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The Salvation Army and Xenophon Strategies receive award.
On September 24, The Salvation Army’s National Community Relations and Development Section—along with its national public relations firm Xenophon Strategies—received an award in the category of reputation/brand management at the 41st annual Thoth Awards in Washington, D.C, recognizing the public relations work surrounding the 2008 Red Kettle Christmas Campaign. The National Capital Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America presented the honor.
The award was based on the following overall evaluation.
The Red Kettle Campaign raised $130 million in 2008, a 10 percent increase over 2007.
Audience impressions of the campaign’s national coverage increased 40 percent year-over-year to 290 million.
The Jonas Brothers’ online Red Kettle raised more than $8,000 and sparked the interest of teen fans. Overall coverage of the brothers’ partnership generated over 224 million hits.
Q&A Research, Inc.—a third-party polling firm—showed the Army with an 83 percent favorability rating, leading the five other peer organizations researched.
Only one peer showed a rise in favorability during the same time period; the other four dropped 5 to 7 percent.
Third-party research showed that of the top five national charities, The Salvation Army received 43 percent of all media coverage during Christmas. The closest peer group received 26 percent.
This equaled 3.6 billion viewing opportunities and $32 million in comparative ad value, a 33 percent year-over-year increase from $24 million.
Messages about the Red Kettle Campaign, as well as programs and services, were prevalent in all coverage and a tonality index showed that it was overwhelmingly positive.
A great deal of thoughtful strategy and hard work went into last year’s campaign—along with the dedication and commitment of both The Salvation Army and Xenophon Strategies.
Read more about this year’s Thoth Awards online at the Washington Examiner: https://bit.ly/2KyW4k.
This is the second award honoring the Red Kettle Campaign. Earlier this year The Salvation Army and Xenophon received a Bronze Anvil from the national Public Relations Society of America for the satellite media tour with the Jonas Brothers, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and National Commander Commissioner Israel L. Gaither that kicked off the national kettle campaign. More about that may be found at https://bit.ly/3Yesbh.