Howorth goes green with mySmart CTI

Howorth began work with mySmart CTI in late 2009 and together, have worked to raise awareness of the solutions available for commercial building owners, facility managers, electrical engineers and lighting consultants.

mySmart CTI is an Australian company that saw a burgeoning market for energy efficient solutions, as early as 2001, when the business was formed.  The concept of green buildings was once deemed ‘new age’ and the challenge was in educating potential customers about energy efficiency. For some, it can seem overwhelming – business owners seeing both time and initial costs as barriers to making the switch.

Howorth has helped mySmart CTI to further enhance its reputation as a leader within the industry, building long term equity with key customers, partners and stakeholder groups. The campaign to-date has taken a phased approach:

• Phase 1: Educating target audiences about the issues, obligations and opportunities associated with sustainable practices.
• Phase 2: Demonstrating the effectiveness of mySmart CTI solutions through case studies, showcasing both the features and benefits of mySmart CTI products and projects.
• Phase 3: Elevating mySmart CTI’s profile through the use of opinion-driven content, by providing commentary on topical and regulatory issues.

mySmart CTI Managing Director, Peter Garrett, said the PR program had shown tangible results: “There were several examples of leads directly attributable to PR in 2010,” he said. “The heightened awareness of our products and services has made a real difference in having conversations with customers.”

“We are working with Howorth to educate the industry, and our prospective customer base, on the energy efficiency issues directly relevant to them; to help them get the most out of their surroundings, while remaining environmentally responsible.”

The campaign has delivered coverage for mySmart CTI across a range of business titles, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Open Forum, and industry publications including Sustainability Matters, The Circuit and Electrical Solutions.

Howorth appoints two Practice Directors

Howorth Communications, the technology and business to business specialist firm within Ogilvy PR Australia, has appointed two senior Practice Directors to manage ongoing growth across its consumer technology and corporate practices.

Amanda Kiddle and Kathryn Torpy will now lead Howorth’s Digital Lifestyle and Business to Business (B2B) and Corporate practices respectively.

Howorth’s Managing Director, Graham White said: “These key strategic appointments ensure that Howorth has strong and experienced leadership across key areas of the business. Both roles are vital in delivering our long term growth plan, broadening our offer and ensuring continued commitment to excellence and added value for our clients.”

Kiddle joins from the UK, bringing a wealth of consumer lifestyle experience, having led large consumer teams and driven award-nominated brand campaigns at some of London’s top PR firms including Edelman and Weber Shandwick UK. Kiddle’s extensive brand-building and reputation management experience stretches across a range of industries and includes global clients such as Samsung, Warner Bros, Reckitt Benckiser, Mars and Kraft.

Torpy has been instrumental in the growth of Howorth’s B2B and Corporate practice since its inception in 2008. Formerly a journalist in Brisbane, including The Courier Mail, her international PR experience includes business, finance and technology from in-house and consultancy positions in the UK, US and Australia. Her more recent client experience includes Microsoft Australia, CTIMySmart, LexisNexis and Bluescope Steel.

“Howorth recorded its best ever fiscal year in 2010, with headcount now at 35 people,” said White. “In addition to our broader enterprise technology business, which had another terrific year, our B2B and Corporate and Digital Lifestyle practices both enjoyed strong growth. With these two new appointments, we are excited about the year ahead.”

Howorth is part of Ogilvy PR Australia, the country’s largest and most awarded public relations agency, which has scooped more than 50 Australian and global trophies in the past two years.  In 2010, Howorth took top honours amongst all WPP-owned worldwide PR agencies, winning best PR campaign of the year.

Howorth & OgilvyEarth kickoff 2011 with Canon account win

Howorth and Ogilvy PR Australia partner OgilvyEarth have been appointed by Canon Australia to manage public relations and communications strategies across its corporate, sustainability and business imaging divisions following a competitive pitch.

Canon’s Director of Business Imaging, Craig Manson, commented “We were impressed with Howorth and OgilvyEarth’s vision for Canon. They presented ideas that were insightful, imaginative and at the same time, campaign-able.”

“This year will see an even greater focus on the revitalisation of the Canon brand in Australia, supporting our position as leaders in digital imaging and business solutions,” Craig said.

In response to the win Kieran Moore, Chief Executive Officer of Ogilvy PR Australia, said “We are thrilled to kick off 2011 in partnership with such a prestigious brand.”

“Ogilvy PR’s unique business model means we can offer clients like Canon bespoke teams of communication specialists. Through Howorth and OgilvyEarth Canon will be working with a team offering unrivalled expertise across technology, corporate communications and sustainability and will focus on building the Canon brand,” said Kieran.

