Campaign Overview:

The Big Event was the second annual accessibility expo held by the Auckland Disability Providers Network. The challenge to Alexander Communications (AC) was to increase foot traffic through the 2013 expo and bring the accessibility message into mainstream media. In the past, communication messages about accessibility and disability have remained largely within the disability sector.

The Auckland Disability Providers Network worked with AC to find engaging stories within the expo.

Results

The results achieved for The Big Event saw visitor numbers at this year’s event nearly double on the inaugural 2012 expo.  The New Zealand Herald profiled an AC client working with The Big Event and included a positive mention on the client’s work with the Auckland Disability Network and the upcoming expo.

Shine TV also featured The Big Event on its nightly news bulletin, Focus, giving viewers a taste of the Friday show, ahead of Saturday.

Radio New Zealand National attended the event and produced a half-hour documentary segment for its One-in-Five show. This included several positive interviews that profiled different aspects of the event. The full interview can be heard here.

The Big Idea, an online arts website, also featured the event’s art exhibition, Perception.

The event featured on leading entertainment site eventfinda and in the Auckland Council and GrownUps newsletters. Other coverage was achieved in news sites infonews, yahoo and Scoop.

Campaign Overview

The Guardian Trust Rose Hellaby Maori Education Trust is an annual scholarship recognising talented and hard working Māori students. Guardian Trust and AC have a long-standing relationship, first working together on corporate and philanthropic campaigns in 2006.

To boost the profile of the inaugural Rose Hellaby Awards, where $130,000 in scholarships was presented to 120 Māori secondary and tertiary students, Guardian Trust, the sole trustee and investment manager of the Rose Hellaby Māori Education Fund, worked with AC to tell the story of Rose Hellaby and the three students who were the major award recipients for 2012.

Results

Miriama Ketu-Mckenzie, the recipient of a prestigious $30,000 scholarship from the Rose Hellaby Māori Education Fund, was interviewed by Good Morning.

Speaking to Phil Morgan Rees, Guardian Trust’s general manager of personal client services, and Miriama, interviewer Matai Smith discussed how entrusting a legacy to Guardian Trust can see it grow and benefit others far beyond a single lifetime.  Guardian Trust, which distributes $32 million annually from 462 New Zealand charitable trusts, had its website linked to Good Morning’s website, with an invite to potential future recipients to apply for the Rose Hellaby postgraduate Māori scholarships and other gifts from the fund.

Miriama Ketu-Mckenzie was also interviewed by Paul Diamond, the stand-in host of National Radio’s ‘Saturday Mornings with Kim Hill’, and Radio New Zealand’s Eru Rerekura for Te Manu Korihi.

The other 2012 recipients, Lewis Neihana Tait Jones and Jessica Templeton, also received coverage; Lewis featured in the Waikato Times and online at Stuff.co.nz and Jessica appeared on Canterbury TV.

Campaign Overview:

AMP Capital Shopping Centres (AMPCSC) briefed Alexander Communications to help generate a fresh public relations campaign for Botany Town Centre and Bayfair Shopping Centre.

Understanding the increased importance of the online world, AMPCSC was interested in developing a campaign that took advantage of the growing online trend and added to the overall shopping experience.

Alexander Communications developed an initiative to find a dedicated shopping video blogger for each of the leading centres. With fashion video blogging (vlogging) becoming increasingly popular, timing for the search was perfect.

To ensure optimal results were met, Alexander Communications liaised with leading magazine, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly (NZWW) to form a partnership for the campaign.

Through this mainstream media channel, the competition was announced to find dedicated shopping vloggers. This included coverage through NZWW online and in print.

Throughout the competition period, other media including local newspapers and websites came onboard to promote the campaign.

Bay of  Plenty Times covered the competition online and in print.  Tauranga’s SunLive also promoted the campaign online.

More FM radio spoke with NZWW on the campaign during an interview that featured in September 2012.

For many of the contestant’s, blogging was already in their blood, so many promoted their own nominations through personal blogs already in place.

Popular lifestyle blog, Street and City Photos got onboard and wrote about the competition also.

A selection of the copy featured in NZWW can be seen below.

Results:

The response to the initial call out was very well received, with each of the centres having a healthy response. As video entries were received, the videos were placed online at NZWW, giving the public a chance to view the videos for themselves and vote.

The nominations also featured separately on YouTube.  Some examples can be seen here.

After much deliberation between each of the centres, Alexander Communications and NZWW, a decision was made.

