“Home for the Holidays with Cadbury®” brings home prestigious award
TORONTO, January 18, 2011―Broad Reach Communications, a full-service communications firm based in Toronto, is thrilled to announce that is has been awarded a national, 2010 Silver Leaf Award of Merit from the International Association of Business Communications (IABC) for the agency’s “Home for the Holidays with Cadbury® Home Entertainment Products” media relations campaign.
Canada’s Silver Leaf awards recognize excellence in strategic communication. This year’s competition received nearly 200 entries from across Canada. Following a careful assessment by two teams of expert judges, 28 awards of merit and 17 awards of excellence were handed out across the country.
“Silver Leaf award winners are skilled, talented professionals who pour their creativity, passion and considerable knowledge into helping their organizations achieve meaningful business results,” says Claire Watson, 2010 IABC Silver Leaf chair. “Broad Reach Communications is a great example of a company that clearly understands and knows how to leverage media relations to achieve outstanding results for their client. We’re very pleased to present Broad Reach Communications with a Silver Leaf award of merit in the Marketing Communication category.”
In 2009, Broad Reach Communications was hired by U.K.-based Giles & Posner to build awareness, create buzz and drive sales in Canada via a national media relations campaign for a range of new, Cadbury® branded, home entertainment products, including Cadbury® Chocolate Fountain, Cadbury® Hot Chocolate Drink Maker, and the Cadbury® Caramilk® Fondue set, among others. Campaign objectives included generating mainstream media coverage― highlighting the products as “the solution” for holiday entertaining, as well as ensuring inclusion in new product features, holiday gift guides and holiday entertaining stories with the ultimate goal of driving sales.
Broad Reach sourced a “chocolate ambassador” to act as campaign spokesperson, and leveraging the brand equity of Cadbury in Canada, developed a variety of creative and highly targeted communications materials to capture media attention. Aggressive media relations coupled with a robust variety of story angles helped the team achieve over 26 million impressions across 73 stories and most importantly, resulted in increased and sustained sales of the product, far exceeding the client’s expectations.
“We couldn’t be more impressed with both the quality of work and the caliber of results we received from the team at Broad Reach,” says Hitesh Patel, Chairman and Managing Director, Giles and Posner, U.K. “Without the support of any additional marketing levers, Broad Reach’s public relations results single-handedly drove demand and product sales, motivating retailers and key partners to re-merchandise and reorder the products to meet customer demand.”
“It’s extremely rewarding to have our work recognized and deemed outstanding by a national committee of peers,” says Andrea Lekushoff, President, Broad Reach Communications. “It’s equally as exciting to surpass our client’s expectations and I’m so proud of the Broad Reach team for rising to the challenge and generating an exceptional volume of high-quality coverage during the very busy holiday season.”
About Giles & Posner
Giles & Posner is a leading London, U.K.-based developer and supplier of chocolate fountains, tabletop food preparation and gift products for businesses and consumers. It was founded in 2003 by chefs Darren Giles and Justin Posner as a chocolate fountain rental business for the professional catering market. The company’s first retail product was an industry-first Chocolate Fountain for home use. Since then the team has continued to evolve and introduce a wide range of innovative tabletop products for dining and entertainment functions of all sizes. For further information, visit www.gilesandposner.com.
