Pinnacle Award: Best of Show Program Q&A
Angela Tuell’s public relations and communications agency, Communications Redefined, received Best of Show Program at the Pinnacle Awards this year. Here is a more detailed look at her winning campaign and her organization.
Tell me more about your company Communications Redefined.
We are a public relations and communications agency consisting of only senior level practitioners who work remotely and serve clients across the country and the world. We are headquartered in Indianapolis, but have team members throughout the U.S. Angela Tuell, APR, founded the agency in 2013 after years in corporate, nonprofit and agencies in-house. She began her career as a television journalist and her experience as a former journalist allows her to think like a reporter and work with media as only an insider could.
We specialize in media relations, media training, crisis communications, reputation management, social media, marketing communications and content development. We break through the noise and raise awareness with the audiences who matter to our clients.
We are results obsessed. We are available and responsive! We are relationship builders and big picture thinkers. We strive to deliver before it’s asked for. Our job is to make our clients’ jobs easier.
What kind of clients do you work with?
We work in many industries from travel & tourism to legal to healthcare to nonprofit, as well as technology, financial, agriculture, B2B, clothing/fashion, hospitality, consumer products and others. The industry does not define us, our work does!
Tell me more about your Baalbek Reborn Virtual Tour Launch campaign.
Flyover Zone, a team of international archeologists and historians hired Communications Redefined to gain awareness of the launch of a new virtual tour app promoting the beauty and history of UNESCO World Heritage Site, Baalbek, in the country of Lebanon, to the U.S., Canadian and UK markets.
Communications Redefined’s international team of PR practitioners implemented a comprehensive media relations, PR and marketing plan over a four week period that led to exceeding the goal of 10,000 downloads, being named in the Apple Store’s Education category as a top #40 app and garnering more than a thousand articles within just a few days of launch.
How were you able to connect with the UNESCO World Heritage Site for this project?
Communications Redefined was recommended by a current client to the international company Flyover Zone who creates curated virtual tours of the world’s great cultural heritage sites through apps that are available on VR headsets, phones, tablets and computers.
What made this campaign challenging?
We were on an extremely tight timeline – 5 weeks to launch – to develop a comprehensive communications plan and implement it! We were also working with an International team made up of professionals in the U.S., Canada, UK, Germany, Dubai and Lebanon (both our team members and the clients’). Our success was based on direct action, number of downloads of the app once it launched.
How was social media content utilized for this project?
The social media campaign of the marketing communication plan included reaching the target publics directly through social media channels and encouraging them to download the app. To build cohesive brand awareness, as well as to avoid confusion in the media and marketplace, Communications Redefined used existing and active Flyover Zone accounts as the primary social media platforms to directly reach existing and prospective audiences with interactive, innovative, and expert messaging on behalf of the Lebanese Antiquities Services, German Archeological Institute, and Flyover Zone.
The scope of social media management work included but was not limited to paid and organic social content writing, design, publishing, and monitoring; and evaluating and reporting to involve quantitative and qualitative data for social reach, views, engagement, downloads, and success stories; and implementing social media posts corresponding with an editorial calendar.
On March 31, 2021, Flyover Zone was launching Baalbek Reborn, a virtual tour promoting the beauty and history of Baalbek, Lebanon. Based in Bloomington, Indiana, and Rome, Italy, Flyover Zone creates virtual tours taking anyone across space and back in time to see the world’s great cultural heritage sites. These virtual tours run on devices ranging from smartphones and PCs to VR goggles. Flyover Zone was working with the German Archeological Institute and Lebanese Antiquities Services when a generous sponsor offered $1 million to pay for promotions to ensure 10,000 downloads of the Baalbek Reborn app.
With just over five weeks until the Baalbek Reborn launch, Flyover Zone approached Communications Redefined in late February 2021 with a challenge. If we had $1 million dollars, could we guarantee 10,000 downloads of Baalbek Reborn in just one week? Instead of simply saying ‘yes,’ we challenged Flyover Zone representatives about their excessive budget and narrow goal. We warned them of click farms that were not organic, quality results, and we argued we could help them achieve more with less – much less. Flyover Zone leaders appreciated the ethically inspired challenge and hired Communications Redefined in early March.