Mercury Marine received a 2014 Neptune Award for excellence in marine marketing and communications for its unique holiday e-card video created with boat propellers.

The award was presented last week at the Miami International Boat Show. It was the third consecutive year Mercury received at least one Neptune Award presented annually by Marine Marketers of America.

The 2014 award recognized Mercury’s musical holiday e-card distributed to approximately 350,000 consumers, dealers and boat builders.

“For the past several years, Mercury has used traditional mail or email greetings that generally consisted of a holiday photo and well wishes,” said Jon Mathews, global director of branding at Mercury. “For 2014, we decided to create and share something more entertaining, yet authentic to the Mercury brand. While concepting the idea, the team came up with the idea to use a Mercury product to make music. A propeller, with its wide range of pitches, was the obvious choice.

The video was conceptualized, created and distributed via email and social media by the Mercury marketing department. It was featured in a Page 1 story in The Reporter on Dec, 22, 2014.

“The video itself was entertaining and watchable, and it successfully communicated Mercury’s desire to wish our owner, dealer and boat builder partners a happy holiday season. Beyond that, due to the shareable and global nature of the video, it transcended beyond our customers in North America and was seen via social media around the globe.”

Mercury’s win came in the category of Best Social Media Campaign. The video featured a percussionist playing Carol of the Bells on more than a dozen Mercury Vengeance propellers. View it at youtu.be/y-Tx5dQfjHw. Also, a “making of the video” can be viewed at youtu.be/KADAKUmVA9I.

The video message was distributed via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIN and Google Plus, resulting in nearly 90,000 impressions. The average rate of engagement was roughly double the average rate of engagement for Mercury-posted content, according to the company. It also was emailed to all dealers, retailers, boat builders, and owners of Mercury engines, as well as all Mercury employees, anglers, guides and suppliers.