Fast forward 194 years and the Solomons have left a significant mark on this country. A classic story of a ‘convict made good’, Emmanuel Solomon was a member of parliament, a philanthropist and benefactor to the arts. His descendants have also had a strong impact on the history of Australia, with one nephew holding the record for the shortest stint (one week) as Premier of South Australia and then going on to become one of the founding fathers of Darwin. Another descendant helped write the Australian constitution, five fought in Gallipoli, and one perished on the Titanic.

On March 10-12, 2012, a reunion of the Solomons and associated families took place in Melbourne. The organisers credited Ancestry.com.au for helping them to build their extensive family tree and the reason they were able to find and contact so many family members. Brad Argent, content director, Ancestry.com.au was invited to speak at the reunion.

Our approach:

The Howorth team wanted to share the Solomon’s story and build mainstream interest family history category in general. Given that Monday was a public holiday in Melbourne, and there was the potential for media interest to be light, the team pre-pitched the story as an exclusive to Channel 7’s Sunrise and followed up with a media alert which was issued to local Melbourne media.

The results:

In total, 108 pieces of TV, radio, print and online coverage were achieved from this campaign with a reach of over 1.7M impressions.

Highlights include:

-              Brad Argent, Ancestry was interviewed on Sunrise along with other members of the Solomon family. The piece was also re-played nationally on Channel 7’s 4:30pm News

-              Brad was also interviewed by Channel 7’s 6pm News who also attended and covered the reunion

-              The Age came to the reunion and spoke with family members

-              The event organiser, Jenny Cowen, was also interviewed on Radio National Breakfast the morning of the event.

Our work: It was clear this project would be more than a media relations campaign. The team at Howorth researched the concept of imagination and looked at existing data on imagination and productivity in the workplace. We found a team at UNSW that had proven a link between imagination and learning effectiveness in school children – but the phenomenon of ‘the imagination effect’ had never been proven in a corporate setting.

Canon formed a partnership with the School of Education, UNSW. We designed an experiment for members of Canon’s business imaging sales team to see what effect engaging the imagination had on the effectiveness of a new training module. Participants were split into two groups and completed multiple choice tests on product knowledge before and after an e-learning program. Both groups were given different learning instructions. The imagination group was instructed to use their imagination to learn concepts and procedures about a Canon product and the study group was instructed to use traditional study methods.

The results were extremely interesting – for the first time, the imagination effect was proven in a corporate setting. In fact, the imagination group made significantly more learning gains than the study group with the imagination group’s test results improving by 63% compared with 29% for the study group.

Concurrently, we commissioned a survey of 400 senior decision makers at medium and large organisations across Australia to investigate the state of imagination in business. The survey found that despite the fact those organisations that value and harness imagination were also the highest earning companies, across the board, imagination ranks last on a list of 15 workforce characteristics valued by employers.

Results: The research findings were published by Canon in a report titled Imagination for Business, stating the case for adding imagination to the managerial tool box. Additional content was produced for a microsite, www.imaginationforbusiness.com.au.

The story captured the imagination of business, HR and other vertical media, with more than 30 in-depth media articles published on the topic. The UNSW professors are also planning to present their academic paper at a number of international cognitive load conferences later in 2012.

But perhaps most importantly, the thought leadership exercise resulted in a real change in the way Canon will deliver its training modules as part of ongoing learning and development programs, because Canon now has a low cost way to make training more effective for their workforce – the application of imagination.

The challenge:

Canon Inc operates five research and development facilities around the globe, one of which – CiSRA – is located in Australia at Canon’s North Ryde campus.

CiSRA contributes imaginative technologies, intellectual property and customer insights to Canon – in fact many of the components found in Canon’s leading consumer and business technologies were created in the Australian facility.

In addition, the profile of imaging science in Australia is quite low, despite the groundbreaking work being completed within Australian Universities.

CiSRA enlisted Howorth to help communicate CiSRA’s role in the Australian science and technology landscape, promote the study of imaging science and improve the status of CiSRA as an exporter of science and technology innovation both at home and in the region.

Our approach:

A great public relations opportunity arose with the launch of CiSRA’s Extreme Imaging competition. To promote and celebrate Australian innovation, Canon offered a series of prizes to tertiary students and their supervisors for innovative work in the field of imaging science.

The competition was open for students developing a new technique or equipment to produce images as part of their supervised research project – be it in medicine, physics, engineering, information technology or other academic disciplines.

