Posts Tagged ‘PRINZ’

1. Mayor Parker and Ballantynes show us how it can be done

   Published on Thursday, December 8th, 2011
   As President of the Public Relations Institute of NZ (PRINZ), I was privileged late last week to present Bob Parker, Mayor of Christchurch with the Institute’s Communicator of the Year award in Christchurch.  It is an annual award bestowed by the College of Fellows, so the selection of Mayor Parker is not simply one of popularity due to level of profile.  It was hard earned and well deserved.

   The word resilience is one I have heard a lot lately and it aptly describes the quality that has been evident across Christchurch as people adapted to these new circumstances.

   Earlier in the year I heard it suggested by one expert commentator that New Zealanders were perhaps less resilient to situations like this because we had, by international standards, such an easy life.  Mayor Parker showed that to be wrong when, as the public face of his city, he consistently demonstrated how resilient they really were (and still are). His wife who was never far from his side and who also carried a significant workload did the same.

   What has emerged is a strong and purposeful community consistently showing resilience in circumstances that none of us dreamt of dealing with.  I would also add: resourceful and proud. Recently we saw this exemplified in the containerised new City Mall that sprung to life and the reopening of Ballantynes, that symbol of classic Christchurch.

   Ballantynes is another brilliant example of the Christchurch resilience. It has shone as a beacon of hope and normality for people. From the start Ballantynes adopted a ‘business as usual’ attitude – even though their iconic store was in the red zone and their own staff were seriously affected – no workplace and in some cases no home themselves.

   It has been a remarkable story of how managing director Mary Devine and her team worked to remain accessible to customers throughout eight months of closure. Their website (online store), household mailers and special customer events held at venues around the city helped maintain precious contact.

   In receiving his award, Mayor Parker said he was not the only one who deserved this acknowledgement as a communicator. That’s undoubtedly true, but leadership through communication sets the path for others and that is what he did. Congratulations to Mayor Parker and his entire crew on being inspiring communicators.

2. Hide our awards-light under a bushel? Not bloody likely!

   Published on Friday, May 22nd, 2009
   Winning is nice. There’s no getting round that fact that to come out on top feels damn good, even if as New Zealanders we’re not very good at saying so. What’s better still is winning for the work that you enjoy doing everyday and it’s a double bonus when somebody notices.

   That somebody who noticed was our peers and they noticed on Wednesday night at the 35th Annual PRINZ Awards. The team here at Network took out three prizes. Firstly, we were highly commended for the pro-bono work for the New Zealand Blood Service Celebrates World Blood Donor Day.

   Our second prize was for our campaign for Aspartame – facts and fiction in the special events/project category. We shared this with Sioux Campbell of Chameleon Public Relations Ltd for their Whales, dolphins and swimmers – oh my!

   Our fact and fiction campaign went on to receive the Supreme Award with judges pointing out that this campaign stood out above the rest in the competition for the way it dealt with a highly contentious issue with clearly defined objectives and impressive, measurable results.

   It was hard work to take on an anti-aspartame campaign driven by New Zealand lobby groups. Increasingly New Zealanders were falling for the myth that the commonly used sweetener may be bad for health. Our client, Coca Cola Oceania was seeing an increase in sales of “regular” soft drinks, coupled with decreased sales of diet soft drinks. We worked collaboratively with nutrition and health key opinion leaders, to develop and implement a rigorous scientifically based information programme which helped to restore confidence in aspartame.

   So, yes winning feels wonderful.

3. No lipstick please..

   Published on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
   The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is challenging the Presidential candidates to commit to maintaining the highest standards of ethical practice in their campaign communications by inviting them to make a formal pledge to abide by the PRSA Code of Ethics.

    

   “The use of innuendo, incomplete information, surrogate messaging and character attacks, whether in political discourse or other forms of commercial free speech, raises serious concerns for our organization and its 32,000 members, each of whom signs a pledge to the PRSA Code of Ethics. In fact, ethical practice is the most important obligation of PRSA membership, and we maintain that our obligations extend not only to those we represent, but also to the publics they serve. We view the code as a model for other professions, organizations and professionals, including political campaigns.”

    

   The PRSA is also inviting its own members to show their support for ethical campaign communications by signing up to a PRSA Facebook group – Clean & Fair Campaign 2008 .  The association says that by joining this group its members are telling the political campaigns (and the media) …  

   • I want accurate, truthful and transparent information that will allow informed decision making.
   • I want healthy and fair competition and an ethical climate fostering a robust political environment.
   • I want confidential and private information protected.
   • I want all those involved in the campaigns to avoid real, potential or perceived conflicts of interest.
   • I want the campaigns to strengthen trust in the United States of America and its electoral process.

   An opportunity, perhaps, for PRINZ to lead the way in a similar fashion on communication ethics during our election campaign?

4. Survival of the Fittest – who will win out in the end?

   Published on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
   It seems to me that the current economic climate is possibly being met more with pragmatism than doom and gloom.  I attended a Public Relations Institute of New Zealand College of Fellows Symposium on Friday and the theme for the day was “Survival of the Fittest.”

    

   A panel discussion on the topic of how to survive in leaner and meaner economic conditions provided us with the opportunity to hear from Brent Impey, CEO MediaWorks; Scott Bartlett, CEO Orcon; Phil O’Reilly CEO Business NZ and PR person Michael Dunlop, Director of Republic of Acumen. 

    

   Each one of them acknowledged the challenges that companies are facing at the moment but what also came to light was that during tougher economic times, opportunities also exist for businesses to improve, but you must act quickly.

    

   As the Chief Executive Officer of Business NZ, Phil’s advice for businesses is “stay exactly the same – but don’t”.  He elaborated that it’s important for companies to stay true to their values, purpose and core brand during tougher times but to also be able to see when they need to change and react quickly to different market conditions. 

    

   Phil highlighted McDonald’s as an example.  While the golden arches remain, they’ve re-focused their menu on building in healthier options and reducing the amount of fat, sugar and salt in their original menu.  In fact, while other fast food chains are seeing lower sales, McDonald’s is seeing global growth.

    

   Brent Impey said that TVNZ and MediaWorks are actually doing ok in a tight market.  In fact, they’re seeing substantial improvements in regions such as Gisborne, which recently saw a 21% increase in growth.  He said it’s important to think beyond the Auckland market.  

    

   Scott Bartlett said it was important for businesses not to panic and lose focus on managing stakeholder relationships and instead reinforce stakeholder relationships.

    

   All of their ideas, advice and suggestions pointed towards optimism.

    

   Samantha Allen who heads up Pulse Communications, the consumer offering for Ogilvy PR Worldwide, offered some interesting insights into where public relations is heading in the next three – five years, and how it needs to evolve in order to survive and improve.

    

   She says key factors that will see the public relations industry continue to thrive include the ongoing importance of providing smart thinking and solutions to our clients, building strong C-suite connections (i.e. Chief executive level) and retaining the ‘grey-hair’ factor to do this.  She also highlighted the changing face of PR talent and addressing the needs of Gen Y.

    

   So what are your views?  How can PR and communications practitioners continue to retain clients and grow our businesses when times get tough?