At Durée & Company, we’re so very pleased when our hard work and expertise pay off for our clients – and we’re also thrilled when it’s recognized by worldwide executives (240 to be exact), who recently awarded us with 2014 The American Business AwardsSM, the nation’s premier business awards program.
On June 13, those executives deemed us worthy of yet two more American Business Awards, also known as the Stevie® Awards (we have won three since 2012): a Silver and a Bronze. The awards were presented at the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park Hotel in Chicago, Ill. More than 3,300 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of categories.
We won the Silver Stevie in the category of Communications or PR Campaign of the Year – Community Relations for our work with Feeding South Florida (FSF), the state’s largest food bank and one of 202 member food banks in the Feeding America™ network. With our campaign “When the Government Shuts Down: Feeding South Florida Responds to a National Crisis,” we were awarded for raising awareness of FSF’s mission, reaching potential donors and volunteers, and rallying public support for FSF during the Oct. 1–16, 2013 U.S. Federal Government shutdown. The coverage we achieved spanned across the country, including NBC Nightly News and MSNBC’s Weekends with Alex Witt, with an estimated total audience of 16,452,094.
Our Bronze Stevie Award came for our work with the groundbreaking social enterprise Rising Tide Car Wash, located in Parkland, Florida. We won in the category of Communications or PR Campaign of the Year – Reputation/Brand Management for far surpassing industry norms in promoting this unique social enterprise, which empowers young adults with autism. Before, during and after Rising Tide’s April 2013 opening, we introduced it to the community and the media, establishing it as a successful formula for franchise opportunities and building its customer and employee base. In the first month alone, we generated the equivalent of almost $98,000 in publicity value, with coverage from Texas to Guam, and Virginia to Hawaii. We’re continuing to build the reputation and awareness of Rising Tide among media outlets, so that it becomes a nationally-recognized concept and brand.
Winning awards is, well, just plain nice. And we look forward to winning many, many more of them in the future.