Gold Medal Ceremony — Gregory Bodwell

Modernizing the in-person event for an innovative and engaging virtual award ceremony

500% increase in people watching and engagement compared to the in-person event
93% of respondents to our post-event survey said they were “likely” or “very likely” to attend next year's event
Created two additional evergreen videos for on-going marketing

Skills utilized

Project management
Creative direction
Vendor selection and management
Social promotion
Graphic design
Photography

The Challenge

Sabin has been awarding the annual Gold Medal for 28 consecutive years. It is traditionally presented at an in-person award ceremony in Washington, DC. However, due to COVID-19, we had to adapt and create a new way to host the event. For 2021, my two main goals were to:

Increase viewership
Increase quality and attendee satisfaction

Some other goals included:

Making the event engaging & visually interesting (not just another Zoom call)
Effectively communicating why the awardees deserve to be recognized
Creating an emotional connection with the viewers
Telling the story of Sabin and the history of the award
Film on-location in Washington, DC and Malawi in addition to remote recording
Follow COVID-19 safety protocols throughout filming

Gold Medal Ceremony Announcement Video

The Solution

After issuing a request for proposal, I interviewed multiple creative agencies and ultimately selected DC Visuals to create the video. I worked closely with them, managing the project, providing creative direction and managing the vendor relationship.

We created a pre-recorded ceremony that was high-energy and engaging by including on-the-ground interviews and b-roll with family and friends. This required hiring a crew in Malawi to film the rising star awardee.

We sent save-the-dates and ran social media campaigns with an announcement video to increase registrations and engagement. As a result, we increased the number of people watching the ceremony by almost 500% compared to the previous in-person event.

We also increased attendee satisfaction with a high-quality, story-driven ceremony. In our post-event survey, 93% of respondents said they were “likely” or “very likely” to attend next year's event.

Due to the success of the project, future ceremonies will now incorporate video elements for storytelling and live-streaming, regardless of whether they are virtual or in-person.

Bonus videos: In addition to the Gold Medal Ceremony, we were able to produce two additional evergreen videos within our budget. This included a video highlighting Sabin’s mission and vision (edited from the ceremony video footage), as well as a new video for recruitment purposes.

The Full Ceremony

93% of respondents to our post-event survey said they were “likely” or “very likely” to attend next year's event.

“I liked the history of Sabin, the citations of the recipient, the time duration, the clips from family members. Everything was just perfect.”

— Event Attendee

“The video was fantastic. It was just the right length and the variety of voices kept it interesting.”