Howorth devised a PR strategy to communicate the opening of the Extreme Imaging awards to potential participants in the education sector, and then publicly profile the winners in order to achieve the goals of raising the profile of both CiSRA and the imaging science sector.

The results:

Once the winners were announced, Howorth reached out to CiSRA’s key media such as science and technology targets and university media units as well as local, regional and major metropolitan media. Working with the winning students to harness their personal story, we created lots of excitement around local imaging science innovation.

CiSRA held an awards ceremony at the Sydney Observatory – rewarding the winning students and treating guests (including journalists from New Scientist, Cosmos and Science Illustrated) to viewings of Jupiter and Venus through the Observatory’s telescope – a fun and educational night for all!

The media outreach resulted in 54 pieces of editorial across various publications including Sydney Morning Herald, Cosmos, The Age, Tech World, National Geographic, The University of Sydney website, Canberra Times and local publications such as the Hornsby Advocate.

For more information about CiSRA, see the 2011 award winners or to apply for the 2012 competition when it opens, see http://www.canon.com.au/Extreme-Imaging.

Providing strategic insight into Australia’s declining productivity

With challenging economic times ahead, improving productivity is now more important than ever as Australian organisations focus on optimising their investments to stay one step ahead. This issue has been at the forefront of Telstra Enterprise and Government’s annual thought leadership campaign: the Telstra Productivity Indicator.

Now in its fourth year, the 2012 Telstra Productivity Indicator surveyed over 700 senior decision makers from enterprise and government organisations across Australia, looking at their attitudes and behaviours towards productivity. The research this year found that productivity in Australia has continued to decline, following a ten year trend in the region as outlined by a recent report from the Grattan institute (Productivity – the Lost Decade, August 2011).

Consistent with last year’s report, there are a number of organisations bucking that trend. Referred to as ‘Productivity Leaders’, they are organisations that use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or other metrics to measure productivity, and have reported a significant productivity gain in the last 12 months.

The campaign was completely integrated into Telstra’s internal sales and marketing initiatives, meaning that besides media relations activity, Howorth and Impact played an integral role in developing an internal communication campaign consisting of launch messages from leadership, targeted sales presentations, GM briefings and printed TPI sales conversation starters. An end to end integrated internal rollout was dovetailed with the external launch of the campaign and included enlisting the support and expertise of industry executives to support sales conversations and provide a wider business perspective for the relevant sectors.

The main challenges facing this year’s campaign were maintaining relevance to Telstra’s traditional technology audiences while extending into the business and economic spheres, as well as ensuring that Telstra’s voice was heard in a crowded productivity space, with several media outlets having already covered productivity extensively in the weeks leading up to the campaign.

By raising the level of Telstra’s discourse, Howorth worked with Telstra’s media relations team to secure interviews with tier one business and economics media, including The Economist, ABC World Today, AFR, The Australian, AAP, The Global Mail, News.com.au, Canberra Times, and Business Spectator. Within a month of launch, the Telstra Productivity Indicator secured 45 media clips, surpassing the annual KPI of 35 within one week. Through media alone, the campaign has a reach of approximately 29,000,000 people through coverage in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

These results have been reflected in Telstra Enterprise & Government’s Cubit measurement, as the company recorded its highest share of voice figure since its current analysis began two years ago – registering 40% share of voice for the most recent quarter.

Key highlights

•             Senior TE&G spokespeople were interviewed under embargo by 11 national newspapers, news wires and business publications including The Australian, AAP, AFR, Business Spectator, ABC World Today, The Canberra Times, The Economist and Global Mail;

•             45 pieces of coverage were generated across a variety of publications, including The Australian, AFR, Business Spectator, Daily Telegraph, Sun Herald, Adelaide Advertiser and ABC World Today.

•             Paul Geason and Antony De Jong were both widely referenced in news articles, with over 20 quotes appearing; and

•             Cubit analysis noted that TPI was the leading topic of TE&G coverage for the most recent quarter, during which the company saw a 40% share of voice compared to its main competitors.

]]> http://www.howorth.com.au/index.php/2012/04/telstra-productivity-indicator-2012/feed/ 0 http://www.howorth.com.au/index.php/2012/04/telstra-productivity-indicator-2012/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Howorth/~3/jkw3MDWrANQ/ http://www.howorth.com.au/index.php/2012/02/getty-images-grab-snapshot-aussie-life/#comments Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:40:49 +0000 admin http://www.howorth.com.au/?p=1984 As one of the world’s leading creators and distributors of still imagery, video and multimedia products, Getty Images know what makes an iconic image.

