Cisco Systems employees apparently love Justin Timberlake. When Timberlake turned to his fans to post videos about their affection for the song, “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” Cisco employees lip-synched a video to the song, mainly to share with friends and colleagues. Now the video has ultimately won first place in the “Viral and Trending Content Marketing” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

Timberlake went on to appear as the halftime act of the Super Bowl. Cisco Systems often plans employee-generated content around cultural events that are bound to infuse social media channels; for example, the Talent Brand team posts photos of employee pizza parties on National Pizza Day, and highlights women in tech on Girls Power Tech Day.

There were no plans to compete with other brands for attention during the Super Bowl, but senior social media and Talent Brand manager Carmen Collins had an inspiration while the game was in progress. Why not share that video during halftime? Collins broke “the unwritten law of disturbing team members in the middle of a big game,” Cisco says; “she did a gut check—do you all see anything that would keep us from posting it?” Nobody did, so during halftime, Collins tweeted, “How about that #HalftimeShow? We’re big fans of innovating, dancing, singing & #JustinTimberlake and welcome you to come be you, with us. @WeAreCisco.”

The tweet also included a link to Cisco’s careers page and the #BrandBowl hashtag. The tweet produced 1,000 video views in the first 30 minutes; it eventually hit 3,000 views thanks to retweets from some social media influencers. Ultimately, the tweet delivered 330 engagements and 15,000 impressions.

Congratulations to Talent Brand manager Carmen Collins for her spur-of-the-moment inspiration.

When a video manages to choke viewers up, you know it’s something special. That’s the case with “Everyday Heroes,” a video produced by Tarrant County College in Texas, one of the 20 largest higher education institutions in the United States, serving some 100,000 students each year. It’s won first place in the “Video” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

State funding for the school has declined over the years. To fill the gap, the college has turned to public-private partnerships with area companies and endowments from local philanthropists. In order to inspire these targets to contribute to the college, Suzanne Groves led the production of a video that tells three interwoven stories of graduates helping people in the local community.

The dramatizations, starring three graduates—an IT grad, a fire and rescue grad and a nursing grad—pack an emotional wallop while educating viewers about the important role TCC graduates play in the community—and how the skills acquired by students at the college could one day have a personal impact on them. The tales of a teenage girl in a potentially deadly car accident, a senior citizen experiencing a computer hack and a young mother with a critically ill child were tested before the roles of the “victims” were cast.

The video has been shown at a number of community meetings, including Rotary Clubs and the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. Although a correlation is difficult to assign to the video’s impact on fundraising, money has been coming in, including a $250,000 grant from the JP Morgan Chase Foundation specifically for establishment of an associate of applied science degree in cybersecurity, which was one of the video’s themes.

Congratulations to Tarrant County College’s Suzanne Groves.

Cisco Systems’ Talent Brand team focuses on helping prospects connect with existing employees, something they say they can’t achieve with just PR. Instead, the #WeAreCisco theme conveys the soul of the team’s efforts: real employees authentically telling the story of what it’s like to work at Cisco. Its success has taken first place in the “User-Generated Content” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

The program is summed up with the team’s four “E’s”: encourage (letting employees know they have permission to share their experiences on social media); engage (responding to employees, talking like a co-worker and using photos employees share); empower (providing opportunities for employees to share); and elevate (sharing employee stories across multiple social channels in support of the brand).

The programs include the Life at Cisco blog, along with multiple social media accounts (with a focus on Snapchat), the Careers website and a host of contests designed to inspire new employee-generated content. Special programs have included a redo of the #WeAreCisco #LoveWhereYouWork campaign focused on Star Wars Day, adding the #MayThe4th hashtag.

The numbers the team analyzes prove the effort works, not only at attracting candidates but also at retaining employees. The May the 4^th campaign alone delivered stellar (pun absolutely intended) results. As for the WeAreCisco Instagram account, its engagement rate is five times the average for all industries (not just technology).

