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CREATING LIFT-OFF FOR QATAR AIRWAYS

The Challenge

Launch Qatar Airways’ new route from Doha to Sydney, promoting the airline’s premium in-flight service and extensive routes to Europe from Doha, to distinguish it from key competitors.

CREATING LIFT-OFF FOR QATAR AIRWAYS

The Solution

Working closely with Qatar Airways’ events team, Red Agency undertook a three-pronged approach to the Sydney launch:

  • A branded Qatar Airways coffee giveaway hosted in the Sydney CBD, with an Instagram competition offering the chance to win flights.
  • A media relations campaign to greet the first flight at Kingsford Smith Airport, hear from key Qatar Airways executives and have a one-on-one interview with Qatar Airways Group CEO, His Excellency Akbar Al Baker.
  • An exclusive gala dinner event attended by 350+ of Sydney’s key political and business decision makers, travel industry, key stakeholders, celebrities and influencers.

The Results

151 media clips
98M reach
119 minutes of TV and radio
47 social media posts by paid celebrities
11M people reached by celebrity social posts
2.1M people reached by unpaid celebrity social posts

Categories

Aviation, travel and tourism
Consumer marketing
Event management
Celebrity engagement
Media relations
Influencer relations
Stakeholder management

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BREAKING RECORDS FOR VIVID SYDNEY

The Challenge

Vivid Sydney, the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas, is a major driver of visitors to Sydney, Australia, during winter, and adds millions of dollars to the New South Wales economy. It is owned, managed and produced by Destination NSW, the State Government’s tourism authority.

In 2016 Vivid Sydney ran for an extra five nights (23 in total) and included more light precincts and music and ideas events. Despite the size of the festival, a limited advertising budget existed. PR needed to encourage more visitors to see and experience Vivid Sydney for more nights.

The Solution

Our overall strategy was to become a content hub for Vivid Sydney with bespoke multimedia content created in partnership with media outlets, targeted by audience passion point, using new technologies such as drone footage and 360o video to offer new perspectives. This helped to overcome issues with diminishing media resources, prevent media fatigue by offering new glimpses into the festival and behind-the-scenes stories, and create shareable content for local and international media to ensure fast, frequent coverage.

A comprehensive campaign including launch events, newspaper lift-outs, live broadcasts and interviews ensured mass media coverage from program announcement to lights off and success marketing.

The Results

More than 2.31 million visitors, up 35%!
Visitor spend up 75% to $110M
88,300 travel packages sold, up 104%
15,880 media clips generated, reaching 15B + eyes, up 287%
2000 + broadcast segments, 62 hours of TV time
Visitor spend up 75% to $110M

Categories

Travel and tourism
Consumer marketing
Stakeholder management
Government relations
Content marketing
Media relations
Influencer relations

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THE WORLD’S FINEST NUT

The Challenge

Australia leads the world in macadamia production yet only half of Australians know the nut is native, even less know the main production areas and fewer still the growing cycle. This lack of knowledge and appreciation was hampering growth in consumption and the use of macadamias in Australian food products.

For the past six years Red Agency has been responsible for executing integrated PR campaigns to lift the profile of macadamias nationally, fuel demand and entice consumers to munch on the world’s finest nut.

The Solution

Our over-arching strategy was to trigger a range of advocates – from growers, processors and chefs to proud Aussies, food commentators and nutritionists – to tell wonderful stories of our native nut, showing the love and care that goes into producing them and new ways to use them to encourage Australians to give macadamias a try.

We created an army of social media influencers, drove an emotional connection by focusing on key growing cycle events, took media and influencers to Macadamias Country, placed recipes around key Australian events and holidays, and drove features heroing our passionate growers.

We cooked up a storm with high profile chefs, and celebrated 40 years of commercial production at an exquisite luncheon at Sydney Opera House Point with other Australian icons such as Marcia Hines, Kylie Kwong and Adriano Zumbo. And to underpin our nut’s home-grown status, we adopted Australia Zoo’s first baby koala of the season, naming him ‘Macadamia’.

