Text 100 Italy wins a European Sabre Award for the best “new and digital media” PR campaign

A charity fund-raising project based on transparency and authenticity receives Web 2.0 recognition thanks to the Text 100 Italian team

Stockholm, Sweden, 05/27/2009 — On the night of the EMEA Sabre Awards, which had a twenty percent increase in entries this year, Text 100 Italy won the Sabre Award for the best new and digital media campaign for 2008 in EMEA.

A school for hazari girls in Afghanistan, a children’s dental surgery in refugee camps in Beirut, distribution of condoms to prevent AIDS spreading, and drilling wells to quench the thirst of many villages, in Africa; charity and social projects like these demand two things—donations and a responsible organization that cares. The challenge with this is transparency; people want to know whom their money is actually helping. To do so, a small Waldensian Church (a Protestant church, in a country where 90% or more of the population declares themselves Roman Catholic) chose Text 100 to create an innovative peer media campaign directing people’s attention to the social initiatives of the small organization.

Paul Holmes, in assigning the prestigious Sabre Award to Text 100 commented, "One of the great advantages of social media is that it’s possible for have a major impact for a small client with a small budget. This campaign showed the kind of results a creative PR campaign can generate using new and digital media.”

The overall goal of the campaign was to drive people’s attention to where the Waldensian Church aims their “otto per mille” (0.8%) tax donation. The challenge for the Waldensian Church was to raise awareness to its initiatives using PR paths beyond the common playgrounds of publicity. The challenge of the organization has been to compete with the Catholics, as the media in Italy usually cover religious subjects only if they are related to Catholicism and the Pope. The competing Catholic fund-raising campaign is conducted through a drum-roll TV advertising round, which goes on for several months on all the main national TV channels.

The Chairwoman of the Italian Waldensian and Methodist church, Pastor Maria Bonafede added, “I was so happy when I was told there was a way to raise our awareness, while still complying with the ethical principles of our General Assembly, that every year urges the Waldensian Board to spend as little as possible on publicity (which is instrumental though, to have funds), in order to devote as much as possible of the otto per mille tax donations to our social and cultural projects. This Sabre Award in a way is a recognition to this PR strategy, and I applaud to the consultants that have given us this recommendation – as well as implemented it brilliantly.”

According to Italian Government reports, the number of “tax votes” for the Waldensian Church is steadily rising. It is also interesting to note that the Italian CEI (Italian Episcopal Conference of the Roman Catholic Church) started this year, for the first time, to give out more data on the usage and destination of its “Otto per Mille” funds.

About Text 100

Text 100 is a global public relations consultancy with a staff of 500 people and a direct presence in 30 cities worldwide. We work with many of the world’s leading technology, internet and digital lifestyle brands with a client roster that includes IBM, Cisco, Fujifilm, Lenovo, SanDisk, Skype and PayPal. We are recognised as an innovator in the field of public relations – particularly in the emerging area of social media - and for leading the PR industry in staff development. Our strong culture has been praised around the world over the past two years during which time we have been recognised as the Best Midsize Agency in Asia, the Best Midsize Agency to Work For in the US, and one of the UK’s Best Small Companies. For more information about Text 100, please visit www.text100.com.

Media Contact

Please direct all media inquiries to:

Simona Menghini
+39 02 202021 204
simona.menghini@text100.it