Congratulations to the Cisco Systems Talent Brand team of Macy Andrews, Carmen Collins, Casie Shimansky, Ray Leung and Tamar Glasner.

Harland Clarke, a marketing firm specializing in bank and credit union marketing, launched a 46-page e-book on millennial marketing at the beginning of 2018. It’s won first place in the “Sponsored Content” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

The book, “How to Master the Millennial Market,” was designed to drive users to register for emails from the company. Communicators saw greater potential, though: They believed the e-book’s contents could be repurposed as sponsored content and earned media placements.

The book is filled with research-backed insights on reaching the millennial market, a demographic that has proved challenging with the firm’s banking clients. The experiment with content that would drive reader engagement focused on elevating Harland Clarke’s brand as a thought leader.

The concept paid off. Two excerpts from the e-book were placed in the executive report of BAI, an industry association; they became two of the most successful articles BAI has published. The association asked to use the articles in other publications, increasing the impressions and click-throughs back to the source material on the Harland Clarke website, which delivered even more e-book downloads.

Ultimate proof of an e-book’s success (or any content marketing, for that matter) is its impact on the business. In Harland Clarke’s case, the e-book delivered 586 high-quality leads, 150 of which came from the sponsored-content placements with BAI.

Congratulations to the team of Scott Handy, Brandy Morton and Janet Reed.

A 10-year-old company formed from several firms to serve Swiss financial centers and banks by developing and operating infrastructure services, SIX was looking for a way to shine a light on its four business areas. Taking a page from old-school communication, the organization opted for a print publication—one that’s taken first place in the “Print Publication” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

Given the nature of its business, the communications team recognized the need to make the magazine, titled RED, stand out. They succeeded in ways that would make fashion magazines envious. From a high-quality paper stock that delivers warm presentations of high-end photography to feature articles that would attract readers with little interest in financial services, RED is a publication any organization would be proud of.

Even the table of contents is noteworthy, with a feature titled “Takeaway: The Magazine in 30 Seconds,” which provides a quick overview of the three most important topics. Full-page photos, standout sidebars, innovative visuals and outstanding data visualizations combine to make RED a publication that cries out to be flipped through and read.

The product is the result of a mandate to not be boring as it addresses a variety of issues and themes prevalent in the industry SIX serves. Sales representatives have been enthusiastic about handing out the magazine, which has also attracted the attention of journalists, politicians and influencers. Since the first two issues were published, SIX has seen its subscription list increase by 20 percent.

Congratulations to the team of Matthias Bill, Angélique El Morabit and Monika Häfliger.

Far too many infographics are muddled mashups of text and images that take too long to decipher. Successful infographics can be scanned and understood quickly, conveying most of their information through imagery and  employing the idea of visually displaying data. ShelterPoint Life hit all these notes in its series about state-mandated paid family leave in New York, and in so doing has won first place in the “Infographics” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

The required program represented a significant change in New York’s insurance ecosystem, potentially disrupting the work of carriers, brokers and employers. ShelterPoint, an expert in statutory short-term disability insurance (DBL), saw an opportunity to expand its reputation and also become a paid family leave (PFL) authority.

The infographic series is based on the need to translate complex regulatory language into simple concepts anybody could understand. The infographics established a clear identity for ShelterPoint’s PFL expertise. Creating the visuals started with establishing a visual theme that pushed the company’s identity to the background while reflecting the warm, positive concept of parents spending time with their newborns.

As part of a comprehensive communication effort, the infographics—which conveyed most of their information through data and images instead of words—helped drive 51,000 downloads of ShelterPoint’s PFL resources and a host of other positive metrics.

Congratulations to the team of Katrin Atienza, Stephanie Haber, Rebecca Hanna, Yiu-Wa Tso and Alexander Corrado.