But what does an iconic Australian image look like? Is it the time honoured classics of the Sydney Opera House or Great Barrier Reef or perhaps it’s a backyard BBQ? Getty wanted to find out and issued a brief to photographers to submit their interpretations of everyday life in Australia in the second year of the Grab photography competition.

Grab runner–up – Mark Tipple

The brief to photographers was ‘Captured Moments’ – entrants had to submit their creative interpretations of family, friendship and community to be in with a chance to win over $8000 of camera equipment and have the opportunity to become a Getty Images contributor.

The brief to Howorth was to achieve national media exposure for the competition, generate entries for the competition and provide a media platform for photography enthusiasts to showcase their creative talent.

Howorth implemented a three phase PR strategy targeting a broad range of consumer and trade media – kicking off with a competition launch campaign, followed by media activity around the top twenty finalists and wrapping things up with articles on the competition winners.

Grab ‘People’s Choice’ Award winner - Alam Sulthoni

And the results?
The competition received almost 4000 entries and generated over thirty pieces of media coverage including galleries of the twenty finalist images on the websites of news.com.au, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Herald Sun, WA Today, Brisbane Times, Adelaide Now, Perth Now and The Courier.

Print coverage included a double-page spread of finalist images in Grazia magazine, along with articles in titles including The Australian, Wentworth Courier, North Shore Times, The Beast and The Sunshine Coast Daily. As well as hitting consumer media the campaign also made a splash in the trade media with coverage appearing in Campaign Brief, Desktop, B&T, Mumbrella and The Thousands.

Grab competition winner - Rachel Cutler

And last but not least – the winners.
The judging panel of industry experts including Stuart Hannagan, Getty’s director of photography APAC and VP of Australasia, selected Rachel Cutler’s image of two friends play fighting in a hammock as the winning image, with Mark Tipple coming a close second with his underwater photograph of swimmers diving under a crashing wave. Alam Sulthoni’s image of a magical act of levitation took out the People’s Choice Award.

Veda enlisted Howorth to develop and execute a two-week media strategy to release the results of its 2011 Credit Management in Australia, a report providing insights into how global and local economic factors are affecting the credit management processes of Australian businesses. Veda conducted the survey amongst 220 credit managers from a cross-section of Australian industry. Veda works closely with a large proportion of Australia’s credit professionals which gives the company a detailed understanding of local credit management issues within a national and global context.

Our approach:

The hot topic in Australian media in the week and days leading up to the launch of the report was the announcement by the Reserve Bank of Australia to drop interest rates in December and whether the big banks would pass it on – which was seen as a welcome relief to businesses – especially small and medium sized enterprises – and consumers.

The Howorth team spotted the opportunity to capitalise on the announced rate cuts by linking the credit management report to the topic. We worked closely with Veda’s spokesperson Moses Samaha, Head of Commercial Risk, to craft an interesting story for media on these topics. We also advised Veda to bring in a third party spokesperson, and as a result were able to work with Terry Collins, CEO AICM to strengthen our story even further.

The results:

We targeted selected business and financial media for a preview on the report setting up two interviews with Sky Business News and AAP ahead of the official launch. This resulted in 29 pieces of editorial across TV, newswires and online in the week following the release of the Credit Management in Australia 2011 report. Articles reported on the results of the report as well as giving Veda’s view on the state of credit management in Australia.

Highlights included:

• An 4 minute interview on Sky Business News with Moses Samaha;

• Moses Samaha and Terry Collins featured in tier one media targets including AAP, Daily Telegraph, The Australian, Herald Sun, The Age, etc.

• As a result from our outreach, Veda received a number of requests for more information from government agencies such as the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, and from Credit Managers across a wide range of industries in Australia and New Zealand.

In October 2011 four technicians from Canon Australia and New Zealand flew to Shanghai to compete for the title of Canon’s undisputed top technician at the Asia Pacific (APAC) Cup.

The APAC Cup is a Canon technician’s version of the football grand final, but instead of battling it out on the footy field, they’re troubleshooting business imaging equipment. It’s a highly skilled and very competitive series of practical and theoretical tests.

It’s also a way for Canon to provide its technicians with opportunities to build their skills by sharing ‘tricks of the trade’ with colleagues from around the world.

Howorth spotted an opportunity to get involved in the hype that surrounded the Rugby World Cup – from one international sporting event to another.

