Challenge:

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

Challenge:

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.

Adam Pretty/Getty Images: Kazushi Sato and Rie Sato

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.

Adam Pretty/Getty Images: Kou Murata and Hisako Murata

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.

Adam Pretty/Getty Images: Hatsumi Onodera and Yasuo Onodera

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.

Challenge:

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

“We are looking forward to working with the Howorth team again and leveraging its consumer expertise in PR and social media,” said Ms Thomas, National Marketing Communications Manager, Toshiba (Australia) Pty Limited.

Howorth previously worked for Toshiba for six years and teams-up with Toshiba again from 13 February 2013.

Contact details for the Howorth PR team will be communicated in due course.

Challenge:

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.

Challenge:

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.

OgilvyEarth Global President Kim Slicklein today joined Paula di Perna, the Strategic Advisor of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), to ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange.  CDP is a non-profit organisation that provides a global system for thousands of companies and cities to measure, disclose, manage and share environmental information. It does in part this by working with 655 institutional investors holding US$78 trillion in assets to encourage companies to improve environmental disclosure and performance.This is instrumental in global efforts to drive greenhouse gas emission reductions and promote sustainable water use.

The ringing of the bell marked the launch of CDP’s annual S&P 500 report looking at how the largest US companies are managing their financial risks from environmental issues. OgilvyEarth is CDP’s official Communications Partner and the two organisations work closely together to ensure that CDP’s important environmental messages resonate.

CDP is a great partner for OgilvyEarth here in Australia.  CDP’s Australian office is located at Ogilvy House in Sydney, and CDP shares OgilvyEarth’s commitment to professional excellence. In a 2012 survey of 850 sustainability professionals carried out by GlobeScan/SustainAbility, CDP was ranked as the most credible rating system in the world, beating the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and FTSE4GOOD.

See the ringing of the NYSE bell here:

https://www.cdproject.net/en-US/News/CDP%20News%20Article%20Pages/CDP-rings-opening-bell-for-New-York-Stock-Exchange.aspx

You can find out more about CDP on their website: https://www.cdproject.net/

Each day of my internship at Howorth was different, which meant I was always learning new skills, interacting with different people, and being presented new opportunities. I was so fortunate to be surrounded by such creative and experienced professionals on a daily basis.

For me, the aspect of my internship at Ogilvy PR of which has made a lasting impression on me, is the radiant culture. It is built on hard work, support, but also creativity and a lot of fun.

During my (all too short) month at Howorth I was given the reign to write press releases, by-lines, draft case studies, client profiles, create media lists, conduct volumes of research and attend brainstorms among many other activities. I even found myself writing personalised travel guides for people that were going on holidays to places I’d been!

I was fortunate enough to attend several learning seminars and presentations given by people from the wider Ogilvy PR group, which provided a fantastic overview of other ventures, achievements and creativity from across the board. I participated in brainstorms with Social@Ogilvy digital analysts, who were kind enough to put time aside out of their busy schedules to chat with me.

My advice for prospective Ogilvy PR interns (without giving away too many of my secrets):

• Be proactive
• Be memorable
• Think outside the box

Thank you to all the brilliant professionals that I had the privilege of working alongside. It’s only been a week and I miss it terribly. This internship has given me the confidence to aspire to greatness and drives me to do my best every single day. I hope one day, to ooze the same professional zeal, playful creativity, and cupcake baking skills that I was lucky enough to sample on more than one occasion.

I hope this blog has done the Ogilvy PR experience justice; in reality, it’s all of this and more. Like anything in life, it is what you make of it. An internship at Ogilvy PR is no exception.

Leading technology agency – Howorth – is looking for an ambitious Account Manager or Senior Account Manager who can build a career working with some of the world’s best technology brands. You need to be passionate about enterprise technology and telecommunications, with at least 5+ years experience.

We’re looking for someone who loves a busy team environment and is passionate about creative ideas and achieving results that make a difference. You’ll need to be a ‘grown up’ and take responsibility for numerous projects and provide excellent client service using your industry knowledge and PR skills.

Here’s the expertise you have, that we’ll build on:

· Tight project management – including from formulation to evaluation.

· Strong communications/editing skills and the ability to teach and guide junior colleagues.

· Credible counsel and creativity that make your clients trust you.

· Good understanding of B2B social media experience

· Management skills that build the productivity of your team.

· Thorough insight and control of your clients’ budgets.

· Heavy hitting media skills and experienced understanding of key business & technology media.

You will also benefit from Ogilvy PR’s impressive benefits. Interested? Please email your CV to jennifer.street@ogilvy.com.au