The PRSA 2011 Silver Anvil Awards podcast series features finalists from this year's program. The Silver Anvil Award recognizes complete public relations programs incorporating measurable and sound research, planning, execution and evaluation. These four areas represent the solid criteria by which senior practitioners judge each entry to ensure it meets the highest standards of performance in the profession.
Join Gary McCormick, APR, PRSA Fellow, as he speaks with Stacie Paxton, vice president at Hill & Knowlton, about how Johnson & Johnson teamed with the Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition, Voxiva, CTIA-The Wireless Foundation and Hill & Knowlton to promote their Best of Silver Anvil Award winning campaign, “text4baby: Going Mobile With Pregnancy Education.”
Each year, 500,000 American babies are born prematurely, and 28,000 die before their first birthday. Medical experts agree that awareness of proper prenatal care can help a mother deliver a healthy baby. “Text4baby” makes receiving this information easy by delivering it directly to mobile devices where it’s more likely to be read.
The strategy relied on generating free coverage with a local radio PSA campaign featuring pro-bono celebrity spokesperson, Sherri Shepherd, and securing a media partnership while building national and local partners. Following the campaign, “text4baby” achieved 650+ placements, resulting in 75 million impressions and driving 134,000+ subscribers.
Gary McCormick served as PRSA chair and CEO in 2010. He currently works in the corporate public relations arena as director of partnership development for HGTV.