An event was held at Auckland’s Botany Town Centre with NZWW to announce the winners (one each per centre). At the event, aspiring bloggers spoke with NZWW about the world of magazines.

Botany Town Centre was thrilled to announce Britney Hazeldine as the resident blogger. Bayfair Shopping Centre was equally as excited to announce Kerry Hardisty as Bayfair’s blogger. The announcement was made with NZWW both online  and in print.

The campaign gained significant appeal and social media took to the concept with gusto.

International shopping centre website, Shopping Centre Weekly, wrote an article about the campaign and the effective publicity it gained.

NZ Girl also featured the monthly blogs and posted to the website as they appeared online – these can be seen here and again, here.

Botany’s resident blogger has been using the campaign to her advantage and regularly posts to her popular personal blog, Lemonwood and Honey.

Have a look at some of the recent entries by each of the bloggers here.

Andrew Christie and engineers Stuart Monteith and Owen Youngof Pacific Rubber spoke with Nadine Chalmers-Ross from Breakfast on 2 October about the innovative and sustainable process for recycling used tyres.

acific Rubber sources old tyres from across the North Island and strips and shreds them in the Takanini-based Auckland factory to be used as a rubber crumb and buffing product.

The rubber crumbs are used in playgrounds and with synthetic grass in playing fields, making the field available for use year-round. St Peter’s College in Auckland has a Pacific Rubber turf in place, created with 80,000 used tyres that would have otherwise been sent to landfill.

Pacific Rubber sees great future potential for their product and is excited about the possibility of improvingNew Zealand’s transport with rubberised roads.

To watch the full clip select the link below:

http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/growing-business-pacific-rubber-video-5123304

Pacific Rubber also featured on the front page of the Business Section of the New Zealand Herald in August in ‘Rise in synthetic pitches boost local firm‘

Campaign Overview

Widespread international food shortages, all-time-high prices, and the increasing strain on land use in 2011 made the opening of  The FoodBowl near Auckland International Airport a critical investment in New Zealand’s positioning as a global leader in processed food supply.

In July 2011, Alexander Communications was approached by New Zealand Food Innovation Auckland (NZFIA) to develop a communications plan that would support the opening of  The FoodBowl. This presented an opportunity to significantly raise the profile of NZFIA and represented a good news story in what has been a difficult economic environment over the last few years.

The FoodBowl is comprised of food science and technology resources designed to enable New Zealand food and beverage businesses of all sizes to grow, by supporting new product and process development with pre-production pilot facilities and expertise.

In the works for nearly a decade, the network secured agreement for $20 million in funding from the Minister of Economic Development in December 2009 and is aimed at all food and beverage companies, from start-ups to SMEs and corporates. Exclusive tours with selected media were the natural choice for the launch of the FoodBowl and unveiling of the new premises to journalists and suppliers.

Results

The FoodBowl’s launch received positive feedback and coverage in numerous media channels.

TVNZ’s AMP Business featured NZFIA chairman Tony Nowell discussing the capabilities of  The Food Bowl and its ability to upscale sophisticated new products from laboratory to commercial production.

The launch also achieved significant print coverage, with articles in the NZ Manufacturer Magazine, NBR Food Industry Week, Food & Beverage Today, New Zealand Food Technology Magazine, NZ Business and Exporter Magazine.

Online media played an important role in helping NZFIA reach audiences in New Zealand and internationally. Articles featured on Epakmag.com, Foodworks.co.nz, Foodandbeveragetoday.co.nz, Foodnews.co.nz, Cateringplus.co.nz, Scoop.co.nz, Infonews.co.nz, Auckland.exportnz.org.nz, Manufacturingnz.org.nz, Foodnavigator-asia.com, Idealog.co.nz, Times.co.nz, Foodtechupdates.blogspot.co.nz, Industrysearch.com.au, Foodprocessing.com.au and Ferret.com.au.

Campaign Overview

In February 2012, the NZ Pops Orchestra was launched at Morton Estate House. The orchestra is the first of its kind in New Zealand, and has garnered the support of musical entrepreneur  Gray Bartlett as Patron and Gina Sanders who is involved both behind the scenes and centre stage as a soloist. Will Martin will be headlining the first concert on March 18. Rising star Toni Gibson will also be performing at the March event.

Modelled on internationally renowned groups such as Andre Rieu’s Johann Strauss Orchestra (his Auckland concerts sell out), Boston Pops Orchestra and Queensland Pops Orchestra, the NZPO is this country’s first dedicated pops orchestra.

