Two Time Zones, Two Webbys, and One Dress
Posted by
Robert Yule
Washington, D.C.
June 17, 2011
This week, we officially got our Webbys— and one of them was thanks to all of you.
On Monday morning, my colleagues and I left Los Angeles on the heels of the Foundation’s annual
A Time For Heroes celebrity picnic, and arrived in New York that night to attend the
15th Annual Webby Awards at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
(RED) included an ad in the Webby Awards program
advocating for an AIDS-free generation by 2015.
(Photo: The Webby Awards)
Despite the contrasting venues and events, it seemed like a fitting juxtaposition. Elizabeth Glaser started A Time For Heroes twenty-two years ago to raise awareness and funds to fight pediatric AIDS in the U.S.
Two decades later, we made our Webby-winning video to tell Elizabeth’s story and to motivate viewers to join us in our efforts to end pediatric AIDS around the world.
We’ve been humbled by the attention and awards for this short video, made with little resources but a lot of heart. So far it’s won an
International Ava, a
Silver Davey, a Platinum Marcom, a Silver Telly,
a Golden Eagle Cine, and two Webbys.
That night, we accepted Webbys for the
Public Service and Activism category in Online Film & Video, and the People’s Voice award in the same category.
We owe a debt of gratitude to all of you for that last one. To all of the readers of our blog and our followers on Facebook and Twitter, it was
your online votes that helped us win.
For an awards ceremony, the night went by surprisingly quickly. Webby speeches are famously limited to only five words – far less than even a 140-character tweet.
We chose our words carefully, summing up the intent of our video like this:
“We can end pediatric AIDS.”
The real possibility of achieving this goal was also underscored by one of the sponsors of this year’s Webby Awards,
(RED). We were excited and gratified to hear a
presenter on stage talking about (RED) and our shared mission: ending mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and creating a generation born free of HIV.
The room broke out in applause, and we were probably clapping the loudest.
Jessica Stuart wearing her one-of-a-kind QR code dress at
the 15th Annual Webby Awards.
(Photo: EGPAF/Elizabeth Penniman)
A more unconventional technique also brought attention to our mission – a special white dress worn by Jessica Stuart, the producer who helped us create our video.
It was designed specifically for the ceremony, and adorned with QR codes. These are “Quick Response” digital barcodes that can direct viewers to web content when they are scanned by smartphones. The QR codes on her dress directed people to our video on her website,
Long Story Short…Jessica Stuart Media, Inc.
“It’s my nerd version of the Lady Gaga meat dress,” she joked.
It was a huge hit for this tech-savvy crowd, and Jessica couldn’t walk more than a few feet through the room without people stopping to scan the dress with their phones. Even the techy website
Mashable did an article on it.
When we got back to Washington the next day, we discovered that there had been more than 2,000 views of our video in just twenty-four hours.
Hopefully that’s 2,000 more people who now realize that we can end pediatric AIDS, and are ready to help us make it a reality.
The Time to Eliminate Pediatric AIDS is Now from EGPAF on Vimeo.
Robert Yule is the Senior Media Affairs Manager at the Foundation, based in Washington, D.C.