What started as an internal competition in Australia caught the imagination of the media and became one of Canon’s biggest corporate stories for 2011. In total there were 23 pieces across Australia of coverage around the APAC cup including The Today Show, Herald Sun, News.com, MX, ABC 720 Perth, 2GB Sydney, 4KQ Brisbane and Adelaide Now.

The Daily Telegraph even made this online video to accompany its story about the competition.

“Forget Cadel Evans, forget Sam Stosur and forget that guy who won the Nobel Prize for discovering what the universe was made of – Australia has a new hero.” –The Daily Telegraph

“Got a paper jam? Can’t get your printer working? Mt Gravatt based technician Daniel Leong is the man who knows how to solve your printing woes.” – Southern Star

“O’Brien is a paper jam’s worst enemy.” – The Daily Telegraph

“Newing, a specialist senior engineer with Canon, earned his spot in the four-man Aussie squad to compete at the Canon Asia Pacific Cup.” – MX

Shane McClelland, marketing and communication manager of Canon Australia, said it was great to be able to recognise the technicians for all their hard work and enthusiasm.

“We were very pleased with the coverage we received around the APAC Cup and the media hype was fantastic for the finalists – Paul O’Brien even mentioned that he was stopped on the street once and asked if he was “the Canon technician from the TV?,” said Shane.

The Canon APAC Cup showed that the right story angle can make a niche story go a long way.

Did they bring home the cup? Although the four-man Australian squad wasn’t successful in bringing home the APAC Cup – they did prove that good old Aussie sportsmanship is alive and well – on and off the footy field.

Back in 2009, Howorth developed a PR campaign positioning Hitachi Data Systems as a thought-leader in the information management space by providing a first perspective on the ‘Information Glut’, a report examining the impact of the sharp growth in information.

Two years on, Hitachi revisited the topic to see if attitudes had changed, expanding the scope by commissioning Deloitte Access Economics to assess how the information glut was impeding business productivity, and the benefit of improved information management on performance and the broader economy.

A collaborative Ogilvy project involving Howorth, Impact Communications and Ogilvy Illumination, Hitachi commissioned an independent study conducted by AMR, which found that 40% of organisations in Australian and New Zealand are suffering from too much information, up 5% from 2009. Almost every respondent (95%) admitted they experienced some degree of glut, with a quarter reporting significant impact on organisational performance.

Analysis by Deloitte also found the information glut is affecting Australia and New Zealand’s GDP and therefore their global competitiveness – estimating mismanagement of information is costing Australia’s economy at least $3bn per year and New Zealand $400m per year.

Hitachi has called for businesses to start acting in order to manage the growth of the glut, stressing that Australia can no longer afford to be a nation of business bystanders. This ‘information intervention’ requires organisations to take a big picture look at existing systems and strategically align information management with business imperatives.

Howorth conducted a series of embargoed media briefings with business and technology media to amplify the amount of quality media coverage. A broadcast strategy was devised to help communicate the high-level business messages and impact of the information glut on Australian productivity. The human interest story was communicated via an interview with AAP to extend the conversation through syndications across the regional news websites. The provision of both Australian and New Zealand specific stats also enabled the ANZ publications to customise the content. In addition, the infographic on the 2011 stats supported the content and made the report more visually appealing.

The launch of the report received significant media interest, with eight embargoed interviews, two broadcast interviews and over 20 unique articles appearing in traditional print and online media.

Highlights included:

-              Neville Vincent, VP and general manager, was interviewed by ABC Lateline Business on launch day, outlining the key findings from the report. A six minute interview with Vincent was also broadcast on Sky Business News’ Tech Report programme.

-              40+ articles appeared in titles such as AAP, News.com.au, Herald Sun, Daily Telegraph, Technology Spectator, iTWire, Computerworld, Computerworld NZ, Computer Daily News, Channel News and The Channel, more than doubling 2009’s coverage.

-              The quality of the story was reflected in further reactive enquiries and additional articles by other organisations referencing the Information Glut report to leverage their own product offerings.

You can download a copy of the Great Information Glut 2011 report here

Ever been struck by a great idea, but kept it quiet, just in case it sounds more wacko than wonder-child? After 10 years around the traps at Ogilvy PR and 14 in the PR business, I’ll share a secret: wonder-child is overrated.

But for those that err on the side of better safe than sorry, let me give you a quick filter for the big idea that you can implement between brain and mouth.