Results

As a new organisation, the NZ Pops Orchestra had its work cut out against other established musical groups. Gina Sanders was interviewed by Eva Radich for Radio New Zealand Concert and Will Martin was interviewed on the Coast network. Grown Ups, a popular website for the 50+ age group, ran a give-away promotion for double passes to the March 18 concert as well as a story about the NZ Pops Orchestra. Major television network TV 3  News also picked up the NZ Pops story ahead of the first inaugural concert. Toni Gibson was interviewed and quirky clips of her singing in the bathroom at home were included in the story The news clip can be seen here.  The story also appeared on the TV 3 News website and was uploaded to popular news website Scoop.

Campaign Overview

Space Studio is an award winning New Zealand design and procurement firm. Director, Vee Kesner, has over 20 years of both national and international experience. Their projects range from the Intercontinental Golf Resort and Spa Hotel in Fiji, to the new Whanau Ora Maori Health Centre inHenderson. Their work is based in New Zealand and overseas.

They have completed work overseas in high-profile hotels and in the refurbishment sector. Retail stores throughout New Zealand have also benefited from Space Studio’s expertise, with both Bendon and 3 Wise Men outlets winning interior design awards.

Kesner originally approached Alexander Communications director, Dwayne Alexander, about the possibility of sharing some of the high quality projects with key interested markets . Dwayne worked with Vee to build a strong platform of media interviews by developing credentials and helping to get Space Studio’s story published.

Throughout the recession, Space Studio enjoyed substantial growth through local New Zealand projects and a strong presence in the overseas market. This was complemented by great media coverage in both industry and business publications, as well as in the New Zealand Herald and on TV.

Results

The media coverage generated for Space Studio helped to achieve new business opportunities and enhanced the overall awareness of the high quality projects completed by the business.

Media coverage was across a number of channels and helped to raise awareness of the overseas projects Space Studio was involved in such as the Grand Papua Hotel and Windward Apartments in Papua New Guinea.

Space Studio has had widespread coverage in a number of publications. As well as print coverage, Vee Kesner was also interviewed on television by Corin Dann as part of the TVNZ NZI Business programme. The footage of this interview can be found here. 

As evident from the comprehensive ‘In the Media’ page on the Space Studio website, the published coverage has been offset by high quality images of the work they have completed and of Vee herself. Through this exposure, quality business leads were generated and the profile of Space Studio was lifted.

Along with other valuable media coverage, Space Studio had front page coverage in the NZ Construction News as well as significant articles in Idealog and Interior magazines.

Campaign Overview

In May 2011, in honour of Mother’s Day, East Auckland’s Botany Town Centre gave mothers in the community the permission to think about themselves. By way of tribute to deserving mums, the centre turned each of the 31 days of May into Mother’s Day, and hosted a high tea for some amazing women.

Throughout the month, the centre accepted nominations for its search for Auckland’s best mums. The 10 finalists were invited to enjoy a high tea with a special guest, Nestle New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker winner Paula Midgley. All guests were treated to a decadent Robert Harris afternoon tea, Morton Estate Mimi Methode Traditionnelle and a goodie bag filled with gifts from Nestle, Lush and Simply You Living.

The winner of the overall prize for best mum, mother of five Melany Adams, was presented with a pamper pack containing a $500 Botany Town centre gift card, an Image Oasis treatment voucher valued at $300, and a Hoyts La Premiere gift card valued at $200.

As part of the month-long the Mother’s Day celebrations, lucky mums spotted shopping at Botany Town Centre found themselves on the receiving end of random acts of kindness. More than $5,000 in gift cards was given away to reward mums and encourage them to take time out of their busy schedule and treat themselves.

Results

The Permission to Think About You campaign achieved excellent results in the media, community buzz and the strengthening of new and existing relationships.

The campaign provided good media opportunities across a number of channels, including local community, online and industry media, and social media avenues such as YouTube and Facebook.

Media releases were generated in accordance with the centre’s activities during the campaign, and achieved over $50,000 worth of public relations value for Botany Town Centre.

Prominent local newspapers Howick and Botany Times, Howick and Pakuranga Times and Eastern Courier published stories regarding the search to find the community’s best mums. The Eastern Courier article included the YouTube link to the Botany Town Centre video produced for the campaign.

There was strong online media pick-up from news sites Infonews.co.nz, Scoop.co.nz and Stuff.co.nz, and engagement on Facebook, YouTube and online event diaries. Industry publications Shopping Centre Weekly and NZ Retail also published stories about the Permission To Think About You campaign featuring overall best mum Melany Adams.

