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.

Ogilvy PR Launches Digital Influence Offering for Today’s B2B Buyer Journey

New Offering Integrates B2B Communications, Social Media and Sales Enablement Expertise to Initiate and Influence the B2B Sales Process

SYDNEY, February 4, 2013 – Ogilvy Public Relations (Ogilvy PR) today announced the launch of a new global digital influence service called Digital Influence for B2B, designed to help business-to-business (B2B) companies adapt to the changes that have occurred in how B2B buyers are seeking information and opinions of others when considering a purchase.

The new service for driving awareness and sales consideration is led by an integrated, global team of specialists including:

• B2B communications experts
• Social media experts
• Sales enablement experts

“B2B companies, especially B2B technology companies, are inherently sales-driven organisations.  Social media has undeniably changed the B2B buying process as much as it has impacted the B2C process,” said Graham White, Managing Director of Howorth, the Australian technology specialist agency at Ogilvy PR.

“Globally, we saw a need to evolve and expand our existing B2B social media efforts into an integrated offering that reflects today’s B2B buyer behaviors and puts brands in the best possible position to be considered at a variety of touch-points along the customer journey.”

The Digital Influence for B2B buyer journey-based service launches with six solutions:

• Content driven thought leadership
• Search and content optimisation
• Socially enabled sales force
• Community marketing
• Influencer engagement and activation
• Social product marketing

“We know that B2B buyers are seeking information, opinions and the experiences of others before they initiate contact with sales teams.  With today’s B2B buyer journey it is critical that communications, sales and marketing come together and use innovative social practices to build profitable customer relationships,” said John Bell, Global Managing Director, Social@Ogilvy. “With our new, integrated B2B social communications team, we have methods and tools to effectively connect socially-enabled communications with meaningful sales-related goals.”

The new offering is firmly grounded in the B2B customer journey, and an appreciation of how it has changed with the advancement of digital communications and social media. One dramatic change for sales organisations is that the average B2B IT buyer needs to consume five pieces of content before they are ready to speak to sales. (source: IDG Enterprise Customer Engagement Research, 2012).  This speaks to the critical nature of quality content that is optimised for organic search.

In addition, 82 per cent of B2B technology decision makers say colleagues within their organisation influence their purchase decision-making process. (source: Forrester Research, Inc., 2011 Social Technographics for Business Technology Buyers, October 2011). This highlights an untapped opportunity for many B2B organisations to expand development of advocacy programs in social media to share the opinions of employees, customers and partners.

The interdisciplinary team includes Ogilvy PR’s technology agency, Howorth, Social@Ogilvy and OgilvyOne. The team’s combined experience provides clients with unmatched understanding of the roles that content, customer sentiment and endorsement, and channel uniquely play within B2B environments.

Ogilvy’s Digital Influence for B2B service is unique and valuable to clients because it offers:

• The Social Media Engagement Approach refined by Social@Ogilvy over the last eight years.
• A Deep Understanding of the Unique B2B Marketing and SalesEnvironment honed over 25 years of work in B2B across Ogilvy PR’s Technology Practice, Howorth and OgilvyOne.
• A Global Network of Social and B2B Expertise with Ogilvy PR and Social@Ogilvy professionals.
• A Content Strategy to align marketing and sales content with customer needs along the buyer journey.

Ogilvy PR is a joint venture between WPP and STW Group, Australia’s leading marketing content and communications service group.

For further information, please contact:

Rebecca Tilly, STW PR on 0410 501 043

About Ogilvy Public Relations

­­­­­­­­­­­Ogilvy Public Relations (Ogilvy PR) is a global, multi-disciplinary communications leader operating in more than 80 offices across six continents. In 2011, Ogilvy won more Cannes PR Lions than any other agency worldwide, was named Global Digital/Social Consultancy of the Year by the Holmes Report, won Specialist Agency of the Year in Asia Pacific (Campaign Asia), and won the WPP global, top award (WPPed Cream, Crème de la Crème) for the fourth time in five years. Ogilvy PR integrates deeply with all Ogilvy & Mather disciplines (advertising, direct marketing, activation, promotional, digital and entertainment) through the proprietary Ogilvy Fusion™ approach to delivering comprehensive, business solutions through content creation, community building, and communications with measurable results. For more information, visit our Web site at www.ogilvypr.com.au or follow us on Twitter at @ogilvypraus.

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

 

Toshiba Moves PR Back to Howorth

We are proud to announce Howorth’s newest client, Toshiba (Australia) Pty Limited. The team at Howorth will manage PR for Toshiba’s notebook and AV businesses across Australia and New Zealand.

“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.

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.

The Ogilvy PR Experience

Sitting down to write this blog is ironically one of the most daunting tasks I’ll carry out for Ogilvy PR, despite finishing my internship a week ago! How does one sum up all of the amazing experiences, invaluable guidance and insurmountable kindness, patience and friendship that was gifted to me by my colleagues at Howorth in just a few short paragraphs? Let’s see if I can do this justice.

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.

By Rebecca Booth.

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

Challenge: 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.

This year, Getty Images is the official photographic agency to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a designation they have held for 24 years, since the Calgary Winter Olympics of 1988. At London 2012, Getty Images has a team of more than 100 photographers, photo editors and support staff to capture the excitement of the Games from behind the scenes to the finish lines.

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.

Strategy: 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.

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.

Kronos Healthcare Study

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.

Strategy: 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.

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.

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