THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Industry

See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Auto See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Beauty See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Business to Business See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Consumer Brand See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Education See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Entertainment See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Financial Services See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Fitness, Health, & Wellness
<br>See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Food & Beverage
See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Gaming See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Government & Politics See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Hospitality See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Insurance See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Live Events See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> News & Media See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Non-Profit See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Pets & Animals See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Pharma & Healthcare See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Real Estate See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Restaurants See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Retail & E-Commerce See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Social Activism See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Sports See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Technology See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Television See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Travel & Tourism See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Wine, Beer & Spirits

Strategy & Engagement

See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Brand Partnership See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Call to Action See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Community Management See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Creative Use of Technology See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> CTV/OTT See previous winners and honorees for Insights and Trends here.</a> <a href=https://shortyawards.com/17th/"https://shortyawards.com/category/16th/data-visualization">See previous winners and honorees for Data Visualization here.</a>"> Data & Insights See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Earned Media See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Event & Experiential See previous winners and honorees here.</a>""> Gamification See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Humor See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Innovative Media Buying Strategy See previous winners and honorees here.</a>""> Integration with Traditional Media See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Internal Communications See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> LGBTQ Community Engagement See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Micro-Influencer Strategy See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Multicultural Community Engagement See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Music & Dance See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> On a Shoestring See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Organic Promotion See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Paid & Amplification See previous winner and honorees here.</a>"> Physical and Digital Convergence See previous winner and honorees here.</a>"> Public Service Announcement See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Real Time Response See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> SEO & SEM See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Social Commerce See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Storytelling

NBCUniversal's The More You Know

Finalist in Public Service Announcement

Entered in Integration with Traditional Media, Multi-Platform Campaign, Multi-Platform Presence, Social Good Campaign

Objective

Simply stated, The More You Know (TMYK) is iconic. The shooting star, the jingle–this PSA campaign has been part of the cultural zeitgeist and Americans’ lexicon for over 35 years. At its core, TMYK educates, encourages, and inspires people of all ages to take an active role in improving the world we live in. It all started in September 1989 when NBC News’ Tom Brokaw recorded the first PSA that aired on NBC. The familiarity and reach of NBCUniversal talent coupled with approachable advice on the most pressing societal issues continue to fuel its efficacy to this day.  

The challenge for 2024 was adapting this respected and storied brand to engage new, younger audiences on social media.  

Strategy

Social media has moved past being a repository for traditional, linear-produced content to be re-shared. It’s no longer effective or even acceptable to post 16x9 video on Instagram and TikTok–it needs to be 9x16 in order to resonate with audiences. This posed a challenge for TMYK because its “homebase” is traditional TV, but what performs best in a :30 and :15 PSA in a commercial break does not perform best on social. TMYK needed to find a way to share its information, inspiration, and impact that was still up to the standards of NBCU (in terms of production and talent participation) but felt more casual, approachable, and authentically social.  

Rather than script talent as is done for the TV PSAs, TMYK would tee up a prompt to talent and allow them to answer off-the-cuff and from the heart on the most pressing societal issues of the day. And, rather than seeing talent on a polished, produced set as is typical for the TV PSAs, they were captured in behind-the-scenes environments that felt more intimate. These production approaches resulted in social videos that gave viewers more insight into how the talent were “just like us,” dealing with the same issues and authentically opening up about their lived experiences.  

TMYK also produced social-first videos that aimed to highlight the brand’s history, nostalgia, and omnipresence to younger audiences who may not be as familiar with it–we’re talking about cord cutters who might not have ever seen a traditional TV PSA! By leaning into trends, TMYK showed up to tell its brand story in a way younger social audiences would fundamentally resonate with–and that married well with the work being done on linear and streaming.  

Results

2024 was TMYK’s best year on social ever. YOY, video views went up 338.7% and impressions went up 245.4%. 

Beyond the numbers, TMYK re-solidified itself in the minds of talent and audiences as a PSA brand that could translate to social and leverage social platforms for good.  

Entrant Company / Organization Name

NBCUniversal's The More You Know

Links

Entry Credits