The Results

3,200+ positive media clips over six years – news, food, nutrition, lifestyle, business, regional/rural, celebrity, environment and human interest
300M+ audience reach
105 television segments featuring all networks – breakfast, morning, news and lifestyle formats
50+ multi-page print features across magazines and newspapers

Categories

Food and nutrition
Horticulture
Consumer marketing
Stakeholder management
Influencer relations
Media relations
Partnerships
Event management

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THE RIDERLESS BIKE

The Challenge

The Captain’s Ride is a challenging charity cycling event for the Steve Waugh Foundation (SWF), raising funds for the 400,000 children throughout Australia affected by rare diseases. Sporting legend Steve Waugh AO would lead a group of 62 experienced riders on an enormous six-day 701km event from Mittagong to the peak of Mt Kosciuszko. The children he supports are unable to participate, so he challenged us to make them feel part of the ride by creating something inspiring and extraordinary with a creative PR and social campaign.

The Solution

The ‘Riderless Bike’ is a world-first self-propelled bike that would follow the peloton from the rear, representing the children the ride was raising funds for. We collaborated with a number of technology partners and creative designers to undertake the huge challenge of engineering the bike. We also had to navigate approvals from the RTA, NSW Police, local councils and insurers.

We created a dedicated web page (www.captainsride.com) for public donations, offering a first-person viewpoint of the ride from the Riderless Bike. People could sponsor the Riderless Bike for part of the route, and be notified as it passed through their section.

We used celebrities taking part in the ride to spruik media and get people on-board via their social followings, and our technology partner, Finch, to explain how the tech worked.

The Results

552 media clips, 90% contained an image of the ride
100% of stories contained our call to action
190M+ reach
Website traffic up 150% on previous year
Raised $1M for children with rare diseases

Categories

Not-for-profit
Fundraising campaigns
Integrated campaigns
Consumer marketing
Ambassadors
Innovative technology
Social media
Media relations
Influencer relations

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LAUNCHING HEINEKEN HOUSE

The Challenge

To celebrate the launch of Australia’s first flagship Heineken venue, Heineken House at Sydney Airport’s international terminal, Heineken wanted to do something special to reinforce its premium image and show how great things can happen when you kick your holiday off from Heineken House.

Heineken House

The Solution

We invited a select group of social media influencers on an international trip of a lifetime with Heineken. They agreed despite having no knowledge of where they were going, who they were travelling with, or what they would do when they arrived. Told only to bring clothes slightly warmer than their Sydney summer wardrobes and their passports, our influencers had no idea that we were taking them to Queenstown New Zealand until they arrived at Sydney Airport, bag in hand and ready to go.

We coordinated a trip with experiences to challenge and excite our worldly ladies and gentlemen including a jet boat ride from the airport to the main town, jumps on the Shotover Canyon Swing (the world’s highest free fall) and quad biking. A surprise pick up from a scenic lunch took the group in a helicopter up a mountain overlooking Lake Wakatipu where we had a hit of golf off the side of an alp – enjoying a Heineken or two along the way.

The trip created countless content opportunities for our influencers and content was then pitched to media upon our return.

The Results

7 key influencers engaged
Social media reach of 8M + with throwbacks even being shared months later!
Up to 18K likes per post
The campaign drove traditional media coverage due to the profile of the influencers – 3M reach
11M + total campaign reach

Categories

Alcoholic beverages
Consumer marketing
Influencer relations
Media relations
Event management

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CAMP QUALITY: CHRISTMAS CRACK UPS

The Challenge

Camp Quality, Australia’s most trusted children’s cancer charity, relies heavily on public donations to support its work to help children affected by cancer and put a smile of their faces. It’s a highly competitive space at Christmas time and Red was briefed to create a cut-through campaign with potential for future years.

This needed to be delivered with zero media dollars, relying solely on the creativity of the idea amplified by social and PR within a six-week period and a very hard deadline of December to meet our goals.

