Building international relations

Challenge: Australia Unlimited is a national brand developed by Austrade in response to global research that demonstrated Australia’s global reputation was based more on our physical attributes than our intellectual ones.

While Australia has a very strong international reputation, regularly ranking among the top countries in global studies, Australia Unlimited was tasked with promoting Australia’s credentials in business, technology, creative industries and science to overseas markets.

In an effort to draw attention to the depth and breadth of Australian talent around the world, Australia Unlimited was preparing to launch its Global 50 list comprising of expat Australians who are not household names, but who are doing work that deserves to be recognised.

Strategy: With a million Australians offshore at any one time and many more involved in international work, they are a ready-made corps of promotional ambassadors for the nation. Our people are the best evidence we have that Australia today is a creative, clever and globally engaged nation.

As part of this content driven campaign, Social@Ogilvy identified a list of 32 influential Australian expats living in the key markets of US, UK, Europe and Asia, so that Australia Unlimited could target them to build relationships with these key influencers while also sharing their international success stories and portray a contemporary Australia through its people.

In order to drive awareness of Australia Unlimited’s Global 50 list and mobile apps, and maintain conversation in the lead up to and throughout the Australia Day weekend, Social@Ogilvy developed a strategy encompassing content creation, influencer outreach, and conversation management, drawing new stakeholders to the Australia Unlimited brand.

Results: The integrated digital and social campaign was successful in driving traffic to Australia Unlimited’s website, with social media the top driver of referral traffic, and building key relationships with international influencers.

More than 2.174m Twitter accounts reached

80 retweets representing a 515% increase on the previous week and 100+ mentions over the campaign

8% increase in Twitter followers

70% of all traffic to the website referred from social media channels

184% increase in application subscribers

Faces of the Australian open

Challenge: Getty Images believes that mobile photography has made huge strides in a short time, so much so that the company provides its photographers with software tools that allow them to create smartphone-style images that are of high enough quality to be used by their commercial clients.

As the official photographic agency for the Australian Open, Getty Images’ team of photographers embraced the smartphone look  by applying special effects to their portraits of quirky spectators, umpires, ball boys, media and event staff.

These images became known as the Faces of the Australian Open.

Strategy: To capitalise on the hype building around the grand final match; Howorth developed a two-fold media strategy.

Part one: offer national metropolitan titles the Faces of the Australian Open album to run as an online image gallery.

Part two: provide national lifestyle tech title, CNET with exclusive access to Getty photographer, Cameron Spencer, to develop a feature on the ever-increasing popularity of smartphone photography from a professional perspective.

Results: The result saw a ¾ page article featuring Faces of the Australian Open images published on page six of the Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media also syndicated an online image gallery across 24 metropolitan and regional news sites.

CNET published two stories including an online image gallery and an in-depth article on how professional photographers integrate smartphone technology in their work, featuring comments from Cameron Spencer.

In total, 27 news clips were generated from this campaign reaching a potential audience of 4,419,355 Australians.

Bride again

Challenge: When Getty Images photographer Adam Pretty won the prestigious Getty Editorial Fellowship, he grabbed his camera and prize money and headed to the Japanese town of Kesennuma – one of the most devastated regions from the Tohoku quake and tsunami in 2011.

Overwhelmed by the scope of tragedy, Adam resolved to give something back to the people by reconstructing wedding portraits of couples whose original wedding photographs were destroyed.

Adam’s Bride Again project is a strong example of the depth and power of the work of Getty Images’ photographers.

Strategy: To coincide with the second anniversary of the Tohoku quake and tsunami, Howorth approached two media outlets – Fairfax Media and ABC – with the opportunity to speak with Adam.

Both interviews would discuss why Adam chose to focus on the Japanese tsunami and uncover stories of survival and love among the families involved in the project.

The story that Howorth and Getty Images wanted to tell was that of the strength, resilience and hope of the Japanese people living in Kesennuma.

Results: Following an interview with The Sun Herald, a half page article featuring a Bride Again wedding portrait was published in the newspaper.

This piece was syndicated to 157 online Fairfax metropolitan and regional news sites including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times as well as featuring in Fairfax’s tablet edition.

Adam’s interview with the ABC resulted in an online feature piece, exposing the news to a potential audience of 3,700,000 Australians.

This campaign generated a combined total of 159 clips and reached a potential audience of 18,022,235 Australians.