Among a variety of other safety science-related services, UL—a global safety science company—offers Xplorlabs, a program which connects classrooms in middle schools to safety engineering challenges, real-world applications and innovation solutions, all part of the organization’s commitment to generating interest in STEM topics by encouraging students to “solve through science.” UL’s Xplorlabs has won first place in the “Influencer Content Marketing” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

The program launched a new module last year titled “Fire Forensics: Claims & Evidence.” Getting the word out to middle-school science and engineering teachers, though, was a clear challenge. Influencer marketing played a large part in the campaign, with agency Allison+Partners conducting in-depth research to identify 50 possible partners.

The agency then applied its proprietary Influencer Impact Score, which rates influencers based on a variety of dimensions, assigning a score to each of the 50 candidates. UL selected the final six who would be offered the gig.

The agency reached out to the influencers, collected rate cards, and negotiated contracts and deliverables. They also created a brief for the influencers that gave them all the information they needed to create relevant content. Allison+Partners evaluated each piece of content and determined the channels that would deliver the greatest impact.

Ultimately, the six influencers published 96 pieces of unique content, driving more than 2,800 engagements and more than 400 visits to the website. During the campaign, more than 3,700 people registered on the site.

The teams from UL and Allison+Partners have demonstrated the value of targeting influencers within a narrow niche.

Congratulations to Ginger Sommer, Cara Gizzi, Deepa Shankar, Dennis Avelar, Hellen Kim, Zoe Susice, Kelly Keena and Patrick Wilmot (UL Xplorlabs) and Alix Gilmore, Brian Brokowski, Caroline Roers, Casady Williams, Cassidy McClain, Jessica Fix, Jessica Hamilton, Laura Zilverberg, Lucy Arnold, Deb McCormick, Ryan Boser, Nycole Hampton, Katie Malark, Calvin Luu, Jeffrey Miao, Micah Baro, Owen Clark and Kevin Nabipour (Allison+Partners).

Jones PR’s Oklahoma 100 is a terrific idea executed perfectly. It’s so successful that it’s taken first place in the “Electronic Publication/e-Newsletter” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

Jones PR operates in Oklahoma; its market is Oklahoma businesses. The e-newsletter is one of the agency’s approaches to gaining visibility in its market. The Jones PR staff contributes most of the content to the newsletter: writers, photographers, videographers and PR experts who, according to Jones PR, “recognize the need for a quick bi-monthly e-newsletter focusing on Oklahoma.”

The newsletter is a blend of content offering a quick overview of “the people, news, events and ideas that shape our state.” Each article is precisely 100 words; videos are precisely 100 seconds (hence the newsletter’s name). Topics range from Oklahoma history to arts and entertainment, culture and business news, media, restaurants, events, travel and more.

Analytics suggest the approach resonates. The emailed newsletter has impressive open and read rates; website views are numerous and never seem to trail off. The approach demonstrates how subtle marketing that serves a marketplace can pay big returns, especially when it taps into the current zeitgeist while understanding thoroughly the interest of the people it’s trying to reach.

Congratulations to the team of Brenda Jones Barwick, Joshua Harlow, Chip Carter, Taylor Ketchum, Ashley Ross, Nicona Lane and Kristen Giroux.

Microsoft’s Story Labs has delivered a series of short animated videos—cartoons, essentially—that break down the biggest tech trends of the day to help people grasp them. These videos, dubbed “Explanimators,” have won first place in the “Content Series” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

The “Explanimators” have been viewed more than 1.4 million times, helping Microsoft establish the context for more complicated content, news and announcements as the company begins to offer products and services based on these technologies. The short animated videos are produced in partnership with Sundance-nominated animator Drew Christie and his Kalakala Studios, helping Microsoft be sure the messages would resonate beyond insiders who already comprehend these convoluted topics.

The videos not only help explain concepts, they introduce viewers to technologies that are new to them, like “Intelligent Edge” and “Cobotics” (collaborative robots). The series also covers blockchain, quantum computing, Mixed Reality and the Internet of Things. With eight videos in the bag so far, we’re eager to see more.