Motorola DEFY Launch Event

Ogilvy PR’s technology and business to business public relations agency, Howorth Communications, has a long-standing relationship with Motorola and hosted an event earlier in the year, focusing on Motorola’s re-entry to the Australian market following a quiet period.  To continue this momentum, Howorth was briefed to host another event to launch its newest smartphone and hero device, the DEFY.

The DEFY is built on the Android 2.1 operating system and the handset is water, dust and scratch resistant, making it the ultimate ‘summer-proof’ phone. It also features MOTOBLUR which allows users to sync all their contacts, messages and social media applications to their 3.7” screen.

As such, Motorola was targeting a young and active audience – consumers who want a phone that can keep up with their life but that also comes with all the features of an Android smartphone. The launch event had to serve a dual purpose – to educate media on the phone but also reflect the summer-proof and fun nature of the phone.

The Motorola DEFY event was hosted at the Ivy Penthouse, known for its exclusive and young energetic vibe. Ambassador of the DEFY handset and Pro skater Corbin Harris guest presented at the event, demonstratedwhy the DEFY is perfect for him and his lifestyle, even stating “It is so tough, I can’t even break it when it drops from my pocket“.

The public relations event consisted of two sessions, the first a private briefing session to all tier one, business, TV, lifestyle consumer and trade media hosted by Motorola and Telstra spokespeople, followed by a party, which was attended by a number of celebrities and social pages media.

The first session attracted 37 attendees from key media including; Sky Business News, Sydney Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, T3, Women’s Health, Cleo, Channel 9, Herald Sun, CNet, 2GB, Madison and Sun Herald S.

The second session attracted 30 key celebrities including; April Rose Pengilly, Alex Needs, Lincoln Lewis, Rhianna Fish and Roxy Jacenko. Also in attendance were seven snappers and twelve prominent social pages media.

The event was covered across a range of platforms.

Twitter activity was also significant with a peak in conversation which can be attributed to event use and encouragement of the #defy hashtag, including tweets from key celebrities April Rose Pengilly and Roxy Jacenko.

Ancestry Gillard/Abbott Family Trees

Challenge: To capitalise on the interest and broad media attention surrounding the 2010 Australian Federal Election, Ancestry.com.au set Ogilvy PR’s business and technology public relations agency, Howorth, the challenge to find an opportunity to get the family history website into the debate.

Idea: Research the family history of the two main candidates to discover their family pedigree and to investigate if there was anything in their family history that may have formed the basis for their political ideologies. This would create an interesting news angle, with human interest, and quite different from the traditional election coverage.

Insight: Research undertaken by Ancestry.com.au unveiled that for the first time in over 87 years, Australia’s elected Prime Minister would not be Australian born, with both Gillard and Abbott both from the UK.

Campaign: Working closely with Ancestry.com.au to research and pitch this unique insight to the media, Howorth negotiated an exclusive opportunity with Channel Nine’s Today Show. This was followed by both print and radio outreach, with many interviews conducted under embargo.

Results: The media outreach resulted in more than 44 ‘on message’ stories, including radio, television, print and online. Highlights included a five minute live-to-air TV interview on Australia’s highest rating morning show, the Today Show. The team also secured a full page feature article in The Daily Telegraph and an 18 minute interview with 2GB radio in Sydney.

In total the public relations campaign reached more than 3.4 million Australians, highlighting the value of taking a topical news issue and finding a related new insight.

Australia – Who Do You Think You Really Are?

Issue: As the generation gap widens and the population ages rapidly, Australia is in the midst of an identity crisis. Traditionally, family history has been passed down by our grandparents, however, as they pass away, so does their knowledge and many adults now know surprisingly little about their family history. To assist in closing the gap, Ancestry.com.au has worked over the last four years collating the Australian, Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes.

For the first time ever online, the records of those who were born, married or died in Australia from 1788 through to 1985 have been assembled into one fully searchable database.

Challenge: Researching a family tree has typically been a difficult process, involving long hours poring over microfiche in libraries and requiring a significant financial investment to obtain the necessary records. Additionally, this has traditionally been the activity of older generations. The launch of this collection makes it easier to research your family tree, and because of the depth of information included, generates mainstream appeal.

Insight: Through research it became clear that Australians did have a passion to discover where they came from and who their ancestors were. However many did not know much, if anything, about their family tree past their grandparents.

Creative Idea: With the information available in the collection and results from the research, the public relations campaign idea focused on asking Australians to rediscover “who they really are”, in order to drive a renewed interest in genealogy.

