American Medical Response of Greenwood Village, Colorado, won a Stevie Award for Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year in The 2009 International Business Awards.

Smiles ear-to-ear—and the occasional tear.  That’s the emotional response when nursing-home patients and their families are reunited at their family residences each holiday.

American Medical Response’s (AMR) Home for the Holidays program provides residents of skilled nursing facilities with free medical transportation to their family homes to spend time and share a meal with loved ones over the holiday season.

“Home for the Holidays” is a program offered by many AMR operations across the nation.  On receiving the Stevie Award, AMR President Mark Bruning said: “AMR is honored to have been selected from so many outstanding companies that practice social responsibility. We are extremely proud of our ‘Home for the Holidays’ program, which reflects both our core values and our commitment to the hundreds of communities across the nation in which we serve. Along with providing quality emergency medical services, giving back to our communities is the most important and rewarding thing we can do.” 

The program allows ambulance crews to bring some holiday cheer to nursing-home residents and their families. It is rewarding for the EMTs and paramedics, who have to work over the holidays, and it provides a change of pace from the stress of responding to 9-1-1 calls—while not affecting response times.

“We endeavor to schedule as many of these transports as we can,” said Mark Bruning. “I know it’s very, very gratifying, having done a number of them myself.”
Bruning recounted one Thanksgiving in particular when he transported a young woman who was impaired due to significant brain injury. When they arrived at her home, the woman’s cat jumped on her lap excitedly. The woman was visibly moved. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the place,” said Bruning. “To see the reaction on the family’s faces—I’ll never forget that as long as I live.”

Cookies and Treats
These Home for the Holidays transports are a fulfilling experiences for everyone involved. The participating families are delighted to have their loved ones home for a few hours, and by the end of their shifts, many crews have received more cookies and treats than they get all year.

In very special situations an extra crew is called in. AMR Mississippi transported a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic patient in one of the company’s mobile intensive care units.  The patient, a resident of a specialized nursing home in Jackson, had not been back to the family residence in three years.  An AMR registered nurse attended the patient to and from the family home, which was in a county well outside AMR’s service area.  AMR’s crew stayed with the patient at the family home and shared the Christmas meal with the family.  

Getting More People Home for the Holidays
While many AMR operations across the country participate in Home for the
Holidays–some for almost 30 years–in 2008 AMR began a national effort to
include all its operations in the program.  The program was well received in the areas it was offered, and received widespread media coverage.

Depending on their size and staffing, participating AMR operations can transport between five and fifteen people home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and other national and religious holidays.

With each new operation that adds Home for the Holidays, there are a few
challenges learning how to integrate this program with a busy 9-1-1 system.  But
the joy the program bring to the families far outweighs these challenges.

Bruning said EMS personnel are always eager to give back, and not just during the holidays. “We’re surrounded by people—at hospitals, fire departments, everywhere—who are like-minded,” Bruning said. “It’s very easy to mobilize people to help. The type of person who works in EMS is someone who wants to give back. There are a lot of people out there who are doing a lot of great things. It’s one of the hallmarks of our profession.”

About Mark Bruning:
Mark Bruning serves as President of American Medical Response. Involved in EMS for more than 24 years, Mr. Bruning has worked as a paramedic, a supervisor, and in a variety of operational leadership positions at AMR. Mr. Bruning started as an emergency medical technician (EMT) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and for many years participated in Home for the Holidays in his community.  He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He has served as the president of the Emergency Medical Services Association of Colorado (EMSAC). In 2005, he was awarded the Peg Hamilton Award by the EMSAC board of directors for outstanding service to the association and its members.

About American Medical Response
American Medical Response Inc., America’s leading provider of medical transportation, provides services in 39 states and the District of Columbia. AMR’s 18,500 paramedics, EMTs, and other professionals transport more than 4,000,000 patients nationwide each year in critical, emergency, and non-emergency situations. Operating a fleet of approximately 4,500 vehicles, AMR, a subsidiary of Emergency Medical Services Corporation, is headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado.  For more information go to www.amr.net.

Mobile advertising network, Millennial Media, Inc., of Baltimore, Maryland, won a Stevie Award for Marketing Campaign of the Year in The 2009 American Business Awards.

Millennial Media created and delivered the “Eagle Eye Mobile Challenge” campaign in partnership with Paramount Pictures and Mediaedge:cia (MEC). The mobile media campaign ran from September 8th to October 5, 2008 to support the theatrical release of the DreamWorks Pictures’ film Eagle Eye.

Millennial Media and MEC worked hand-in-hand with Paramount executives to develop a series of distinctive mobile banners that ran across Millennial Media’s premium mobile ad network. “Since 2007, we have worked on numerous campaigns with Paramount, including this summer’s Star Trek and Transformers 2,” said Paul Palmieri, president and CEO of Millennial Media. “We share this Stevie Award for the Eagle Eye campaign with Paramount Pictures and Mediaedge:cia, Paramount’s media agency of record, as this truly was a collaborative effort.”

