Werth creative team with Silver Tellys. From left: Pete Potenzini, Ken Waldron and Lena Alidib

Like most people, we love being recognized for doing great work, mostly by our clients, but it’s also nice to win awards in our respective practice areas as well. We enter all sorts of award competitions – PRism, Silver Anvil, ADDYs, Stevies, American Marketing Association just to name a few – some national, some local.

Most recently, we captured 2010 Telly Awards for clients SafeAuto Insurance and the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, while our huber+co. interactive team won two 2010 Ohio Interactive Awards!

• SafeAuto took home two Silver and three Bronze Tellys for Werth’s Justin Case and Michael Redd advertising campaigns.

• The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption won a Silver Telly for Werth’s “Waiting for One Day” public service announcement.

The 31st annual Telly Awards received more than 13,000 entries from all 50 states and five continents. The awards honor the best local, regional and cable television commercials and programs, as well as the finest video and film productions and work created for the Web.

huber + co. team accepts Ohio Interactive Award. From left: Presenter Will Burris of 247 Interactive, Nathan Demick and Bryan Huber of huber + co., Host Johnny DiLoretto from WSYX ABC6

The huber+co. interactive team won 2010 Ohio Interactive Awards for work completed before the firm’s acquisition by Werth. Awards included:

• Best Social/Web Twitter campaign for the TweetMyTime race-marketing engine, which debuted at the Nationwide Better Health Columbus Marathon.

• Best Retail/Ecommerce/Online Marketplace for The Celebration Shoppe website.

The Ohio Interactive Awards were created to bring attention to the outstanding digital and interactive work being done in the state of Ohio. huber + co. interactive was a founding sponsor, and Paul Werth an event sponsor, for the inaugural awards. A panel of marketing industry leaders chose winners based on strategy, execution and results from dozens of entries from across the state.

Talk about buzz words! Today, the biggest buzz word is SOCIAL MEDIA (or is that two words?). Without it, your business cannot survive … right?

Well, that’s a little extreme, but if you want your business to thrive, Social Media can really make an M-Pact, as Werth Chief Interactive Officer Bryan Huber and Vice President Kim Ratcliff recently demonstrated.

On April 30, the pair gave a presentation on “Making Sense of Social Media” at M-PACT, the convenience store and petroleum marketers’ four-state regional conference. Nearly 200 attendees squeezed into the standing-room-only presentation.

The key takeaway? Marketers from every industry should first consider strategy, then determine whether social media are good channels for reaching the target audience.

Many audiences, even those not traditionally considered, are active social media users — making social media an effective way to engage customers. Savvy marketers set strategy first, then communicate through social media and other channels to drive home brand messaging and nurture online relationships.

Slides from the presentation are available here.

Congratulations to White Castle, Huntington, Corporate Research International (CRI) and Sister Schubert’s Homemade Rolls! Over the past few weeks, they have been featured in elite national print and broadcast media such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times and CNN – helping to boost awareness of their goals, enhance corporate reputation and drive sales.

Beginning in January, Werth’s media outreach for White Castle’s special Valentine’s Day reservations promotion and wedding contests generated more than 530 stories, 78 million impressions and $1.9 million in advertising equivalency through coverage by NBC’s “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” CNN, “The CBS Evening News,” “The Early Show,” The New York Times, “ABC World News Now,” comedienne Chelsea Lately, The Chicago Sun-Times, Advertising Age, The Los Angeles Times, Newsday and print and broadcast media in every White Castle market. The earned media hits drove record reservations for the family-owned fast-food hamburger chain. Many of the 356 participating restaurants were fully booked, including a White Castle in Westerville, where 16 Werth team members and guests celebrated on Valentine’s Day.

Also in January, the results of Huntington Bank’s small business survey were featured in the snapshot section on the front page of USA Today. And Huntington’s announcement of a new $4 billion commitment to new small business lending generated more than 60 stories, resulting in 14 million impressions through placements in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes online and BusinessWeek online in addition to print and broadcast media in local markets across the regional bank’s seven-state footprint.

In February, mystery shopping research company CRI made the front page of USA Today with a graphic snapshot of airline customer service satisfaction drawn from its survey of 1,500 airline panelists.

And on Monday, March 22, Sister Schubert’s Homemade Rolls appeared on the “Feel-Good Foods” episode of “Unwrapped,” one of the Food Network’s oldest and most popular programs.

To talk about placing your company and your brand in the national spotlight, please contact Karen Twinem, executive vice president, at (614) 224-8114 or ktwinem@paulwerth.com.

Integrated campaigns for Sister Schubert’s Homemade Rolls and the Ohio Business Development Coalition were named winners in the 2009 Diamond Awards sponsored by the East Central District of the Public Relations Society of America.

Sister Schubert’s took home a Diamond award and Best of Show honors for integrated brand communications, while OBDC won an Award of Excellence for integrated communications. The winning campaigns were selected from a field of 65 entries representing nine local PRSA chapters within the East Central District. The awards were presented at the March 18 luncheon of Central Ohio PRSA.