THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

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

Industry

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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

Tough Day to be a Yankees Fan

Entered in Meme, GIF, & Emojis

Objective

The idea and goal was to be culturally relevant and in the space that our brand is able to play. We set out this past 2024 season, across our integrated marketing department, to hone in our tone of “Southern Swag”. For us, having complete brand voice clarity was new for the organization and frankly something that was needed. This nominated post was the culmination of all that work that was put in with the leaders and organization in the offseason. In the past, we likely wouldn’t have been able to get the concept off the ground. But having the brand voice and the goal of being culturally relevant drove us to a successful internet moment – The most interactions on a Twitter/X post by an NFL team in the 2024 season AND the highest interacted Twitter/X post all-time from the Atlanta Falcons

Strategy

As the attention was amplifying on the 2024 Falcons season, the social team was able to capitalize on the internet-driven trend of the bandwagon Cowboys/Lakers/Yankees fan. Coming off a World Series defeat, Yankee fans were visible and meme’d all over the internet in the October month.

Each week the social team would come together with diverse ideas on how to lead into the week with cultural moments and then an eventual win. Our team had several versions of the post at the ready, depending on the tone of the win and saved away for Sunday.

In this business, you can’t control or manipulate the outcome of a game, so oftentimes this work can go into the trash, but in this instance the team was prepared for the moment and created virality and tapped into not only Falcons but all of sports fandom.

Results

Two goals in our content is to drive emotional reaction and be culturally relevant. This specific post met the moment in a severe degree.

As mentioned earlier, we set out to clearly establish our Atlanta Falcons “brand voice” as “Southern Swag”. In the past, we oftentimes were playing in a space where we could be unsure of what we could and could not do as an organization. We clearly defined those rules for not only the social team, but every person who has visibility into content.

This post put our team on the map internally, that we were established and ready to make significant impacts online.

Media

Entrant Company / Organization Name

Atlanta Falcons

Links

Entry Credits