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

United Way Benefit for Hurricane Relief

Entered in Social Good Campaign

Objective

The Insight: The frequency and severity of catastrophic storms and natural disasters, coupled with shifts in insurance culpability and responsibility have left people frustrated and scared. The 24 hour news cycle puts the destruction and disaster on full display and people are realizing the full impact of the devastation. 

 

In late September 2024, Hurricane Helene caused widespread catastrophic damage and numerous fatalities across the Southeastern United States. Less than two weeks later, the same region was hit by Hurricane Milton. This initiative was created to support all the communities impacted by those back-to-back hurricanes.

Local United Way chapters immediately began responding in the community. United Way Worldwide needed to develop a scaled effort to increase public engagement at a national level to ensure continued support and support the teams on the ground in those communities.

 

Strategy

The Idea: The United Way Benefit for Hurricane Relief was created as a moment of reflection and hope to tap into the cultural collectivism to help rebuild for those that have lost everything. A nationally televised benefit to engage a wider consumer network and develop additional streams of funding for response relief and long-term recovery.

The Activation: We developed The United Way Benefit for Hurricane Relief, a one-hour special that brought together some of the biggest names across music, television and entertainment to mobilize communities and raise critical funds for relief and recovery following Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which caused an estimated $50 billion in damage. Performers, partners, and celebrities, particularly those from the impacted areas, came together with music, words of encouragement and hope to help raise funds for those impacted. It included performances from Brittney Spencer, Chris Janson, Clay Aiken, Jonathan McReynolds and Tyler Hubbard with special messages and appearances by Backstreet Boys, Billy Bob Thornton, Billy Burke, Blake Shelton, Carly Pearce, Cedric The Entertainer, Cody Alan, Jackson Dean, JB SMOOVE, Kelsea Ballerini, Max Thieriot, Nate Burleson, Stephen Colbert, Taye Diggs, Zac Brown Band, alongside real life heroes Mark Starling and Tank Spencer and more. The benefit was nationally televised to engage a wider consumer network and create additional streams of funding that were distributed back to the local United Way for use in response relief and long-term recovery. Proceeds from the special, which aired on November 2 in Nashville supported the hurricane relief and long-term recovery efforts and benefited individuals and families across southeastern U.S. 

The Benefit was conceived, organized, and executed in just 19 days thanks to strong engagement, collaboration and support from local United Ways, networks, and partners.

The seamless integration of the networks and skillsets across all organizations - content creation, media, and fundraising - allowed for the team to act quickly, decisively and definitively across all facets of the program. Leaning on each others' expertise created clear responsibilities and actions - without that clarity - it would have been impossible to engage this many people, across this many organizations and companies to create this level of impact.

 

Results

Media

Entrant Company / Organization Name

Elite Media, United Way

Links

Entry Credits