The Situation

Porter Novelli was the public relations arm of an inter-agency team working for the ALS Association (national). The Ice Bucket Challenge was a cooperative idea initially concepted by one of the ALS founders, and made a social media sensation through devoted research, great team effort, and a bit of luck.

Once the social efforts took off, the Creative team had its work cut out for itself, supporting the vast number of creative, development, and content needs. Viral campaigns are taxing on teams with late night requests, consistently high volume workloads, and unpredictable needs and tasks along the way.

We got it done. The team felt it was amazing to support such social good and give a voice to the previously voiceless, and continue to support the ALS association.

The Final Technology

This was the first time Porter Novelli was to win a Canned Gold Lion.

This was not technology, but rather deep research and creative deliverables. The research team at Porter pulled consumer data on millennial purchasing data and conducted user interviews and focus groups to better understand how modern people engage with charity organizations. Creative and Strategy sat down and aligned around key takeaways from the research to implement on all creative deliverables.

The team worked to modernize ALS' brand, and make it more accessible to the younger disinterested youth. Taking the research done, the Creative team modernized the brand through careful selection of colour, type, and voice for the organization. This was then communicated to all national chapters through a single page brand cheat sheet to create brand consistency. 

We evaluated the website and recommended changes to make donations easier. Myself and a web developer reviewed the user flow and opportunities to donate. Recommendations were delivered to simplify the donations process as well as new opportunities to connect specifically with millennials.

As part of supporting the lobbying efforts and corporate donation pitches of the Association, we simplified and packaged ALS information to make it more accessible to a larger audience. Most people did not understand what ALS was or the affect it had on the lives of those afflicted — so we sought to change that. By taking the very technically specific information around ALS as a disease, the team worked to make the information easy to comprehend and strategically delivered in small bite-sized increments for users to create an informed bond with the cause.