Company: Aflac, Columbus, GA
Company Description: When a policyholder gets sick or hurt, Aflac pays cash benefits. For six decades, Aflac insurance policies have given policyholders the opportunity to focus on recovery, not financial stress. In the US, Aflac is the number one provider of guaranteed-renewable insurance. Aflac individual and group insurance products provide protection to more than 50 million people worldwide.
Nomination Category: Corporate Communications, Investor Relations, & Public Relations Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications Team of the Year

Nomination Title: Aflac's Childhood Cancer Awareness Team

Tell the story about what this nominated team achieved since January 1 2012 (up to 525 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

According to the Reputation Institute companies with high reputations are worth as much as 150% more than those without. In 2012, Aflac’s communications team set upon a key objective; elevating its philanthropic footprint in the consciousness of American consumers, employers and the public to enhance our reputation. We established a subset of goals that include:

• a 10 percent increase in contributions to childhood cancer research ($2 million)
• Increasing national awareness for Aflac’s commitment to abolish pediatric cancer in order to differentiate Aflac from other insurance companies and bolster corporate reputation
• Engage new audiences using Twitter, GetGlue, Foursquare and other leading social media applications to drive donations and raise awareness.

The team consisted of Aflac’s Corporate Communications, Sponsorship, and Philanthropy units, as well as representatives from the Aflac Cancer Center in Atlanta, a top pediatric cancer facility in America.

Obstacles/Innovations/Discoveries:

Since 1995, Aflac raised $75 million for childhood cancer. Nevertheless, the campaign, which includes the annual sale of a plush holiday Aflac Duck, employee and associate giving, and various events, the company determined it needed to achieve greater outreach to achieve better results.

Social apps are low impact fundraising tools. So we didn’t try to raise money directly through Facebook or Twitter. We used interactive events and experiences like Twitter parties and a virtual duck race that encapsulated our Swim with Friends program. Participants were led to donate while participating in fun or informative events.

The team partnered with SheSpeaks and their network of bloggers to promote a Twitter Party for childhood cancer awareness. We invited doctors from the Aflac Cancer Center to lead the discussion about childhood cancer and market upcoming events, promoting the hashtag #AflacKids, offering $1 for every tweet using the hashtag.

To rejuvenate our annual Holiday Duck sales we asked a young cancer patient to design the 2012 Duck and marketed her design and personal charm, using a Satellite Media Tour.

We leveraged participation in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, partnering with GetGlue raising money for each check in.

We discovered that for social media to work it must be highly interactive to lure people into your campaign beyond a glance. We found that by injecting a new, innovative feature into our holiday duck campaign, we were able to rejuvenate the campaign and conduct a very successful program.

We also discovered that you can do all of this on a relatively small budget.

Outcomes:

o The Swim with Friends Twitter Party reached number five on Twitter’s trending topic on the same night of the Democratic National Convention, resulting in more than 17,000 tweets. The Blogger activations and online virtual duck race reached thousands, raising $210,000 for childhood cancer.

o Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: Established a single-event record 543,890 check-ins on GetGlue; produced more than 1,000 media placements; and raised a total of $656,048 including additional activations on Facebook, Twitter and FourSquare.

o The Holiday Duck program created an emotional connection between followers and Aflac. The unique design and sparkling personality of its young designer helped generate social and traditional media for what is one of our top selling plush ducks of all time, exceeding $300,000.

o Total raised, including Aflac match – $2,166,048

Upload a collection of supporting files and web addresses to our server to provide more background information to the judges. You may upload any number of attachments and URLs through the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above. (Do NOT list your URLs below.)

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated team:

• Laura Kane, Vice President, Aflac Corporate Communications
• Jon Sullivan, Manager, Aflac Corporate Communications
• Brande Carden, Senior Public Relations Coordinator, Aflac Corporate Communications
• Brant Rawls, Public Relations, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
• Buffy Swinehart, Senior Manager, Aflac Cause Marketing Donations
• Ashley Williams, Aflac Cause Marketing Coordinator
• Michael Zuna, EVP, Chief Aflac Marketing/Sales Officer
• Danny Fleishman, VP Aflac Sponsor/Events/Cause Marketing

.