The whole High Road team was thrilled to learn recently that we, along with our clients at The Ottawa Hospital and Sun Life Financial, have been honoured with two 2012 Magnum Opus Awards.

Held by the Content Marketing Institute and BeContentWise.com, the awards honour the best in content marketing, recognizing what communication professionals do to create media that has a strategic impact.  This year Magnum Opus received more than 500 entries, and judges considered such elements as informational and entertainment value, quality of writing and display copy, creative use of imagery and typography, and consistency of color palette and style.

High Road and The Ottawa Hospital won a silver medal for the hospital’s 2010-11 Annual Report  in the “Best annual report – overall design” category. 

High Road worked with The Ottawa Hospital to craft this online annual report built on the principles of content marketing.

The accessible, user-friendly and truly compelling digital report shares how the hospital’s diverse team is committed to its vision of providing the world-class care, exceptional service and compassion that they would want for their loved ones. By focusing on storytelling and incorporating success stories in multiple formats, this easy-to-navigate site was optimized for mobile devices – technology that has become a staple not only for medical professionals, but for much of the general population.  

Today The Ottawa Hospital continues to receive great feedback about the 2010-2011 Annual Report, both around the content and storytelling, as well as the visual design and mobile versions. The paperless report also reduced the hospital’s production costs, allowed greater reach into the target market, and led High Road to join forces with them again this year to create the 2011-2012 edition.

High Road and Sun Life Financial also received a gold medal for BrighterLife.ca for the “Best use as an integrated marketing tool” category.

First launched in late 2011, BrighterLife.ca extends to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in an effort to help Canadians answer money, health and family questions.

An integrated marketing strategy, the platform avoids traditional heavy-handed tactics and relies on compelling content and informal dialogue with Canadians to drive results for Sun Life Financial. Content is marketed through owned digital and social channels, earned mentions and paid advertising – a focused strategy that truly makes content the hero.

We’re all so proud of both WorldClassCare.ca and BrighterLife.ca, so head on over and check them out!

High Road’s Katherine Fletcher teamed up with Sun Life Financial’s Darin Diehl this week, to talk about the power of content marketing at the IABC World Conference in Chicago.

If you weren’t able to attend the conference, IABC’s Ed Lallo published a great summary of some of the insights shared.

He writes:

“The digital audience is become more sophisticated daily.  Setting up a static site where the information doesn’t change, or buying advertising and clicks, is ‘so yesterday.’  Every company is now a media company.

 

‘Companies must think like publishers to strategically use social media and engage third-party influencers – all in an effort to support overall business goals,’ explained Darin Diehl, assistant vice president of digital communications for Canada’s Sun Life Financial, to more than 150 attendees at the IABC World Conference in Chicago.  To enable the company to tell their story to a wider audience, the company created BrigherLife.ca.

 

According to Diehl, and his co-presenter Katherine Fletcher, a senior vice president at High Road Communications, BrigherLife.ca is a consumer-focused portal for sharing ideas about money, health and family.  Through the use of content and tools on finances, health, family, working life and retirement, the website and its social extensions provides a forum to engage Canadians in the context of the practical challenges and opportunities they face in their everyday lives.”

Sun Life Financial’s ambitious and innovative content marketing platform BrighterLife.ca is continuing to receive top industry recognition – and last week the High Road and Sun Life team were thrilled to be honoured with a prestigious gold SABRE Award, taking home the top prize in the Financial Services category.

The SABRE Awards is one of the world’s largest public relations awards programs, and is the premier showcase for the best the industry has to offer. With thousands of entries from across North America, these awards recognize campaigns that demonstrate the highest levels of strategic planning, creativity and business results. Winners were announced on May 8 during a ceremony in New York City and High Road was there to celebrate the great success of this wonderful project.

First launched in late 2011, BrighterLife.ca (and its sister site SimplementBrilliant.ca) extends beyond the website to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in an effort to help Canadians answer their money, health and family questions. An integrated marketing strategy, the platform avoids traditional heavy-handed tactics and relies on compelling content and informal dialogue with Canadians to drive results for Sun Life Financial. Content is marketed through owned digital and social channels, earned mentions and paid advertising – a focused strategy that truly makes content the hero.

This SABRE Award is a great addition to the flood of recognition that BrighterLife.ca is receiving. In 2012 BrighterLife.ca has been honoured with a CPRS Ace Bronze award in the Best Digital Communications Campaign of the Year category and was also selected as an Official Honouree of the 16^th Annual Webby Awards in the Insurance category – with nearly 10,000 entries from 60 countries, this distinction is awarded to the top 15 per cent of all submissions. Sun Life Financial has also been named one of The Content Marketeer’s Top 50 Brands to Watch in 2012.

We’re all so proud of BrighterLife.ca, so head on over and check it out!