Division A - Public Relations Programs
Category 1 - Community Relations
Middleton Lawn & Pest Control 2007 "What's Bugging You?" Youth Achievement Award
PUSH
Award of Distinction
Research/Situation Analysis:
As Middleton Lawn & Pest Control prepared for the celebration of
its 55th Anniversary, the lawn care, termite and pest control company
looked for a way to positively impact the community and increase brand
awareness in a crowded Florida landscape. As a result, Middleton's
agency of record, PUSH, developed a promotion that was unique,
proprietary and "ownable" by Middleton to capture mind and market share
within the company's existing service territories. To accomplish this,
an inaugural youth achievement award program was designed to capture
the thoughts of Florida's graduating high school seniors, thereby
providing a venue for voices of an often dismissed and unheard group.
The
Middleton Lawn & Pest Control "What's Bugging You?" Youth
Achievement Award competition was created to honor one winner per
participating Florida county with personal recognition by a Middleton
branch manager at the winner's school awards ceremony, an Award of
Excellence, an iPod Shuffle MP3 player, and a $1,000 award toward
college expenses. The competition was open to all high school seniors
throughout the 19 Florida counties that Middleton serves - Alachua,
Brevard, Duval, Flagler, Hernando, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lake,
Marion, Martin, Orange, Osceola, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Sarasota,
Seminole, St. Johns, and Volusia - encouraging students through pickup
in local publications and urgings from their guidance counselors to
submit application entries from Oct. 9, 2006 through Jan. 31, 2007. To
enter, students had to submit a completed, official application form, a
500 to 700-word essay telling Middleton what was bugging them, a
certified sealed copy of their high school transcripts, and a letter of
recommendation from a guidance counselor, pastor, youth counselor or
other community figure.
Objectives: (1) Establish brand awareness of
Middleton Lawn & Pest Control among the families of high school
students, school administrators and county leadership through the
generation of a least 150 total entries in the program's first year,
(2) Generate a minimum of18 total positive media hits relating to the
program, an average of six hits per media DMA throughout Middleton's
service territory, and (3) Execute a successful program that delivered
at least a 400 percent return on investment in publicity value.
Implementation: PUSH developed an electronic
application form, flyer, script to be read over the schools' PA
systems, blurb for inclusion in school newspapers/newsletters, and
cover letter that were sent to guidance counselors and principals at
approximately 185 public and private schools within the participating
counties. In addition, the competition's official entry form and flyer,
as well as entry guidelines and a downloadable four-page
Q & A
document outlining program details, requirements and examples were made
available on the Middleton Web site to assist students in submitting
their entries.
On the back-end, comprehensive judging procedures
and a standard scoring sheet were created to allow the panel of judges
to easily review the essays for topic, grammar and content. The panel
consisted of Middleton management, business alliances and volunteer
educators who awarded points for the student's citizenship, leadership,
teamwork and awards earned in an effort to target high school seniors
with interests beyond academics. Once all applications were reviewed
and scored by one of five judging teams - comprised of two judges
specifically paired to compliment each other's diverse cultural
affinities, beliefs and mindsets, thereby negating bias opinions - the
scores were averaged to obtain the top 10 entries per county. Judges
met a second time to reevaluate the finalists and agree on the winning
entries.
The momentum and preparations did not stop once the
winners were announced. PUSH created phone scripts and announcement
letters to notify the winners of their accomplishments. Thank you
letters were also mailed to all non-winning participants. PUSH then
coordinated Middleton participation in each of the winners' school
award ceremonies, an undertaking that accumulated more than 46 hours in
drive-time and approximately 2,700 miles by PUSH team members in a
nine-week period. At each event, a scripted Middleton branch manager
presented the winning student with his or her prizes, and a PUSH
representative captured a commemorative photo that would later
accompany one of three district-specific announcement press releases.
Evaluation: The inaugural youth achievement
awards competition created brand awareness among its target audiences
by generating a total of 214 entries from 17 of the 19 participating
counties, which exceeded the previously set objective of 150 desired
entries by 43 percent. In addition, PUSH's media relations efforts
garnered a total of 31 media hits (to date) that translate to more than
$226,351 in adjusted publicity value - surpassing the projected total
media hits by 72 percent and yielding a more than 790 percent return on
investment in adjusted publicity value.
Budget: The overall budget for the Middleton Lawn
& Pest Control "What's Bugging You?" Youth Achievement Award
competition totals approximately $36,100*, consisting of roughly
$15,300* in agency time and $20,800* in out of pocket expenses that
included costs for travel and incidentals, 17 $1,000 scholarship
awards, 17 iPod MP3 players, and postage. *Please note that the final
project budget will not be reconciled until media relations efforts for
the recently distributed winner announcements have concluded.