throughout the region and caused serious damage to the infrastructure of most remaining buildings.

When the government declared a state of emergency, however, national and international media outlets were quickly spreading exaggerated statistics about the quake’s aftermath.

Crisis Response Team
In order to prevent panic spreading throughout the entire population of West Sumatra, the Indonesian government, acting through the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), called upon IndoPacific Edelman to help get their message out to the public and restore order in the region.

IndoPacific Edelman’s crisis response team quickly mobilized and was on the scene within 72 hours of the earthquake. The team immediately established a media center that would provide accurate and reliable information to media outlets from around the world.

In addition to conducting extensive media relations, the team worked closely with relief workers, psychologists, doctors, volunteers, and donors to restore order. The crisis team also stayed in close communication with key government officials including Head of the Senate Taufiq Kiemas, Australian Prime
Minister Kevin Rudd, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

More than Just a Media Center
During this campaign, the media center became much more than a place that simply provided information to journalists. The center served as a reference point for all involved parties. This included members of national and international aid organizations, relief workers, major NGOs such as the United Nations, international volunteers, and members of the local community. In helping the
BNPB reassure the public, the crisis team was able to prevent a panic from making an already difficult situation even worse.

Providing Vital Information
The most tangible example of the media center’s contribution was the quantitative measurement of media coverage following the team’s arrival. Once the media center had been established, the number of articles with a negative tone decreased by 62.4 percent in only one week. This quick reduction in negative press coverage underscored the effectiveness of the crisis team in countering misinformation and making the public aware of the reality of the situation. In the month following the earthquake, the number of negative articles written had been reduced to just 9.6 percent.

More important still, the ability of IndoPacific Edelman’s crisis team to efficiently manage the media center and all crisis communications was essential in helping restore order following the disaster, and in providing vital information to all parties. This was essential in moving recovery efforts forward in the region.

In short, IndoPacific Edelman’s media center brought calm in the midst of chaos.

About IndoPacific Edelman
IndoPacific Edelman, a member of Edelman Worldwide, is Indonesia’s largest PR firm, with over 100 employees; it offers corporate communications, public affairs management, crisis management, and consumer PR. In the past six years, IndoPacific Edelman has won an IPRA Frontline Award, a Stevie Award, a Cakram Award as Indonesia’s PR Agency of The Year, a PR Week Award, and an Indonesian IPRA Award. For more information go to www.indopacedelman.com.

About the Crisis Response Team
Aditya Chandra Wardhana is currently IndoPacific Edelman’s Director for Public Affairs. He has been assisting many clients across industry sectors with his insights and strategic counsel. He completed his Ph.D. in Southeast Asian Political Economics at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, UK in July 2004.

Ezta Wahyudi is a senior consultant for the firm, providing key support for various programs including running the media centers for the Yogyakarta earthquake, the Mount Merapi disasters, and UNICEF’s Measles Campaign.

As a consultant in the Public Affairs division, Patria Pinandita specializes in industrial relations and issue and crisis management.

We've just published a new tipsheet called 10 Tips for Winning PR Awards in the 2011 Stevie Awards.  Get it here.

It summarizes the 10 best ways that public relations and communications professionals can be recognized in the four Stevie Awards competitions in 2011 (which include The American Business Awards, the International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service).  For the most part it recommends the public relations awards, web awards, and other categories that PR folks should focus on, and outlines the general submission requirements for those categories.

Gravitas Communications is a strategic communications firms that operates at the nexus of public relations, Social Media and Search Engine Optimization. Founded in 2005 by Jocelyn Johnson, Gravitas won a Stevie Award for Communications or PR Campaign of the Year in the 2010 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.  This public relations award was accepted by Jocelyn Johnson at the ceremony in New York on November 12, 2010.  See her acceptance speech here.

Gravitas won their 2010 Stevie for their campaign entitled "Motor Trend 2010 Car of the Year: Good News for US Automaker."  As Gravitas reported in their winning nomination:

"There was a poignancy associated with the winner of the 2010 Car of the Year award – the Ford Fusion.  As the nation and the world worried whether Detroit could be saved, it seemed fitting that the oldest and strongest of the “Big Three” would emerge triumphant among the global field of contenders. Gravitas Communications was tasked with launching a campaign for the 2010 award that would reach new levels of coverage and serve as a positive and motivating boost to the American auto market – but with half the budget compared to prior years.  The goal was to appeal to a mass audience, with the widest possible national
and international media coverage.  The Gravitas team architected a comprehensive publicity plan that efficiently reached the broadest audience possible and was inclusive of all major communications channels including: print, television, radio, web, social media and online video. "

The results of the winning campaign (as of early October 2010) included:

- 1200 Tweets
- 175 Television hits
-  400 online articles
-  4187 streams on the Webcast - 6x more than we hoped for; currently 17,100 views on YouTube
- The Contender video has garnered more than 67,000 views on YouTube
- Live broadcast on FoxBiz
- Nationally syndicated Associated Press article; front page of FoxNews.com ,
CNBC.vom, MSNBC.com, CNN.com, USA Today.com, Yahoo.com
- MotorTrend.com broke a million page views overall, only the second time the site has achieved that level of traffic

The next opportunities to win PR awards in Stevie Awards programs?  The PR awards categories of The 9th annual American Business Awards, and the PR awards categories of The 8th annual International Business Awards.