A Winning Formula: The Official Launch of Windows 8

Challenge: Building on the wave of interest and anticipation from Windows 8 Consumer Preview, the PR team was tasked to deliver a high impact, broad-reaching publicity campaign to amplify the local Windows 8 story.

Windows 8 heralded a huge brand shift for Microsoft, of which the PR campaign needed to emulate. The approach needed focus on people not product, stories over messages and product engagement over sales in order to help audiences emotionally connect with the experience that Windows 8 offers.

Strategy: With an audience spread across the entire gamete of media – from technology to consumer lifestyle and everything in between, the PR team developed an educational approach that would deliver targeted information, purely relevant to each segment before culminating in the official launch event.

In September, a series of 10 one-on-one briefings were held with the most influential people across technology media in order to ensure a well-grounded level of knowledge and understanding of the Windows 8 story in the lead up to launch.

Following this, in October five consumer lifestyle mini-events were hosted at the Ivy Penthouse. The events saw the presence of 26 key media from Australia’s highest circulating consumer glossy magazines, providing these media with a first look and touch of the new operating system.

The third phase of activity offered our influencers the opportunity to ‘touch and try’ Windows 8 through the seeing 10 RTM Samsung Slate 7 devices.

Results: All of this activity culminated in the official Windows 8 Australia launch on the 26th October 2012.

Launch day kicked off early with three pieces of solid coverage across breakfast TV which highlighted the availability of Windows 8 and Surface in Australia. The PR team worked with key morning reporters to educate them on the new product features so they could speak as ‘experts’ on Windows 8.

The tone of the coverage was very positive, with many broadcast articles positioning the Windows 8 launch as Microsoft striking back against other tablet competitors – to quote Sunrise host Andrew O’Keefe commenting “The Empire strikes back,”. News of the availability and Harvey Norman’s Midnight Madness stunt echoed across the daily news cycle and wells as the availability of devices and the different SKUs available locally.

The Australian media event commenced at 9:30 AM and saw the attendance of over 110 media from an extensive array of consumer lifestyle, broadcast, news, consumer tech and more. Media guests included the likes of Channel 7, Channel 9, SBS World News, ABC Radio National, ABC News 24, 6PR, Better Homes and Gardens, Rolling Stone, Men’s Health, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Daily Telegraph…etc.

Key results include:

• 1457 pieces of local coverage in the first 14 days post launch
• 246 hours of broadcast coverage
• 110+ media attended the launch event

Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)

Challenge: The CDP Australia and New Zealand Climate Change Report 2012 analyses climate change disclosures made by ASX200 and NZX50 companies through the CDP to its 655 institutional investor signatories with US$78 trillion in assets. These companies represented 85% and 91% of the total market capitalisations of the ASX200 and NZX50 respectively.

This annual report, written by Deloitte Australia, provides an annual update on greenhouse gas emissions data and climate change strategies at the largest listed companies in Australia and NZ.

OgilvyEarth was briefed to develop and execute a communications strategy which placed the key findings in mainstream news media.

Strategy: The report was scheduled to be launched at Carbon Expo Australasia in Melbourne so OgilvyEarth worked to leverage interest in the event and align the results of the report with broader environmental issues in the current news agenda.

OgilvyEarth identified and targeted key business and environment writers and offered embargoed interview opportunities with James Day, CDP’s Director for Australia & New Zealand, in the lead up to the launch in order to maximise launch day coverage.

Immediately following the launch event, OgilvyEarth issued a press release announcing the results of the report and continued to reach out to key media, offering media interview opportunities and byline articles written by James.

Results: The coverage achieved for the CDP Australia and New Zealand Climate Change Report 2012 was the most coverage received for any CDP Australia and New Zealand report to date.

OgilvyEarth achieved a total of 110 pieces of coverage for the report in key print, radio, broadcast and online publications including the Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Canberra Times, ABC News Online, ABC 702 Sydney, Sky News, and Climate Spectator.

Download report here.

Imagine Cup Microsoft

Challenge: Student technology competitions, such as the Imagine Cup, have traditionally appealed to a narrow audience. Howorth was challenged with taking the Imagine Cup to the masses. Mainstream media coverage that told stories for the everyday Australian which generated conversations, and told the Microsoft innovation story around four key event milestones: the local finals, the Road to Sydney, the 2012 World Wide Finals, and the APAC BizSpark Entrepreneur Summit.