Spectrum Health’s Health Beat is a perennial award winner, and 2018 is no different. Once again, Health Beat has taken first place in the “Blog” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

The current Health Beat team approaches the health system’s blog as a brand journalism effort that tells “real stories of real people facing real struggles.” The journalistic bent means the blog mirrors what you might find in a publication: a managing editor, a multimedia manager, two photojournalists and a health care journalist; they supplement the full-time staff with the work of freelancers and fellow Spectrum Health staff.

The team works directly with service lines, accepting story pitches and coordinating resources. The opportunities presented in the posts for readers to connect with Spectrum Health are subtle; the story comes first. Articles are promoted through a variety of channels, including social media and email newsletters that serve a healthy number of subscribers. Posts are always well-written and supported with outstanding visuals.

The site reaches 10 million people each month; reach from social media and other media has far exceeded 100 million people, averaging 700,000 visits to the site each month. Some stories average more than 22 minutes of onscreen time (compared to a site average of just less than four minutes).

Health Beat employs a variety of techniques in each post, including world-class photography, with a main image at the top of the page and a carousel beneath it, allowing readers to scroll through as many photos as the team wants to share. The articles are beautifully and professionally written, attracting several comments, something other corporate blogs struggle to inspire (and that some have given up on altogether).

Congratulations to the team of Cheryl Welch, Jill Seidelman, Chris Clark, Sue Thoms and Taylor Ballek.

The National Fire Protection Association’s 120-year-old mission remains largely unchanged: ending death, injury, property and economic loss caused by preventable fires. A somewhat newer NFPA initiative is to have new homes built with sprinkler systems that meet regulatory requirements. Its success in getting the message out has won the NFPA first place in the “Audio Storytelling” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

The sprinkler technology can reduce the risk of death in a fire by 80 percent and property loss by 70 percent. Statistics, however, don’t get the point across the way storytelling can.

In recent years, a new form of podcasting has emerged: the limited-episode podcast that tells a story (as the host of the podcast “Serial,” Sarah Koenig, does week by week). The NFPA’s Fred Durso and Kyle MacNaught saw this as an ideal approach to convey the risks and long-term consequences of fire. They focused on the van Dijk family, which lost two children in a house fire.

The series that resulted, “The Survivors,” uses five episodes to explore different dimensions of the fire—from the family’s experience to the physical and emotional trauma experienced by burn victims, and from the new-home fire environment to the role sprinklers could have played in the van Dijk home.

Narrator Durso traveled to Wyoming to interview a host of people, including family members, neighbors and other residents. He visited the Utah burn center that treated the father and continues to treat his son. National safety advocates added depth to the reporting, which was edited into a compelling series that was released during Fire Prevention Week, when the group’s website experiences heavy traffic.

The series has been downloaded 7,000 times, enough for any organization to grasp the potential of the format.

Congratulations to the NFPA’s Fred Durso and Kyle MacNaught.

Microsoft Story Labs, the platform for original long-form multimedia content, was home to a remarkable piece of storytelling about the development of the first-ever game controller that could be adapted based on a user’s unique disability. The story has won first place in the “Article” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards

The article, “Plugged In,” delved deeply into the inspiration for the product, an idea created in an employee hackathon. The tale also addressed the challenge of convincing higher-ups of the value of introducing this product into the marketplace, considering the massive investment required. The article details everything from the product’s uniquely accessible packaging to how Microsoft obtained feedback from gamers and disability advocates.

Writer Deborah Bach interviewed some 30 people from both inside and outside of Microsoft; she even traveled to Colorado to talk with patients and clinicians who are using the controller as part of a therapeutic program at Craig Hospital, which specializes in rehabilitation for patients with spinal cord and brain injuries.

Congratulations to writer Deborah Bach.

Mayo Clinic is the #1 ranked hospital in the nation (U.S. News & World Report) and seeks the best talent. While Mayo Clinic has a strong employer brand positioning of “Life-Changing”, it’s content execution lacked the dimension, emotional connection and meaning behind it to demonstrate how one could experience a life-changing career at Mayo. There was also a gap in how the employer value proposition was translated to internal employees and external audiences.