To bring this theme to life, Ogilvy PR’s business and technology public relations agency, Howorth, dug through the collection to uncover multiple human interest stories which would resonate with modern day Australians. The allure of ‘celebrity names’ was used to help Australians understand the depth and breadth of the type of records available.

By asking ‘who you really are’, it encouraged speculation of famous connections, including the Murdoch Family (Head of News Corp), Sir Donald Bradman (Famous Cricketer), Henry Lawson (Poet) & Edmund Barton (Australia’s First Prime Minister).

Campaign:  The public relations campaign featured a strong overall communications programme which included a digital and online strategy, backed by strong radio and print coverage to help drive discussion about family history and to set the news agenda on launch day.

Under embargo, Howorth negotiated a series of radio, print, online, TV and newswire exclusives with Australia’s most prominent and influential journalists. Additionally, Ancestry.com.au actively used Twitter and Facebook to promote where and when you could hear Ancestry.com.au speaking about family history – either at events or on radio. This included posting coverage and links of details of live radio interviews.

Outcome: Overall, the public relations campaign generated over 70 pieces of coverage (including 15 radio interviews) and reached over 5 million Australians during the two week campaign.

The collection launch resulted in Ancestry.com.au receiving its highest number of unique browsers to the site in one day. After the campaign, the website continued to receive a high volume of browsers and registrations – with registrations for the free trial membership increasing by 348 per cent from the previous year, and paid membership by 246 per cent.

The campaign has firmly placed family history back at the forefront of conversations and at the same time established Ancestry.com.au as the leading authority for family history.

More award wins for Ogilvy PR

Last night at the Public Relations Institute of Australia’s (PRIA) annual NSW State Awards for Excellence event, Ogilvy PR was the proud recipient of a number of awards.

Howorth received a Highly Commended award in the Business-to-Business marketing category for the “Telstra Productivity Indicator” campaign, launched for the second consecutive year in February 2010. The goals of the campaign are to demonstrate Telstra Enterprise & Government as a leader in technology, business and productivity, as well as successfully position the company from a transactional leader to a trusted advisor offering strategic advice, industry insights and world-class technology to the C-Suite across public and private enterprises in Australia.

Highlighting how tough it is to win a PRIA Award, Howorth was the only winner in the Business-to-Business category. As a result of this award, the campaign is now in the running for PRIA’s Golden Target national awards, which will be unveiled at the national conference in Darwin on 25 October.

Ogilvy PR’s employee communication experts at Impact, together with its client, Bayer Australia and New Zealand, were category winners in the PRIA’s NSW Internal Communication category.  The team was recognised for communication excellence for the development and execution of Bayer’s B-Green project which drove and achieved measurable behaviour change across its Australian and New Zealand workforce around sustainability.  The project, steered by a specialist team operating under Ogilvy PR’s growing sustainability OgilvyEarth practice, led to a raft of energy, recycling and other initiatives and was also recently awarded the best internal communications program for all Bayer companies worldwide.

Pulse Communications added to its reputation of being Australia’s most awarded consumer PR agency, by taking thome two awards from the Public Relations Institute of Australia’s (PRIA) annual NSW State Awards for Excellence event.

Firstly, Pulse received a Commended certificate for the successful Because I am a Girl campaign for the global-not-for-profit, Plan International which was based around a series of in-depth reports into girls lives in developing countries. The campaign aimed to raise awareness of the need to invest in girls to break the global intergenerational poverty cycle and encouraged Australians to support Plan projects.

The second Commended recognition was for launching Australia’s first Rainforest Alliance Tea by Lipton. This consisted of generating awareness of Lipton’s commitment to the international NGO whilst minimising any potential claims of green washing by media and influencers.

Congratulations team and fingers crossed for more recognition!

From Clink to Click: ancestry.com.au calls up the past

Challenge

Do you have a convict ancestor? If you did, would you know? In its first project for Australia’s leading family history website, Ancestry.com.au, public relations agency Howorth led a PR campaign to launch two new convict-based historical record collections to the public. These records (the Convict Registers of Conditional and Absolute Pardons, 1791-1846 and the New South Wales Certificates of Freedom, 1827-1867) complete the journey from arrest to release of almost one third of all convicts transported to Australia.

With more than 2.3 million criminal and convict records now available online, Ancestry.com.au made the entirety of its 15-part Australian Convicts Collection accessible for free for eight days in January 2010. With the door to the past wide open, Howorth had to convince the public to come knocking.

