MUNDELEIN, Ill., Oct. 18, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- When Medline Industries, Inc.'s national Pink Glove Dance video competition kicked off last Friday, the website received more than one million views within the first 24 hours, causing some technical difficulties due to the overwhelming voter volume. The site, www.pinkglovedance.com, was back up and running by the next day and continues to tally online votes for the nation's favorite pink glove dance video for an additional week, through November 2.
"The start to Medline's Pink Glove Dance video competition resulted in 10 times more traffic than was anticipated," said LoriLee Bielski, managing partner for Gamma Partners, LLC, and Medline's web agency. "It's one of the biggest responses our contest provider had ever experienced with this type of campaign. Server capacity has been boosted so the site is ready to handle the unprecedented number of people coming to the site to vote for their favorite pink glove dance video."
Sponsored by Medline — the creator of the YouTube® sensation Pink Glove Dance and makers of the pink gloves — the 2nd annual national Pink Glove Dance video competition has already received almost the same number of views (more than one million) in the first 24 hours as last year's entire two-week competition. Medline's annual campaign encourages organizations from throughout North America to produce their own music videos featuring health care workers, students, teachers, firefighters and policeman dancing in pink gloves in support of breast cancer awareness and prevention.
Online voting began last Friday, October 12, and will now run for an extra week, through November 2. The public can go to www.pinkglovedance.com to cast their ballot to help determine the nation's favorite Medline Pink Glove Dance video. Voters are required to have a Facebook® account in order to register their votes.
Three winners will be announced on November 9, with the winning video receiving a $10,000 donation in their name to the breast cancer charity of their choice; second place will receive $5,000 and third place $2,000 for their charity.
"We are extending the public voting for this year's competition one more week because we want to give more participants the opportunity to tap into the enormous energy and interest surrounding this competition," said Andy Mills, president of Medline.
For every case of Medline's Generation Pink® gloves purchased, Medline will donate $1.00 to the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) to fund free mammograms for underserved women. To date, Medline has donated more than $1 million to the NBCF.
History of the Pink Glove Dance
The original Pink Glove Dance video premiered in November 2009 and featured 200 Portland, Ore. hospital workers wearing pink gloves and dancing in support of breast cancer awareness and prevention. Today the video has more than 13.6 million views on YouTube® and has inspired more than 1,000 pink glove dance videos and breast cancer awareness events across the country. Because of the overwhelming response to the original video, a sequel was produced in October 2010 featuring 4,000 health care workers and breast cancer survivors throughout North America. In 2011, the first national Pink Glove Dance Video competition was held, attracting 139 entries from across North America. More than a half million votes were cast with Lexington Medical Center in West Columbia, S.C., winning first place and $10,000 to their breast cancer charity of choice, the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer.
"Gloves are the first point of contact between the health care worker and the patient," said Mills. "As a way to extend our breast cancer awareness campaign, we developed a pink glove called Generation Pink®, with the aim of getting people to talk about breast cancer."
Pink Glove Dance® is a registered trademark of Medline Industries, Inc.
About Medline
As the nation's largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of medical supplies, Medline is focused on helping to improve the quality of care for patients and residents. Breast cancer awareness is a natural extension of Medline's corporate mission to help save lives through the early detection of breast cancer. (Visit www.medline.com/breast-cancer-awareness for details). Based in Mundelein, Ill., Medline manufactures and distributes more than 125,000 products to hospitals, extended care facilities, physician offices, surgery centers, home care dealers and agencies and other markets.
John Marks, (847) 643-3309
Ann Fahey, (847) 643-3011
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The following pictures are available for download:
| [Image] | Lexington Medical Center |