What Makes a PR Campaign Award-Winning? Learn from the Pros at Our Silver Spike Panel
EVENT ALERT: Cracking the Code: What Makes a PR Plan Award-Worthy?
🗓️ April 24, 2025
🕟 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
📍 The Discovery, Reno
🎟️ $35 Members | $45 Non-Members | $25 Students (Includes lunch and take-home resources)
Every year, the PRSA Sierra Nevada Chapter celebrates the best in public relations with the prestigious Silver Spike Awards. These awards honor campaigns that rise above the rest—those that not only tell great stories, but do so with clear strategy, measurable goals, and meaningful impact.
But what exactly makes a campaign award-winning? And how can you ensure your 2025 entry shines?
We’re launching a three-month education campaign to help you get there—starting with a must-attend panel event featuring 2024’s top winners and a nationally credentialed campaign judge. This session will walk you through real examples, real results, and the real reasons these campaigns won.
Featured Campaigns Include:
Grand Sierra Resort Press Conference (Good Giant)
Savvy media targeting, strong partnerships, and bold visuals turned this announcement into a media event of regional significance.
Renown Health’s “Share the Love” Recruitment Campaign
A strategic response to a healthcare hiring crisis—boosted by emotional appeal, smart timing, and multimedia storytelling.
Explore Murrieta (The Abbi Agency)
With tight copy and a sustainable tourism message, this campaign turned a small city into a big destination with limited resources and huge ROI.
Lake Tahoe Invasive Species Crisis Response (TRPA)
When crisis hit, the team’s pre-planning, scientific credibility, and audience-specific tactics turned potential panic into widespread support.
Learn How to Apply PRSA's RPIE Model and the 10-step Process to Writing a PR Plan
The panel will spotlight how each campaign used the RPIE process (Research, Planning, Implementation, Evaluation)—the gold standard of public relations and the backbone of Silver Spike judging.
Whether you’re a seasoned professional or newer to the field, this event will break down what successful campaigns do differently—and give you the tools to do it too.
Event Takeaways You’ll Receive:
A practical resource to help you develop campaigns that are rooted in research, aligned with strategy, and built for results. It is one of the foundational pieces every APR uses to build PR plans.
Goal vs. Strategy vs. Tactic vs. Objective Cheat Sheet
Confused about what goes where? This handy reference sheet offers clear definitions and real-world examples to strengthen your next submission, and helps you to create SMART objectives to base your evaluation on.
Examples from 2024 Silver Spike Winners
See how award-winning teams framed their entries, wrote compelling summaries, and aligned their work with PRSA’s evaluation criteria.
Bonus: You’ll also gain access to details on our upcoming submission writing workshop and 1:1 coaching sessions—both led by APR-accredited professionals ready to help you elevate your campaign from good to great.
Why Attend?
Because your work deserves to be recognized—and we want to help you get there.
By attending, you’ll walk away with:
✔ A deeper understanding of how judges evaluate submissions
✔ Tips for applying APR and RPIE frameworks to real campaigns
✔ Inspiration and insights from practitioners who’ve done it—and won
✔ Actionable tools to help you get started on your 2025 Silver Spike submission
This is your year. Start strong. Submit smarter. Win big.
