Empower Wins Two National Gold ADDY Awards for #Flush2020 Campaign

CINCINNATI – (July 20, 2021) – In a rigorous three-tiered competition comprised of 35,000 entries across the nation, Empower’s #Flush2020 campaign for American Standard won two gold ADDYs for Best Social Media Campaign and Best Integrated Advertising Campaign. The American Advertising Awards recognize the highest level of creative excellence and mark the 13th accolade for Empower and American Standard’s collective work on the campaign.

“Winning two national gold ADDYs reinforces Empower’s integrity as a brand activation partner for clients,” said Rob FitzGerald, president and chief operations officer at Empower. “Our Creative and Word of Mouth Marketing teams are responsible for coming up with the award-winning #Flush2020 idea and executed it beautifully while our data-driven media teams amplified its effectiveness with audiences,” he said.

2020 was a year for the toilet. For American Standard, that’s normally an exciting prospect. They’re big toilet people. But this wasn’t the year they—or anyone—had in mind.

American Standard gave 2020 the sendoff it deserved and quite literally flushed it down the drain. The #Flush2020 campaign idea invited consumers all over to playfully revel in the most flushable moments and themes from 2020.

Given the volume of conversation and sentiment on social media about wanting 2020 to end, Empower recommended capitalizing on the environment in an authentic and relevant way by building a campaign that connected American Standard’s product and consumer conversation.

Empower created three unique custom-designed toilet paper rolls printed with some of the worst parts of 2020: murder hornets, COVID, being stuck on mute, and more. Then, they gave them away in a series of online sweepstakes throughout December while engaging consumers and influencers alike to pick their flushable moments.

Results showed American Standard’s net sentiment rose +81% during the campaign – the highest in 2020. American Standard generated 667 total posts in December 2020 and January 2021 around Flush 2020, which drove a 23% month-over-month increase in organic conversation volume from November to December. In December, 14% of all brand conversation surrounded the Flush 2020 campaign.

With only 450 rolls to give away, more than 30,000 people entered #Flush2020 for a chance to win. The paid social media campaign resulted in an astounding 76,000 poll responses and garnered an engagement rate significantly higher than even the strongest platform benchmarks. #Flush2020 achieved a 24% Engagement Rate on Facebook and a 17% Engagement Rate on Twitter. This is a $.03 Cost Per Engagement.

“With the success of #Flush2020, American Standard is seizing the opportunity to partner with Empower for more topical campaign development, which has heavily impacted our strategy for 2021. It’s allowed us to allocate more dollars towards in-the-moment campaigns that will capitalize on opportunities to drive significant engagement.”

– Christie Mattia, Leader of Brand Activation for American Standard

About The American Advertising Awards

The American Advertising Awards is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition, attracting nearly 35,000 entries every year in local AAF Ad Club competitions. The mission of the American Advertising Awards is to recognize and reward the creative spirit of excellence in the art of advertising.

Conducted annually by the AAF, the local tier of the American Advertising Awards is the first of a three-tier, national competition. Concurrently, across the country, local entrants vie to receive an ADDY Award—recognition as the very best in their markets. At the second tier, local ADDY winners compete against winners from other local clubs in one of 15 district competitions. District ADDY winners are then forwarded to the third tier, the national stage of the American Advertising Awards. Entry in your local competition is the first step toward winning a national ADDY. Entering the American Advertising Awards supports the entire advertising industry, because the AAF and its local and district affiliates use the proceeds to enhance advertising through programs such as public service, internships, advocacy groups, advertising education, and consumer awareness.

Selection of the most creative entry in each category is affected by a scoring process in which a panel of judges evaluates all creative dimensions of every entry. A Gold ADDY is recognition of the highest level of creative excellence and is judged to be superior to all other entries in the category. Entries that are also considered outstanding and worthy of recognition receive a Silver ADDY. The number of awards given in each category is determined by the judges, based on the relative quality of work in that category.