March 17, 2023
PLUS Communications and Ukrainian PR Army Fighting with Our Words Campaign Wins “Best in Crisis”
Arlington, Va. (March 17, 2023) – At the annual PRWeek Awards dinner held in New York City last night, PLUS Communications, a Beltway-based public affairs and consulting firm, was honored with the 2023 PRWeek Award for “Best in Crisis” for its pro-bono campaign work in partnership with the Ukrainian PR Army. The campaign was also nominated for PRWeek’s “Campaign of the Year” award. The PRWeek Awards are recognized as among the communications industry’s highest accolades celebrating the country’s best of the best for corporate, agency, and nonprofit communications teams.
On the third day of the war, PLUS was connected to the Ukrainian PR Army to help launch a news service aimed at elevating the voices of Ukrainian leaders and citizens to a global audience. The Ukrainian PR Army is a network of more than 200 public relations professionals in Ukraine who formed the nonprofit to utilize their skillsets after their regular jobs were suddenly put on hold. PLUS’ mission was to work hand-in-hand with the nonprofit to provide information and voices to U.S. media on the latest developments from eyewitnesses on the ground across Ukraine.
“We are humbled to receive this award for our efforts to help elevate Ukrainian voices around the war and crisis in the country. Our team worked around the clock to help Ukrainian leaders and citizens by consistently driving the call to action through the media to elected officials and government agencies for military and humanitarian aid,” said Danny Diaz, founding and managing partner at PLUS Communications. “As a result, we were able to elevate voices in Ukraine into the international media conversation and provide original story ideas to highlight the urgent needs for the Ukrainian people and the critical importance of a free and democratic Ukraine.”
In a short period of time, the PLUS team, led by Managing Director Eric Sutton, secured more than 2,000 earned media hits, with a combined national publicity value of more than $230 million according to Critical Mention. The PLUS team also secured more than 100 live television interviews with major cable news outlets in the first 45 days of the effort.
“We faced many challenges in the initial days in launching this effort from coordinating media interviews in between air raids and Russian shelling with many of our Ukrainian voices living in bomb shelters to calming people who had just experienced unthinkable atrocities carried out by Russian invaders,” said Sutton. “Our new friends in Ukraine are some of the strongest and most resolute people we have ever worked with – fighting for the same freedoms and quality of life we often take for granted. We are very proud to support them.”
Read more about PLUS’ work in partnership with the Ukrainian PR Army here.
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