Racepoint feted for One Laptop Per Child campaign

Racepoint Group, a Waltham marketing firm specializing in digital media relations, said today it has won an international award for its work on behalf of One Laptop Per Child, a Cambridge nonprofit organization.

The brainchild of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop Per Child, or OLPC, seeks to provide low cost laptop computers to poor children around the world.

Racepoint is part of W2 Group, the "global marketing services ecosystem" founded by local Internet marketing guru Larry Weber.

With One Laptop Per Child, one of Racepoint's jobs was to draw attention to a video that highlighted an OLPC holiday promotion called "Give One Get One;" the video, which is posted over this story, features Masi Oka, an actor in the NBC ensemble TV drama "Heroes."

The goal of the promotion was to urge Americans and Canadians to pay $399 to buy one OLPC laptop for themselves and to donate a second to a poor child.

The Fox TV network aired the video as a public service announcement, and OLPC posted it on YouTube.com, a video-sharing website, said Racepoint, which looked to drive traffic to the YouTube posting by sending links to bloggers interested in the subject.

One result of the campaign was that anyone who searched for OLPC on YouTube would have easily come across the "Give One Get One" video, Racepoint said.

The popularity of the promotion so overwhelmed OLPC that it had difficulty delivering the laptops to many North American buyers.

But Racepoint's efforts on the campaign impressed judges at the International Public Relations Association.

Those judges awarded Racepoint a Golden World Award for Excellence in Public Relations, Racepoint said.

Racepoint added that its work is also a finalist for a special United Nations Award.

For recent Globe coverage of One Laptop Per Child, click here.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)