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CASE STUDY: High Road Communications’ Brighter Life for Sun Life Financial
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By: Miranda Germani

Today’s the big day: the ACE Awards gala takes place this evening! The ACE committee is busy at Arcadian Court rolling out the (metaphorical) red carpet at this very moment. Just like the Oscars’ broadcast rehashes past years’ movies and fashion before the big show, this is the perfect moment for us to take a look into our past with an ACE Awards standout.

The Sun Life Financial and High Road Communications teams took home an award last year with the BrighterLife.ca initiative, awarded in the Digital Communications Campaign category.

I was pleased to talk to Adrienne Connell, Vice President, High Road Communications before the 2013 ACE Awards officially arrive, about the success of this digital campaign.

Can you tell me about your winning campaign? 

BrighterLife.ca is Sun Life Financial’s innovative digital content marketing platform. It is aimed at helping Canadians answer their money, health, family and career questions in an informal, engaging and no-pressure way. The goal is to add real value to Canadians through the power of relevant, credible, useful content. It’s a revolutionary approach that puts the needs of consumers at the forefront and it’s helped Sun Life to connect with a whole new target audience.

What was the objective and why was it so successful?

Sun Life Financial wanted to engage consumers earlier in the sales cycle, before they had considered Sun Life or were even aware that they had a need that might be met by a financial product. They already had digital marketing platforms to engage both prospective and current customers but needed a way to reach consumers who were just at the beginning of their buying journey. Typically, customers have a trigger event, such as starting a family, changing careers or thinking about retirement.  Enter BrighterLife.ca to engage a wide span of Canadians from young professionals, to young families through to mature families and pre-retirees. It’s been a success because there is an incredible team of individuals behind it that ensure we’re creating magnetic content that is portable, and by that I mean letting audiences consume the content in the channels of their choice, be that on the website, e-newsletters, Facebook, Twitter or RSS. They also make a phenomenal commitment to activating that content across channels leveraging a combination of paid, earned, owned and shared channels.

How did winning an award contribute to the agency’s brand? 

At both High Road and Sun Life we’re very proud to work on this award-winning initiative. It’s an amazing honour to be recognized by our peers in the industry for creating innovative ideas that hopefully inspire other brands and it has helped to solidify our voice as thought leaders in the Canadian content marketing space.

What inspired you to submit?

We are always committed to celebrating our client’s successes, and awards such as this play a key role in recognizing their great work and our continued partnership together.

What were the challenges associated with submitting an award?

While we are always looking at metrics to evaluate a program’s success, distilling those down to the highlights and capturing the essence of what makes a particular effort such as BrighterLife.ca unique isn’t always quick to pull together. It took support from Sun Life’s team and High Road’s to ensure our submission told the story of BrighterLife.ca.

What was a “must-include”in your binder submission?

Creative samples of the writing on BrighterLife.ca and the user experience design of the site. We also made sure we included materials that spoke to the overall strategy and goals. Finally we included materials that illustrated the impact we’ve had with BrighterLife.ca and the vibrant community we have built around the brand.

How did it feel to receive your award at the gala?

Really good! We enjoyed a chance to bring our two teams together for a night of celebration and fun.

What advice would you give to other entrants?

Submit! Be creative in your submission while giving a clear indication of what you set out to do, how you did it and what you ultimately achieved.

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Archived tour of @RyersonDMZ: Soapbox (4:48)
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Last week, Justin Trudeau was described as cultivating a digital-era image in a Maclean’s piece that also talked abut his use of an online platform for sharing ideas called Soapbox.

Part two of CPRS Toronto’s March 12 tour of Ryerson’s DMZ features Warren Tanner, co-founder and CMO at Hitsend Inc., creators of Soapbox.

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Archived tour of @RyersonDMZ: Intro (8:21)
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Did you miss our March 12 tour of Ryerson University’s Digital Media Zone? Over the next few weeks we’ll be profiling the companies that we toured. You’ll be able to hear about

But this week we begin with an intro from Valerie Fox, Executive Director of the DMZ.

