Text 100 wins a European Excellence Award 2010 for the best Spanish PR campaign with Skype Baby Wards

A pioneering initiative in Spain between Skype and Hospital Vall d’Hebrón in Barcelona ignited the campaign

Madrid, 12/22/2010 — On the night of the European Excellence Awards, which this year saw a 10% increase over last year with a total of 1.450 entries received, Text 100 Spain won the European Excellence Award for Best Spanish campaign of the year with the “Skype Baby Wards campaign”.

Text 100, Skype and Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona, installed Skype videophones in the maternity area to facilitate free video calls between the families of children at the hospital and their loved ones. The main objective was to show the benefits that Skype could bring to families of children that have been hospitalized to stay in contact with their loved ones and receive support during their stay at the hospital, and to help new parents introduce their newborns to families living away.

“We are really proud of this award as it is the result of very hard work done by the Text 100 team in Spain with Skype educating audiences on the benefits of using technology in fields such as healthcare. The award also recognizes the importance both Skype and Hospital Vall d’Hebrón place on new technologies being applied to hospitals not only in maternity wards but also to help minimize the difficult conditions young children face while they are hospitalized” said Virginia Huerta, Managing Consultant Text 100 Madrid.

“The past year has seen Skype supporting maternity wards in Poland, Italy, Germany, Estonia, Ukraine, and Spain,” said Enrico Noseda, Skype’s Head of EMEA. “The results for this campaign are particularly impressive and we are very pleased with their efforts. What’s more we are delighted to see that hospitals such as Universitari Vall d’Hebron are realising the benefits that Skype can deliver to other patients on different wards.”

Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona delivers 4,000 babies every year and 31% are from families outside Spain. Skype Certified videophones were installed in the maternity ward and pediatrics unit so new parents can show their new babies to their relatives and friends.

“New technologies are swiftly becoming a key tool for improving not only the quality of services for our patients but also for optimizing their stay here, helping them to have a better experience when in the Hospital” said a Vall d’Hebrón Hospital representative. “In that way, we highly appreciate the importance of Skype in a hospital environment, and plan to increase the use of Skype for Maternity care”.

The campaign included:

• Press-event with presence of a family with a new born baby doing live Skype videoconferencing with their relatives introducing the little new family member.
• Design and production of educational collaterals (brochures and posters) that included illustrations and texts explaining the ease of use of the technology and easy steps to get started.
• Press kit for printed and broadcast media that included pictures, background material and a press release describing the initiative.
• Posts for Skype blog.
• Text 100 was also responsible for training and support to all the staff in the hospital involved in the initiative.

Results included:

• 10 TV pieces broadcasted in major TV Channels such as Tele 5, La 2, TVE1, TV3 who did a live connection from the Hospital, etc., with a total of more than 15 minutes (advertising value of more than €200,000).
• 35 clippings coverage including Tier 1 titles such as Expansión, 20 Minutos, ADN, Diario Médico, Correo Médico, Diari de Girona, el Punt, europapress.es, eleconomista.es, abc.es.
• Increased traffic to Skype web site during that day and the following day resulting in an increase of new users.

About Text 100

Text 100 is a global public relations consultancy with a staff of 500 people and a direct presence in 28 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, Lenovo, SanDisk, Skype and PayPal. We are recognized 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 recognized 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.