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This week, Inside PR and PRSA present the second of two special episodes featuring Martin’s interviews with Silver Anvil Awards finalists.
Adrienne Hayes is the general manager of consumer marketing at Edelman in New York. She led the team on its campaign for Church and Dwight called ‘Trojan Pulls Back the Sheets on Sexy Tech’.
Focusing their strategy on making the subject matter more approachable, they leveraged ‘adjacency categories’, that is industries that were also known for product breakthroughs. They decided to treat the new Trojan products as cool ‘tech gadgets’ and launch them at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And while some media were red-faced when presented with the story, they quickly understood the tie in; it appealed to media who wanted something new and fresh to write about.
They continued their creative approach during the second part of the year when they took the show on the road and launched the ‘Good Vibrations Truck Tour’ around Manhattan to give people an opportunity to ‘see, touch and feel’ the different products. They used social media to drive awareness of where the trucks would be and encouraged consumers to talk openly about what has traditionally been a taboo subject.
Doug Piwinski, senior vice president of marketing and communications at Toms, tells us about the company’s ‘One Day Without Shoes’ initiative, which began as an April Fool’s gag and developed into a global campaign. Tom’s is unique as a business because they don’t rely on traditional advertising and instead build relationships with customers through social media and word of mouth. Each year the company activates its community by asking them to give up wearing shoes for one day in order to experience what life is like for children who don’t have shoes.
The program comes to life through a series of grassroots events in cities around the world and is promoted via a microsite which encourages people to plan and post events.
They worked with Ketchum PR in LA to craft a phased strategy and weren’t expecting the snowball effect that took place this year including stories on the home page of AOL and MSN and becoming number one trending topic on Twitter. Toms effectively uses an influencer strategy to inspire people to engage, raise awareness for an important cause and think about social entrepreneurship in a new way.
This year’s Silver Anvil awards will be presented in New York City on June 7, 2012. Inside PR will be there.
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Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.
This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.