CAMP QUALITY: CHRISTMAS CRACK UPS

The Solution

We knew the majority of Australians find traditional Christmas crackers boring and a waste of money, so we created Camp Quality’s first ever consumer product, Camp Quality Christmas Crack Ups, Christmas crackers that are truly funny!

We enlisted Australian comedian, Andrew Barnett whose young son underwent a two-year cancer journey, as the face of our campaign, supported by Mr Crack Up, a life-size Christmas Cracker that featured in a series of humorous social content films. To source more meaningful jokes we sought help from children living with cancer and asked well-known Aussie comedians to add to Andrew’s pool of funnies.

We then unleashed a six-week news, social media and influencer campaign leveraging all our assets to create the most effective campaign ever for Camp Quality.

The Results

64 broadcast stories featuring Andrew, his son and the Camp Quality kid
250+ media items (92% included the link to the crowdfunding page), 47million+ audience reach
$100,000 target exceeded two weeks ahead of deadline
In total $140,360 was raised (purely through earned with zero media dollars)
Provided up to 30 families access to essential cancer services
This was the most effective campaign Camp Quality has ever done!

Categories

Not-for-profit
Healthcare
Fundraising campaigns
Ambassadors
Influencer relations
Media relations

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Chandon: A Friendly Race

The Challenge

Launch the global sponsorship of F1 Racing Team McLaren-Honda by sparkling wine brand Chandon (part of Moet-Hennessy) at the Australian GP in March 2016 with a social and content led campaign leveraging drivers Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button.

The client wanted to produce a premium digital and social content film bringing the brand essence of ‘live life unplanned’ and ‘spirit of adventure’ to life that could be localised for use around the world. We had just 10 weeks to put it together, three hours’ access to the drivers and the film needed to be up on social channels inside 48 hours in time for the weekend’s race.

Chandon Friendly Race

The Solution

Our strategic idea was very simple. Have the drivers, who are in one of the world’s most engineered and planned sports, do something completely unexpected, and utilise one of Chandon’s key assets, it’s beautiful Yarra Valley winery.

We pitted the drivers against one another in a series of unexpected challenges in a gum-ball-style race across the property using different modes of transport. In true F1 style the winner would be crowned on a podium celebrating with Chandon.

We allocated two hours with the drivers to filming, and half an hour each to photography and an event for media and influencers to power coverage and social conversation. Key media partnerships included GQ, Buro 24/7 and Broadsheet.

The Results

4M+ video views (all platforms) against a target of 1.2M – officially viral!
160+ media clips (target 50) with 31M+ audience reach
50 posts by 16 influencers at media event reaching 2M+
13 interviews with drivers at the content shoot
7 partner events and 8 retail off-premise trade activations
Considered by Chandon as best practice for socially-led campaigns

Categories

Alcoholic beverages
Consumer marketing
Content creation and marketing
Media relations
Influencer relations
Sponsorship leveraging

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Humanising The Bottom 100

The Challenge

International not-for-profit, The Fund for Peace (FFP), required a creative solution to raise awareness of the global refugee crisis and unrest that is dramatically increasing the number of people living in extreme poverty around the world. It was crucial that our campaign personalised the issue of global poverty to generate greater recognition and support for the FFP’s work from the public, government and private sector.

The Solution

We created The Bottom 100, a look at life at the other end of global top 100 ‘rich lists’, hosted at bottomhundred.org. Over two years we interviewed 100 of the world’s poorest people across 12 countries, five continents, covering 23 different nationalities and tens of ethnicities and languages.

We launched The Bottom 100 on World Refugee Day and transformed an unused space in Sydney’s Surry Hills into a real-life gallery where media, influencers, stakeholders and the public could see the faces and read the stories of those featured.

Through PR, social media, FFP channels and negotiated free advertising space, we celebrated as many of these individuals as we could. To do this, we selected hero stories for each channel and media outlet, allowing us to offer unique pitches.