Strategy: Howorth focused on strategic storytelling across broadcast and key national print media. To ensure understanding of the key messages, we brought the story to life using the student’s journey and their projects to showcase the innovative solutions they have devised to solve real-world issues, and positioning the students as tomorrow’s Bill Gates or innovators.

Results: Results included high impact and broad stories on the Imagine Cup. Telling the Imagine Cup story through broadcast outlets and the student projects helped us showcase the global nature of the competition and brought media on the journey. Out of the 75 unique pieces of coverage for the World Wide Finals, 72 clips mentioned Microsoft and were in-line with corporate key messages for the competition.

Ready, set, go! Getty Images captures the action of London 2012

With the London 2012 Olympic Games in full swing it’s not just the athletes who are working hard to be at the top of their game – the Getty Images team of award-winning photographers are also in the thick of the action at the world’s greatest sporting event.

Throughout the Games, Getty Images photographers will capture the action from every possible angle at each of the Olympic sporting events as well as the opening and closing ceremonies and medal presentations.

An Olympic first

Although Getty Images has a long-standing history with the Olympics, London 2012 will be the first time that their photographers will use cutting edge 3D and robotic camera technology to capture the action.

A team of select photographers will shoot the games in 3D in addition to using custom designed robotics rigs to capture the agony and the ecstasy of the competition.

To showcase Getty Images industry leading innovations the team at Howorth devised a communications program which focused on the technology and talent behind the camera lens.

Featuring TV and print profiles of top Getty Images talent including VP of Editorial Photography Stuart Hannagan and Australian photographers Mark Kolbe and Chris McGrath, the program also targeted leading technology websites.

The results

Coverage was secured on Channel 9’s Wide World of Sports Road to London program, with a segment featuring Stuart discussing iconic Olympic images syndicated to 37 stations across Australia.

An in-depth interview with Mark and Chris in CNET Australia examined the different ways in which Getty Images is “pioneering new ways of thinking about sports photography.” CNET is one of the country’s most popular technology websites, visited by 1.8 million Australians each month.

Computerworld Australia featured an interview with Getty Images Senior Director of Editorial Photography, Ken Mainardis and Gizmodo, Australian Creative, Campaign Brief and Photo Review produced articles on the technology being used by Getty Images during the London 2012 opening ceremony.

Mark was also interviewed by the Inverell Times and The Northern Daily Leader newspapers about the 3D technology, and Chris was featured in the Sunshine Coast Daily, discussing the robotics rigs he will be operating during London 2012.

Case study: Kronos Healthcare Study

The Challenge: Kronos is a global company specialising in workforce management. As part of the ongoing public relationship campaign, Howorth was engaged by Kronos to identify a newsworthy issue outside their typical scope on which Kronos could offer a fresh perspective, which would in turn generate positive media coverage and support the overall sales drive.

The Approach: Howorth recently worked with Kronos on a case study with the Macquarie University Hospital. The study generated much media interest and as such, signalled a definite area of opportunity for the team to further explore.

Focusing on the Healthcare sector, Howorth set about creating a research campaign that would help to support future conversations for Kronos with media as well as potential customers. Supported by good customer examples, this would present a very compelling reason for media and influencers alike to listen to what Kronos had to say.

Howorth’s initial research revealed that despite healthcare being a vital part of the economy -and important to every Australian, there were significant pain points regarding the welfare of nurses and the fact that the industry had not benefited from the technology revolution that is fundamentally changing whole industries.

Howorth engaged and interviewed over 200 healthcare professionals from across the country as part of the “Nursing Pulse Check” survey regarding their concerns and pain-points about the industry. The survey examined the working conditions of Australian nurses, the attitudes they have toward their jobs, as well as opinions on technology and the future of the industry.

The research revealed that half of Australian nurses planned to leave the profession within next ten years.  With work-related stress being such a large factor, as well as nurses indicating that they extend themselves to their limits to manage their workloads, the results strongly indicated the need for healthcare management and employees to collaboratively review current workforce management methods.

The Results:  As a part of the media strategy to support the launch of the survey, Howorth proactively pitched to over 50 media targets across both print and broadcast publications by drawing upon three main angles:

• General news angle: critical shortage of nurses in the Australian healthcare industry;
• Technology angle: the ability of the healthcare industry to adopt technology such as the roll out of the recent e-health initiative;
• Health angle: dissatisfaction of nurses suffering from stress and burn-out.