Campaign Overview

A new social change enterprise, Be. Institute, was launched at the Auckland War Memorial Museum on 6 May 2011.

Three innovative national campaigns were introduced on the evening: Be. Accessible, Be. Leadership and Be. Welcome. All three are highly significant for New Zealand. Be. Accessible is the country’s first nationwide accessibility programme, and Be. Leadership, New Zealand’s first national disability leadership programme. Be. Welcome is a unique location accessibility assessment programme.

Be. Institute aims to inspire and enable a 100% accessible society for all New Zealanders. The driving force behind the programmes is to improve the accessibility of the physical environment, enable better access to information, promote the inclusion and leadership of disabled people in employment and the community, and change social attitudes and behaviours.

Alexander Communications was briefed to assist with building the profile of Be. Institute and raising awareness of the three programmes and the recent Be. On The Road national tour.

In June, Be. Accessible launched a nationwide tour, Be. On The Road. The three-week roadshow visited the 12 Rugby World Cup host cities to introduce the Be. vision and accompanying programmes, and to discuss the current and future accessibility of each city.

Results

The Be. On The Road tour received a warm welcome from each host city and the Be. team met with passionate advocates who shared and supported the Be. vision.

The news of Be. On The Road caught the attention of local media, which were curious to learn more about the Be. Institute and supporting programmes. Reporters attended the presentations, and face-to-face interviews with Be. Accessible chief executive Minnie Baragwanath were secured.

The regional publications supported the campaign by including stories about Be. Accessible visiting their city to address local accessibility. Articles were featured in the Taranaki Daily News, Southland Express, Manawatu Guardian, Nelson Mail, Waikato Times, Northern Advocate and Manawatu Standard among others.

Local radio stations and television also showed excellent interest in the campaign and several interviews with Minnie Baragwanath were secured. The news of Be. On The Road and the accessible campervan featured on Dunedin’s 9 Local News, and interviews with Ms Baragwanath were broadcast on The Breeze Manawatu, Newstalk ZB New Plymouth, More FM Rotorua and Classic Hits Whangarei.

Most recently, Next Magazine featured Minnie Baragwanath as the Change Maker personality in its August 2011 issue. The full-page spread includes a Q&A session with Ms Baragwanath and references the Be. Institute and its founding origins. In positioning Ms Baragwanath as an industry leader, the article also discussed why a social change enterprise such as the Be. Institute is necessary for our community.

Earlier in the year Simon Collins from the New Zealand Herald sat down with Tony Howe of the Disability Resource Centre. They discussed Be. Accessible and the vision of the campaign for a story which featured in the New Zealand Herald metro section.

To find out more about the Be. Institute and the supporting programmes, visit www.beaccessible.org.nz

Botany Town Centre enlisted the help of Alexander Communications to assist with a secret campaign designed to surprise unsuspecting shoppers and get them talking.

Botany Town Centre hosted South Seas Film and Television school student Stijn Van de Velde and a group of dancers who created a flash-mob scene on 27 October 2010, wowing shoppers and drawing crowds of onlookers.

On Sunday afternoon, over 120 strategically-placed students shopped and sipped coffee in the town square before springing into action and getting their jive on to ‘Greased Lightning’ from the film Grease.

Video cameras were set up in advance to capture the event and the reactions of shoppers. A few key media received a tip-off the day before. 

The Flash Mob campaign highlighted Botany Town Centre’s support of the local community’s creative projects. As a first-to-market New Zealand retail initiative, it reaffirmed Botany Town Centre’s position as an innovative retail centre.

Results

The news of the Botany Town Centre Flash Mob spread quickly. It was well-received by local media and made headlines nationwide. The story featured in the Howick & Botany Times and the New Zealand Herald, and was nominated as picture of the week by the Weekend Herald.

 The Flash Mob news spread as far as the Bay of Plenty Times, Hawkes Bay Today, Wanganui Chronicle, Wairarapa Times Age, Daily Post, Northern Advocate and Oamaru Mail.

TVNZ’s Breakfast show mentioned the event and South Sea Film school’s initiative and organization of the ‘Greased Lightning’ dance. 

A video of the Flash Mob in action was uploaded to Youtube.com, receiving over 3,900 views and numerous positive messages. Following the Youtube.com posting, the footage appeared on several other blogs, including retail-blogbiz, fastnews.in and viralvideochart.unruly.media.com.

New Idea magazine ran a double-page spread, ‘I’m a flash mob fanatic’, featuring an interview with Stijn Van de Velde in which he discussed his inspiration and vision of creating a flash mob.