The Objectives
The Eagle Eye campaign was created to maximize consumer participation in the
program, drive opening-weekend ticket sales, and build Paramount’s opted-in
mobile database.

In order to deliver an immersive, exciting experience that was reflective of the film’s plot, Millennial Media integrated mobile web, interactive voice response, text messaging, and viral activation experiences. The company delivered a groundbreaking interactive campaign that gave the user an engaging simulation of the main character’s experience in the movie.

The campaign propelled the user into an intense, fast-paced, and multifaceted interactive experience-—similar to the plot that unfolds in the film. The interactive voice-response portion featured voiceovers by an actress with a voice strikingly similar to the one who portrayed the “mysterious caller” in the film, adding to the campaign’s authenticity and engagement in a way that only mobile can deliver.

The Eagle Eye Mobile Challenge enabled participants to recruit friends to share the experience, activating the personal, one-to-one communication attributes of the mobile phone. Components of the campaign seamlessly provided information and entertainment leading up to the theatrical release date in 2008. It represented Paramount’s most extensive mobile marketing initiative at that
time, and the largest ever for a fall release.

The Results
Millennial Media’s network delivered millions of impressions over a four-week period. The campaign greatly exceeded client expectations in terms of generating traffic to the website, with 50% of visitors opting into the challenge—far above mobile sweepstakes norms.

Each participant viewed up to four branded mobile pages, received two interactive voice calls, and was sent a branded text message.

More than two-thirds of participants forwarded the challenge to a friend, with 38% of those referred into the campaign opting in—an exceptionally high conversion rate. Mediaedge:cia engineered the campaign to collect specific conversion feedback, enabling them to influence future media buys based on the post-campaign results.

One key challenge was successfully coordinating with six media vendors to
effectively deliver and track the campaign across multiple different
environments—mobile Web, IVR, and SMS. Millennial Media’s innovative approach ensured all components were delivered flawlessly.

On the day of the film’s release, an IVR call-to-action was delivered to drive participants to the theater on opening day.

Box Office Success
Eagle Eye debuted #1 at the box office, and by March 2009 had generated more than $178 million in worldwide revenue ($101 million in the U.S.).

Team Effort
The creation, execution, and delivery of “The Eagle Eye Mobile Challenge” was a
collaborative team effort and true partnership on every level. The Millennial
Media team was led by Michele Tobin, Vice President, Entertainment Sales, and included operations, marketing and creative support.  Paramount Pictures’ team included Michael Rosenberg, Director, National Advertising. The Mediaedge:cia creative team consisted of Courtney Renaud, Media Supervisor; and Daniel Englander, Junior Planner.

About Paul Palmieri
Paul has spent the past sixteen years building businesses in and around the wireless technology and media industries. As a founder, corporate executive, investor, industry leader, and entrepreneur, Paul’s work has had a profound impact on the growth of the mobile media industry. As Millennial Media’s President and CEO, Paul is responsible for the company’s growth and industry leadership. He has guided the company from startup to its current position as the leading mobile advertising network in the US by focusing on the needs of advertisers, innovative technologies, and industry growth.

Paul has held key management roles with Verizon Wireless, Advertising.com, Tessco Technologies, and American Personal Communications (now SprintNextel). Prior to co-founding Millennial Media, Paul was a Venture Partner with Acta Wireless. Paul serves on the boards of the Mobile Marketing Association and the CTIA Wireless Internet Caucus Leadership Council; and he serves on the advisory board for Acta Wireless and three privately held companies in the mobile industry.

Paul is also active in economic development, serving on the board of the Greater Baltimore Technology Council, and on the advisory board for Washington, DC-based incubator LaunchBox Digital. In his community, he serves on the advisory board of the Mobile Giving Foundation, and is a member of the President’s Council at Mount Saint Mary’s College. Paul received a B.A. from Mount Saint Mary’s College in 1992 and lives in Hunt Valley, Maryland with his wife and two children.

About Millennial Media, Inc.
Millennial Media is a leader in mobile advertising. For more information, visit http://www.millennialmedia.com or follow them on Twitter at www.twitter.com/millennialmedia.

Founded in 1979, Makovsky + Company is one of the U.S.'s leading independent global public relations, investor relations and branding consultancies, specializing in integrated communications programs for the financial, professional services, health, technology and business services sectors. Makovsky + Company won the Stevie Award for Public Relations Agency of the Year in The 2009 American Business Awards.

We recently spoke at length with Ken Makovsky, President and CEO of the agency, about how the firm began, how it's grown, and how the PR business is changing.

Makovsky + Company is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

		Listen to the Podcast Interview with Ken Makovsky of Makovsky + Company...

Blogs, or web logs, are all the rage these days. Each month in this space we'll point you to several blogs that we think might be of interest to you.

Elf Yourself: Amuse all your friends this holiday season with this interactive site sponsored by OfficeMax.
The Improvised Life: Sally Schneider's blog with some useful ideas for home-made holiday gifts, and lots of other stuff.
Ars Technica: The art of technology: News, analysis, and in depth coverage of technology.
A List Apart: An online magazine for people who make websites: explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.