Last week I attended a MasterClass at ci2011 with famous physician, inventor and author of 82 books, Dr Edward de Bono. He took us through some concepts from his books ‘Think! Before It’s Too Late’ and ‘Six Thinking Hats’, but for me the most compelling part was the last 30 minutes of each session when he answered audience questions and entered into general discourse on the role of creativity within an organisation.

 Creativity often gets a bad rap. Corporate clients might sponsor the arts, but get a whiff of it in the boardroom and it takes a brave leader to grab it by the horns and see how they can apply it to their business.

 A key differentiator de Bono applies is creativity versus ‘crazy-tivity’.

Creativity is creating something new. According to de Bono, all valuable creative ideas will be logical in hindsight and have obvious benefits. In fact, when you are using creativity to create something new for an organisation, it’s often referred to as innovation.

Crazy-tivity has its place – in the realms of fantasy and entertainment – but it’s not the valuable business tool PR peeps need to employ in their bag of tricks.

 So getting back to this checklist between brain and mouth.

 This is not a de Bono list – it’s Aunty Van’s interpretation of de Bono – so take or leave it depending on where you think I sit on the scale of wacko to wunderkind.

 Before you make your suggestion, answer the following questions:

1. With hindsight, is your idea logical?
2. Does your idea have the potential to deliver obvious benefits?
3. If so, list two-three benefits that would support your idea.
4. What’s your gut saying? Is it a winner? Intuition doesn’t give you creative ideas, but it does help you judge the ideas you come up with. Trust yourself when you think you’re on a winner.

 Now I’m not saying you need to do this with every single idea. In some brainstorming environments it’s perfectly OK to switch the dial to wacko – in fact de Bono’s ‘Random Word’ tools might be considered in this category.

 But if you have time for the filter – run your idea through it – and it might help you articulate your thinking a little better.

 Dr de Bono has a number of ‘deliberate thinking techniques’ that I’m just starting to learn about. He’s number one on my reading list right now, so if you want to borrow a copy, go to www.bookdepository.co.uk .

He signed my copies so you can all PO! (BTW, that last comment was a de Bono in-joke … read his latest work and you’ll get it.)

Australia’s ABC, affectionately known as ‘Aunty’, is often regarded as an institution that is slow to embrace innovations and technologies –almost a relic of bygone times.  Aunty has a certain old school feel about her, whether it be the familiar faces of its presenters or its consistent programming. However, in reality, a more fitting name for the ABC of today would reflect that the ABC has broken down barriers ahead of its commercial cohorts.

Last month, about 150 guests crammed into a small room at the UTS Aerial Function Centre to hear Mark Scott, the managing director of the ABC, outline how the ABC was responding in the era of digital information, as part of the UTSpotlight series for the university’s alumni.

Scott reflected on a time when the ability of audiences and readers to quench their news thirst was at the mercy of the country’s news editors and newsagents. For example, if your newsagent wanted to, he could sell you a nine day-old copy of the New York Times; if you made it home in time, you would watch Richard Morecroft read the news, and if the head of news at Fairfax thought you might be interested, you could read an article from The Washington Post.

However, times have changed and while many see the ABC’s charter, structure and funding to be constraints holding it back, Scott believes innovation loves constraints and he’s taken these constraints by the horns. His view is the ABC should be more innovative, more relevant and more responsive to Australians than any other network.

Since taking the helm in 2006, Scott has expanded its services and the ABC now provides news, information, entertainment and other content across an expanding array of platforms: four television channels; digital radio channels to complement the four national and 60 local services; an elaborate online operation and customised material for mobile and other new media devices.

It’s fair to say the ABC is leading the digital charge. Its iView product, developed on a typical ABC budget of ‘as little as possible’, was the first to unlock audiences from their nightly 7pm social contracts with newsreaders to view their news. It meant they could view the news, and their favourite TV shows, at any time, from anywhere using the device of their choosing – iPhone, iPad or iMac. The ABC has realised the importance of digital and online in helping it to engage and maintain its audience.

Even the stalwart ‘old school’ bastions of the ABC have moved into the digital age – Four Corners has a Facebook page to interact with its audience, and Q&A regularly generates more than 30, 000 tweets in a single hour. The ABC has revolutionised the content Australians are seeing on their screens, centering it around them and what they have to say.

According to Scott, the role of the ABC is no longer that of a news teller but as a news host — a place where people can tell their own news and stories. The ABC is about Australian content and stories, stories for Australians by Australians. It provides a platform that allows them to do so. And where better than in their own world – online.

Guest post by Dorea Lau (@dorealau)