The opportunity the team had was to tell a bigger story around the brand idea to get candidates to believe they can experience a life-changing career at Mayo Clinic. Ultimately, the goal was to drive deeper engagement around the brand, inspire the right talent to join and to enable the positioning to truly differentiate the Mayo Clinic employer brand promise.

Working with J. Walter Thompson INSIDE, Mayo developed a content strategy to give meaning, context and depth to their life-changing  EVP.

The first phase of the effort involved a social media strategy that employed storytelling to drive engagement on Facebook and LinkedIn. Mayo introduced seven content themes, like “My Life Today. My Life Tomorrow” (before-and-after stories), “Many Choices. Many Places” (focusing on lifestyle opportunities in the regions where Mayo has facilities) and “Future Focus” (about Mayo’s vision for the future).

The content within all seven categories was driven by a story-first mentality, conveying what it really means to have a life-changing career at Mayo Clinic. The results have been strong, producing above-average reach on Facebook and a 300 percent increase in engagement on LinkedIn.

Congratulations to Pete Price, Ariana Rivera-Goldberg, Nate Harris and Laura DePeters.

After months of failed negotiations, Mission Health System (Mission Health) decided to cancel their contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (Blue Cross NC). Unable to reach an agreement over how best to control rising medical costs, Mission Health walked away from the negotiation table and announced their intent to withdraw from Blue Cross NC networks. Blue Cross NC customers would no longer be able to receive in-network care at Mission Health and would either need to choose an alternate provider or be on the hook for the full cost of their care. Communicating the implications of that change has won Blue Cross NC first place in the “Reputation Management” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

Blue Cross NC’s communications team developed hard hitting key messages to keep the focus squarely on Mission Health’s decision to terminate the contract and its decision to walk away and become the only hospital in North Carolina not in Blue Cross NC’s networks.

Over time, Blue Cross NC aimed to ensure its messaging was focused on its customers and softened its messages to emphasize its commitment to its customers and its commitment to helping them navigate this transition. It took its key messages directly to its target audiences through traditional paid media, public relations, social media and grasstops tactics.

The first press release, in addition to articulating the insurer’s position, provided a list of nearby in-network hospitals for the media to share. Blue Cross NC published a landing page on its blog dedicated to the issue and maintained a steady drumbeat of information, ultimately driving Mission back to the negotiating table. The hospital system gave in to Blue Cross NC’s request for a multiyear contract based on quality measures and outcomes.

A comprehensive follow-up campaign let customers know they could once again receive in-network care at Mission Health. During the period when the hospital was not available, 23 percent of customers polled indicated that they had gone to an alternate hospital. Ninety-six percent of them were satisfied with the experience and half said they would continue using the alternate hospital. That’s a remarkable feat of reputation management.

Congratulations to the team of David Kochman, Darcie Dearth, James LaCorte, Michelle Patterson, Sarah McDaniel, Austin Vevurka, and Melissa Biediger.

Ingredion helps food producers formulate more attractive products, and supplies the starches used to manufacture a variety of foods, from tortilla chips to yogurt. Getting the attention of companies developing and producing consumer food products is no easy task. So it took a genuinely innovative idea to win Ingredion first place in the “Lead Generation” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

The goal was to produce leads resulting in sales worth 10 times the cost of the campaign. Working with marketing communications agency Stein IAS, Ingredion focused on how people eat rather than the flavors that appeal to them. This new approach drew on research that divided people into four eating styles: crunchers, chewers, smooshers and suckers.

The company’s own research identified how many people from each category lived in key European markets, then correlated those findings with food groups like tortilla chips, pizza, and yogurt. The campaign, which aimed to inspire new approaches to selling food based on sensory characteristics, began with the “Ultimate Crisp Experience” video, which the company promoted via the web, traditional public relations, social media and email marketing.

The video was followed by a series of content, including a report, “Eating Styles: The Complete Guide to our Unexpressed Love of Food” this attracted 16 pieces of premier European media coverage and helped the campaign achieve ROI that doubled the campaign’s goal of 10:1.