Case studies from the best of content marketing
A deep dive into assets and strategies that earned Ragan Content Marketing Awards.

Top-level content marketing tells a story about an organization, product or service compellingly and organically. The best of the best make creative use of platforms to get the necessary message across to the audience and build loyalty.
We’ve picked three assets and strategies that earned accolades at the 2024 edition of the Ragan PR Daily Content Marketing Awards. Remember to fill out your application by the February 21 deadline to apply to the 2025 Content Marketing Awards.
Best E-Newsletter: Aggreko, “Demystifying New Technologies”
The background: An email newsletter can be easy to overlook among the avalanche of information that populates our inboxes each day. Energy equipment and service provider Aggreko knew that to break through to its North American audience, it needed to highlight its position as a key partner for businesses looking to navigate the energy transition in a way that was engaging and informative. Through a mixture of short videos, interviews with internal stakeholders and targeted email campaign pushes, Aggreko sought to position itself in the North American market as a trusted provider through its “Demystifying New Technologies” campaign.
The company’s newsletter strategy went much deeper than a simple email blast. Aggreko personalized its newsletters to nearly 60,000 recipients, with custom-tailored subject lines, careful sub-audience targeting and careful timing to ensure a higher likelihood that the target of the email message saw and interacted with it.
The campaign exceeded even internal expectations. With a 19% open rate and over 1,600 click-throughs, Aggreko’s efforts to reaffirm its position in North America via email newsletter were successful. In addition, the campaign saw nearly 130,000 overall impressions, more evidence of a successful pursuit.
The takeaway: Email newsletters aren’t doomed to the trash bin. By tailoring your emails with unique subject lines and carefully cultivating emails to show up in the right inboxes at the right time, you can find success.
Best Use of Illustration of Animated Designs: Jacksonville Jaguars, “Duuuval Designs”
The background: Sports can make up a big part of a city’s identity and culture. With this in mind, the Jacksonville Jaguars wanted to gin up excitement for the 2023 season while simultaneously working with local artists to provide a unique sense of celebration for each Jaguars gameday. This led to “Duuuval Designs,” named after the team’s rallying cry.
In August, before the season began, the team shared a post across its social media channels recruiting local artists to create posters for each football gameday. The aim was to employ a different artist for each poster and game so that no two pieces of art were alike. In the creative process, each chosen artist worked with a graphic designer employed by the Jaguars to ensure that the aesthetics matched the team’s branding. When a given artist’s gameday arrived, they were given a table at EverBank Stadium for a poster signing and meet-and-greet.
The 24 posts related to the campaign garnered 1.7 million impressions throughout the season and an average of 90,000 impressions on gamedays. In addition, “Duuuval Designs” earned positive feedback from football fans and the Jacksonville art community.
The takeaway: Reaching out to your community to put their spin on your brand is a great way to garner organic engagement and show you care about a given audience.
Best Video Series: Room to Read, “She Creates Change”
The background: The COVID-19 pandemic had an outsized impact on education. With classes disrupted by lockdowns, adolescent girls dropped out of school or otherwise gave up on their education at an increasing rate. Room to Read introduced the “She Creates Change” campaign to encourage girls to keep on their educational journeys. The video portion of the series (which also included books and audio components) aimed to show the audience that young girls should be able to see themselves within role models featured on film.
The six girls featured in the campaign came from low-income areas in both Africa and Asia. The mini-documentary videos were presented in English, Spanish and Hindi. The production team was women-led, and the release of the series took place on International Women’s Day 2023.
The series was a resounding success with audiences and critics alike. The trailer for the series earned 21 million views over four months in 2023, and the full series earned recognition from the Tribeca Film Festival, the London Short Film Festival and SXSW’s EDU Film Program.
The takeaway: Visuals can help drive home a message in a way that transcends the written word. When you need to reach an audience that might lie beyond what’s accessible through writing, video can resonate and help inspire and uplift a given audience.
Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.