Campaign Overview:

Youth of the Year is Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s (BGCA) premier leadership program. Each year, thousands of teens from across the nation compete at the local, state and national levels. Ultimately, one young person is named National Youth of the Year, representing the voice of 4 million Club youth.

Six finalists traveled to Los Angeles for a week-long experience culminating with the National Youth of the Year gala and announcement. The event serves as a fundraiser and brand moment, celebrating the work Boys & Girls Clubs throughout the country do to help young people achieve a great future.

Goals:

• Drive awareness, understanding and trust of BGCA’s premier leadership program, Youth of the Year, and its signature sponsor, Kohl’s Cares.

• Generate consumer excitement and engagement around the program and winner announcement.

Audience:

• Potential donors, parents, BGCA supporters

Strategies

Execute an integrated, 360-degree marketing and public relations campaign to maximize reach and engagement across all relevant external BGCA and partner channels.

• Garner national and local earned media attention for third party recognition of program impact.

  • Conduct pre-event outreach to secure blue carpet and event attendance, targeting national news and philanthropic trades, regional and local market news outlets, consumer and family publications, and emerging media, including social media influencers and podcasts.

  • Conduct post-event outreach including a press release, AP photo wire distribution, celebrity photo seeding, and local and national outreach around the winner announcement.

• Engage influencers and VIPs to drive consumer understanding and excitement.

  • Partnered with stylist Justin Boone- recognized for his work with artists including Kendrick Lamar- to provide Youth of the Year finalists with styling tips in the Kohl’s Gifting Suite, a partner experience where Youth of the Year finalists were able to select shoes, jewelry, belts, accessories and electronics from Kohl’s.

  • Engaged Club alum and actor, JB Smoove in the Kohl’s gifting suite, along with additional celebrity alumni supporters in the gala event including event co-chair Alex Rodriguez and actor Denzel Washington.

• Capture content for real-time and post-event use, creating longer-lasting storytelling opportunities about the program across BGCA social channels.

  • Blue carpet, gifting suite and partner experience videos and photos across social media channels

  • Internal and external email announcements, website takeover

Results:

• Coverage for national event plus six regional events garnered 66 total media placements and 2.1 billion total media impressions across national, entertainment and local news including People, ET, ENews, CW39, Her Campus, and Authority Magazine.

• Eight paid social posts highlighting Kohl’s Gifting Suite generated a 5% engagement rate (2.5x industry standard), more than 19,000 social views, and an 11% reel engagement rate.

• 22 social media posts generated more than 8.2 million impressions.

• Previous coverage of the Youth of the Year campaign has included Good Morning America, The Washington Post, Huffpost Black Voices, Essence, The Hill, Fox News, and PBS American Graduate Day, along with other national and local outlet coverage.