The Results

110+ clips in first week across Tier 1 Australian media – 19M reach
Covered by global flagship media titles – 70M+ reach
Used global network to secure pro bono content film ad placement
Donated ad placements valued at $7.5M with a 7.3M reach
Significant traffic to Bottom 100 social channels
22,000 visits to website in first two days, 10% shared stories on social
Noticeable uptick in fundraising
Door-opener and ownable platform for the future

Categories

Not-for-profit
Integrated campaigns
Content creation and marketing
Stakeholder management
Social media
Media relations
Influencer relations
Event management

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A Sizzling Launch for Heineken 3

The Challenge

With moderation of alcohol consumption on the rise and consumers still wanting to imbibe during a lazy summer’s day, Heineken was launching a new brand, Heineken 3, its first mid-strength beer offering great taste, lower calories and lower carbohydrates. This was Heineken’s biggest product launch in 20 years, and Australia was first to market.

We needed to create awareness of Heineken 3 and its functional benefits, position it as enabling consumers to ‘have it all‘, build an affinity for the ideal occasions for Heineken 3 in the lead-up to summer and drive trial.

Heineken 3’s Summer in Winter

The Solution

We created summer in winter by building a giant conservatory over an outdoor rooftop pool in Sydney’s new 5-star Primus Hotel, heating it to 30 degrees so guests could party in board shorts and bikinis to the sounds of top DJs, play beach volleyball, enjoy ice-creams, a BBQ and Heineken 3, all while it was 6oC and raining outside.

Media and influencers were first to experience Heineken 3’s Summer in Winter, after a special tasting and briefing in the hotel’s Presidential Suite. A consumer event took place the following day.

The Results

500 people attended the two-day event
100+ media clips, reaching 32.4M (with a very commercial story!)
10.3M cumulative reach through social
Hundreds of posts from celebs and influencers
Sales15% above target, 21% share of the mid-strength beer category
11.9% of beer drinkers have trialled – more than its mid-strength competitors
Opened new consumption occasions – 52% of consumers drinking it in addition to another beer
Named in the “Top five experiential events of 2016” by global industry bible ‘Event’

Categories

Alcoholic beverages
Consumer marketing
Experiential
Event management
Media relations
Influencer relations

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Western Sydney Uni UNLIMITED

The Challenge

Our brief was to relaunch the University of Western Sydney (UWS) as Western Sydney University, embrace the cultural diversity of its home, help build pride in Western Sydney and change how people think of it. A disruptive strategy was required to reshape views of the area and the University’s role in it, and make the University a more attractive place for students.

Sudanese refugee lawyer Deng Adut

The Solution

Our strategy was to seed the rationale for change through earned and social media, drive interest in the University’s Open Day to unveil the rebrand, and hero alumni stories embodying diversity and the new brand via content and earned media.

We ran a teaser social media influencer engagement program coined #NewWS to champion viewing Western Sydney through a new lens leveraging high profile people from, or connected with, Western Sydney and the University, placed University stories in mainstream media and officially unveiled the new brand at a media launch.

To launch the new brand with a bang and immerse prospective students and community members into the new look and feel university, we created an ultra-modern Open Day experience.

We then gave media access to the storytellers of the rebrand campaign, closely working with one graduate, Sudanese refugee lawyer Deng Adut who was taken from his family at five and turned into a child soldier. We ensured the detail of his education was told through earned media.

The Results

1000+ earned media items (July-September) including every major broadcaster
The Deng content trended at the top of Facebook and Reddit for 48hours
Deng’s film attracted 2M+ views across Facebook and YouTube (over 200k views before any paid support!)
50%+ growth of University social profiles
128% uplift in Open Day attendance
7% increase in school leavers putting WSU first preference

ABC’s Gruen called the campaign their ‘best of the year’ and commentators around the world have celebrated the work as a new benchmark for higher education marketing. The campaign was so successful and the story so compelling, Deng was asked by the New South Wales Premier to give the prestigious keynote address at Australia Day in 2016 and he has also signed a book deal.

Categories

Education
Consumer marketing
Stakeholder management
Advocacy
Social media
Influencer relations
Media relations
Event management
Experiential events
Integrated campaigns

Deng Adut is the co-founder of leading Sydney criminal law firm AC Law Group. More on his incredible life story can be seen on Deng’s personal website.

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