Shorty Awards
Celebrating the best of social media ON social media.
Challenge
Host awards during the pandemic • Do it without a venue, stage, or champagne budget
Too long. Too expensive. Too expected.
Before the pivot, the Shorty Awards followed the standard playbook: one night, big stage, big spend. But social media had changed—and our audience had too.
Solution
Refresh the brand • Lean into social • Engage online
One tail. One tone. One strong new look.
The brand refresh unified the voice and visuals across channels. We honored the past while setting a sharper, more relevant course for the future.
Use the medium to honor the medium.
Instead of hosting a show about social media, we made the entire experience happen on it. Every interaction, every reveal, every celebration lived where audiences already were.
A better show, made for the feed.
The budget we saved on ballrooms went into strategy and storytelling—with a social agency that helped us amplify the winners where it mattered most. The entire week played out across the platforms we were honoring.
Not a stream. A stream of moments.
Instead of one big broadcast, we built a multi-day experience—with Clubhouse panels, Twitter threads, Facebook drops, and LinkedIn celebrations—each tailored to how people actually use each platform.