Howorth secured and facilitated eight media pre-briefings, as well as six on-the-day radio interviews for Peter Harte, VP APAC for Kronos.. These briefings resulted in a total of 119 pieces of coverage. This includes ninety-five pieces of coverage across broad spectrum of news, health and technology publications, including The Daily Telegraph, Canberra Times, The Age, News.com.au and Courier Mail. A further twenty two pieces of broadcast coverage were secured in the form of live radio Q&A, news grabs and pre-recordings. In addition, the survey findings featured on two top tier free-to-air and pay television news broadcasts.

The challenge: Design and implement a national environmental media campaign in 72 hours

When a group of 300 companies operating across the Australian economy, including Westpac, GE, and IKEA, wanted to communicate their support for carbon pricing they contacted OgilvyEarth.  We had 72 hours to come up with a media strategy that would give profile to the group, Businesses for a Clean Economy. The timing of the public relations campaign – on the eve of historic climate change legislation being introduced – meant there was strong competition for media space, but great opportunities if the right strategy was employed.

Drawing on experts across Ogilvy Public Relations’ network, we created tailored content and took a strategic approach to media engagement, including holding a press conference that was streamed live on ABC News 24 and Sky News. We also set up a media tracking team, including social media experts, who monitored and responded to developments as the day unfolded.

The result was over 210 pieces of overwhelmingly positive press coverage, including:

•             Front page coverage of the group’s position (SMH and AFR)

•             Coverage on all major national television news programs

•             Reference to the group by the Prime Minister

•             70 radio clips

•             115 articles online

•             Retweets that reached over 200,000 followers

Best of all, as a result of the coverage, a further 88 companies joined the group (a 29% increase in membership) adding their support for positive action on climate change.

Australian Wool Innovation

The challenge

Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) is a not-for-profit industry body predominately funded by over 29,000 Australian wool growers. The role of the AWI is to provide research and development and international marketing for Australian wool growers.

Despite Australia being the world’s largest producer of wool, only a few years ago it was an industry on the brink of collapse. Since 2010, the AWI has reversed the fortunes for Australian wool growers by stimulating global demand for Australian wool through a series of retail and fashion led partnerships and has helped shift consumer perceptions of wool globally. Now, for the first time in living memory, wool has become profitable for Australian farmers and after 10 years of decline the national flock is on the up.

With ‘wool poll’, a shareholder vote held every three years to decide the revenue allocation between R&D and Marketing, approaching later in the year the AWI were keen to share this success story with its stakeholders and general public to ensure that the value of the marketing activity in international markets was recognised domestically, encouraging its shareholders (Australian wool growers) to continue to invest the necessary allocation of funding in marketing.

The approach

Howorth set upon a focused on ‘quality over quantity’ and mapped a plan for 2012 that would see the roll out of six ‘top stories’ in tier one media. These profile top executives and bring across the AWI’s success using a different thought leadership lens each time.

For Howorth a ‘top story’ ticks the following boxes:

-  Positive coverage has resulted from a proactive pitch

-  Coverage is on theme

-  Coverage is in targeted media

-  Coverage is on message

-  Coverage includes effective executive profiling

-  Coverage includes effective third party endorsement and insight

-  Coverage is of sufficient size to be impactful

-  Rich content has been developed and used

The first of the top stories has already been published.

‘Runs on the board’

The first story that Howorth and the AWI wanted to tell was that of the success of initiatives in China. Howorth quickly identified that ABC’S 7:30 Report was the best medium by which to reach the target audience and tell a compelling story. Interviews with CEO Stuart McCullough and CMO Rob Langtry were set-up to elaborate on the progress to-date and explain the strategy and rationale behind placing the Chinese market at the centre of the industry’s future security and success. To bring the story to life, on-location filming and interview opportunities were set-up with an Australian wool farmer and a Chinese designer visiting another farm.

The result was a 5+ minute engaging and on-message segment featuring Stuart, Rob, the Australian wool farmer and Chinese designer broadcast on the 7:30 Report. That evening Stuart and Rob were inundated with positive messages from AWI shareholders who had seen the program.

Look out for the next five top stories coming soon.

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