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Archived presentation: CEO Award to Sheldon Levy @RyersonU (23:50)
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Click the arrows in the bottom right corner to watch in full screen.
Also be sure to checkout some pictures from the event and this video showcasing Ryerson University’s growth.

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Archived presentation: Ups and Downs of PR with novelist @TerryFallis (27:27)
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Click the arrows in the bottom right corner to watch in full screen.

Award-winning Canadian novelist Terry Fallis presents his latest novel Up and Down.

Terry Fallis is the author of The Best Laid Plans and The High Road. In 1995, Terry co-founded Thornley Fallis with Joe Thornley, a full service communications consulting agency with offices in Ottawa and Toronto. Terry also used to co-host of the popular business podcast, Inside PR.

For more than 20 years, Terry has counseled corporate and government clients on various fronts including crisis communications, media relations, issues management, marketing communications, public opinion polling, public affairs and stakeholder relations. He has also written speeches for CEOs, cabinet ministers, and other community leaders.

Terry’s recent novel Up and Down was released in September 2012 and has since received notable media recognition across Canada and the United States.


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Enhance your ACE Award submission!
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logos_colour_low_res-01Back by popular demand, CPRS Toronto invites you to join us on Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at 12 p.m. for an informative, free webinar on enhancing your ACE Awards submission, brought to you by CNW Group – the exclusive professional development sponsor for CPRS Toronto.

Dave Scholz, Executive Vice President at Leger Marketing and CPRS Toronto’s ACE Awards Judging Co-Chair, will pull back the curtain on the ACE Awards and share what the judging team will be looking for in a winning submission. The webinar will also provide insight in to changes made to the digital category.

To register for the webinar, visit:

http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=564540&s=1&k=EF7CD45C16009CBD8A6618A8C4A085E6

For more information about the ACE Awards, please visit the CPRS Toronto Website or contact ace@cprstoronto.com.

If you are unable to join us on Wednesday the webinar will be available in archive following the live event.

Tweeting about ACE? Use hashtag #CPRSACE!

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Case Study: How Fleishman-Hillard Toronto won a prestigious ACE Award in the Best Use of Media Relations Under $50,000 Category
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Liza_photoBy Liza Butcher

On April 26, 2012 the Canadian Public Relations Society Toronto (CPRS Toronto) celebrated the PR industry’s elite at the annual Achieving Communications Excellence (ACE) Awards gala.

The ACE Awards gala was full of celebration for winning campaigns, where Fleishman-Hillard Toronto won a prestigious ACE Award in the Best Use of Media Relations Under $50,000 for “The National Garage Sale for Shelter” media relations campaign.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Teresa Cugliari, Associate Consultant at Fleishman-Hillard Toronto, to understand more about the success around the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation: The National Garage Sale for Shelter.

Can you tell me about your winning campaign? (What was the objective and why was it so successful?)

Royal LePage is the only Canadian real estate company to have its own charitable foundation, known as The Royal LePage Shelter Foundation. The Royal LePage Shelter Foundation is Canada’s largest public foundation dedicated exclusively to supporting women’s shelters and ending violence against women and children. Each year, the Shelter Foundation hosts The National Garage Sale for Shelter – a one-day charitable garage sale which takes place in more than 120 communities across Canada. Royal LePage brokers and agents volunteer to host the garage sales, which are often held outside Royal LePage offices. One hundred per cent of the funds raised are distributed to local women’s shelters in each community.

To help raise awareness and drive participation in The National Garage Sale for Shelter, Fleishman-Hillard (FH) developed and executed a community relations strategy under $50,000 CDN. FH was engaged to support all communications activities around the event including research, planning, materials development and media relations. At the core of the strategy, Royal LePage brokers and agents who volunteered their time to participate in the event were identified as excellent community champions given their passion and dedication to supporting the cause.

