Prudential Financial launched the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards in 1995 to recognize students in middle-level and high school grades for their outstanding acts of volunteerism. At the same time, DDRPR launched a media relations campaign for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards that continued for 28 years.
The overarching goal of this program was to gain recognition and favorability for the Prudential brand by celebrating young people who are making a difference in their communities through volunteer work and inspiring others to get involved.
Prudential partnered with NASSP (National Association of Secondary School Principals) to develop and implement the awards program, including leveraging the organization’s reach and expertise in secondary education to get the word out to schools, teachers, and parents, in order to encourage student applications.
The program was renamed Prudential Emerging Visionaries in 2022, in partnership with Ashoka, an organization that promotes social entrepreneurship by connecting and supporting individual social entrepreneurs. Prudential aimed for Prudential Emerging Visionaries to focus on “young leaders ages 14-18 who have fresh, innovative solutions to pressing financial and societal challenges.”
Both programs, the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and Prudential Emerging Visionaries, emphasized media coverage as the primary means for which to promote the program’s Call for Entries, as well as highlight each of the student winners and their achievements, and the objectives of the Prudential awards overall.
Challenges
- To promote the achievements of outstanding young people through the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards and Prudential Emerging Visionaries, while still highlighting Prudential Financial as the creator and sponsor of these two programs.
- To generate widespread traditional media buzz in national and local media en masse to fuel teen volunteer participation.
- To pitch and secure placements about the awards program youth volunteerism and innovation, and the individual student winners and their achievements in target media.
- To ensure that Prudential is mentioned, as well as the full name of the award (including Prudential) is included in our media placements.
- Celebrate youth volunteerism and its impact on academic and social achievement (kids who get involved in volunteer projects do better in school, get along better with their parents, and are more able to resist substance abuse than those who don’t. Statistically, 90% of today’s teenagers who volunteer are happy and feel good about themselves).
- Develop new angles throughout our 28-year tenure to keep the stories fresh, exciting, and newsworthy.
DDRPR Strategies
- Develop a nationwide “media tour” campaign, focusing on each of the winner’s home markets to generate prominent coverage on local morning and midday TV shows, as well as in daily newspapers and magazines.
- Develop news stories featuring the student winners tied in with current local happenings and news events.
- Leverage events surrounding the student’s projects to generate media coverage.
- Coordinate “staged” segments at the student’s school and/or on location at the student’s project location.
- Schedule segments on top-tier national TV shows, like TODAY, CNN and CBS Mornings
DDRPR Action
Our program was a year-round media blitz, with media strategies that focused on key benchmarks:
January-May
- Announced the 102 State winners; pitched local daily newspapers and local TV
- Secured placements about the 102 State Winners in daily newspapers, consumer, teen, and women’s publications, local TV interview shows, and specialty magazines
- Conducted media training and coaching for the winners and their parents including creating interview questions and answers.
- Conducted local TV media blitz focusing on National Volunteer Month in April
- Began publicizing the national finals event that is held in May in Washington DC.
May-September
- Conducted media campaign to generate coverage of annual national finals event in May in Washington DC
- Focused media placement efforts on “American’s Top 10 Youth Volunteers”
*chosen from the 102 state winners, the top 10 national winners were announced at the National Finals
- Developed media placements focusing on the “Top 10”
September/October
- Media placement activities focused on the applications and entry deadline.
November/December
- Holiday season of giving pitches and placements
DDRPR Impact & Results
The results of each year’s program over 28 years exceeded our expectations from the prior year. From AM Chicago and Good Day Atlanta to the Today Show, CNN, and CBS Mornings, our results boasted the best of local and national television. From the Boston Globe, the LA Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today, we secured prominent features in national and local daily newspapers, as well as major news, women’s, and teen magazines like US News & World Report, Glamour, Woman’s Day, Essence, Seventeen, Teen magazine, etc., resulting in countless placements and impressions.