Insight

Howorth constructed a public relations campaign, tied into Australia Day, to get consumers thinking about how their families originally made it to the Lucky Country, before encouraging them to dig down into their own pasts.

Creative idea, relentless execution

Howorth knew it needed a high-profile partner for the campaign launch, so secured a national News Limited exclusive for Australia Day itself, which resulted in coverage in all news.com.au sites across Australia. Metropolitan radio talk back programs were also targeted with embargoed material so they could incorporate the story into the weekly plan. Following this initial coverage burst, the release was then issued to all other media.

Outcomes

The response locally for the convict collection was overwhelming, with more than 200 pieces of coverage, including breaking news online across Fairfax and news.com.au, and radio news bulletins. 20 radio interviews were conducted across commercial, AM and community radio, from the ABC to 2GB, with some stations syndicating the interviews across their networks and regions to raise coverage levels even further. Print coverage included major pieces in the Hobart Mercury, Canberra Times and Sunday Territorian. Through social media engagement, public relations agency Howorth also generated 21 ‘Tweets’ on the open Convict Collection indexes, with some of the influential Twitter users having over 1000 followers.

As a result of the PR campaign, Ancestry.com.au received their highest ever unique visitors for a single day on Australia Day (25^th January 2010 ).

Gratifyingly, the client was thrilled with the results; “The Howorth team achieved results well beyond our expectations. This is a great start to our relationship,” said Debra Chesterton, Managing Director, Ancestry.com.au.

A smart way to revive a brand …. AND …. launch a smart-phone

Challenge

After several years losing market share in Australia, public relations agency Howorth successfully orchestrated Motorola’s comeback, with the launch of its new range of Android powered smart-phone devices. Howorth’s objectives? Simple – create mass-market interest across consumer and technology media, reaching out to consumers looking for a new smart-phone.

Insight

Differentiating a phone from the pack can be difficult, but Motorola’s new Android range of smart-phones held one key ingredient , MOTOBLUR – the first mobile experience to deliver your social life straight to your mobile phone, streaming conversations, friends and widgets right into your handset to provide a never-ending flow of updates.

We understood that the media would need to try out the phone themselves to get the full effect of the MOTOBLUR package, so they could appreciate first-hand how it could link their lives via the web. As a result, Howorth’s public relations strategy was designed to ensure media had maximum exposure to the MOTOBLUR experience – from one-on-one demos and the opportunity to take handsets for review, to a fully immersive and interactive launch.

Creative idea, relentless execution

Rebuilding a brand and restoring consumer confidence is no small feat. Public relations agency Howorth held 12 one to one briefings and handset demonstrations in the lead-up to the event, with outlets handpicked to ensure a wide depth of coverage on launch day. Media were enticed to explore MOTOBLUR before its official launch included the Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, Channel 7, Channel 9, T3, Grazia and Women’s Health.

The focus then switched to the event itself. Taking over the Cargo Hall at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, MOTOBLUR’s features were unveiled through stunning visuals presented on a mammoth concave screen: embracing our presenters to showcase social streaming as life in motion, a network surrounding us in all that we do.

Outcomes

On the day of launch, Motorola and Optus spokespeople conducted one to one media briefings at the event with key influencers The Australian, iTNews and iTWire.

These interviews, plus our strategic warm-up prior to the event, generated more than 100 pieces of coverage across metropolitan, consumer, technology and business media (print, broadcast and online). Highlights to date include a demonstration on Channel 9’s Today show, the front page of Australian T3, and pick-up across a range of specialist outlets like Gizmodo, ITnews.com.au, Good Gear Guide, Zoo Weekly, Smarthouse, iTWire.com.au, CNET Australia and GadgetGuy.com.au.

Small gadgets, small budget, BIG results

Challenge

Public relations agency Howorth began working with Australian family-owned Mac accessories distributor Try & Byte in November last year, briefed to raise awareness of their website via positive media relations.

Creative idea, relentless execution

A distributor of new consumer products aimed at Mac users and general consumers, www.try&byte.com.au regularly releases innovative technology to its customers.

With a small budget, we needed to find effective ways to pitch the latest Try & Byte accessories and products into consumer and consumer technology media. We therefore focused on the latest five products available on the site, selecting highly targeted media for reviews and profiles.

Outcomes

Our public relations campaign has so far reached over 4.5 million Australians through media coverage: punching well above the investment. Coverage has included a cover story in Macworld and articles now running into the double figures across tier one targets like The West Australian, The Courier Mail, Gizmodo, Cybershack, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sunday Herald Sun, Girlfriend and Home Entertainment Magazine.

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