While the media relations strategy called for FH to conduct national media relations, a plan was developed to empower Royal LePage volunteers to conduct their own local media relations to generate awareness and drive event participation in their communities. FH supported this strategy by developing media toolkits for all designated spokespeople consisting of local release templates, interview tips and other marketing materials for use in Royal LePage offices. In addition, FH held a media coaching session with all regional spokespeople via conference call where tips were shared to maximize local media coverage and community engagement while ensuring strong key message penetration.

What inspired you to submit for an ACE Award?

The FHteam felt that this campaign was worthy of an award submission since the media results and overall funds raised exceeded initial goals. Overall, the 2011 National Garage Sale for Shelter generated a total of 369 media stories – a 77 per cent increase over 2010’s total – and 35,833,867 media impressions, an 84 per cent increase over last year. FH was successful in generating coverage in national, major regional and local media outlets, with 21 per cent of all coverage appearing in Tier One outlets.The mix of media coverage shows that messaging developed for the Shelter Foundation resonated with both local communities and larger metropolitan areas alike.

The increased amount of media coverage for the 2011 National Garage Sale for Shelter also led to increased participation in the event, which resulted in a record-setting fundraising total. In 2011, The National Garage Sale for Shelter was successful in raising more than $417,000 for the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation – a 32 per cent increase (and counting) over 2010’s fundraising total.

What are the benefits of winning an ACE Award?

Awards help set you apart from the competition. Not only do they build your agency’s reputation but they also help recognize the hard work put in by your colleagues. FH purchased additional copies of the award for each team member as well as our client. It’s a symbol of success as well as the memories of both the campaign and the gala ceremony. It was a very fun evening that we look forward to each year.

Winning the 2011 CPRS ACE Award for Royal LePage’s Shelter Foundation validated the great results we achieved throughout this campaign and also shows FH’s clients that we are willing to go above and beyond to get them the recognition they deserve.

Do you have any tips for others submitting for Award consideration.

Be sure to get a head start on the submission process and be mindful of submission deadlines. It can be somewhat of a challenge juggling client work as well as your agency’s marketing and promotional needs. Be sure to loop in team members to help with the process so you can submit a high quality award that reflects your team’s hard work.

Also, if you know you are working on an award-worthy campaign, start taking notes during the campaign for your submission. As time passes, you will find these notes invaluable since almost a full year can go by before you start pulling together your submission binder.

What did you make sure to include in your binder submission?

FH’s submission binder included a range of media materials (press releases, social media releases, media advisories, as well as the volunteer media outreach toolkit and interview best practices) and supporting metrics (MRP reports and coverage samples) that allowed the judges to get a better understanding of how the FH team met and exceeded our measurable objectives.

In addition, the FH team also included a sizzle reel highlighting national Tier One broadcast coverage secured with their key spokespeople throughout the campaign. This multimedia addition is a more personal touch that allows the judges to visualize the campaign and give a sense of depth to the quality and variety of coverage FH secured.

How did it feel to receive your award at the gala?

Receiving the award at the gala was extremely meaningful for both the FH team and our client, who was in attendance that evening as well. Lots of hard work and effort was put into the campaign and it was great to share this experience with fellow communications professionals.

Fleishman-Hillard Team Members: Sarah Louise Gardiner, Teresa Cugliari, Michael Gotzamanis

Royal LePage Shelter Foundation Team Members: Shanan Spencer-Brown, Tammy Gilmer, Royal LePage spokespeople

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Case study: Broad Reach Communications award for media relations over $50K
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By Liza Butcher

On April 26, 2012, the Canadian Public Relations Society Toronto (CPRS Toronto) congratulated the PR industry’s elite at the annual Achieving Communications Excellence (ACE) Awards gala.

The gala celebrated all of the winning campaigns, including Broad Reach Communications’ “Creating Eminence for Deloitte Canada by Leveraging its 2011 Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions” campaign, which won a prestigious ACE Award in the Best Use of Media Relations over $50K category.

I had the pleasure of talking with Andrea Lekushoff, President of Broad Reach, about the success of this campaign and the widespread eminence Broad Reach created for it.

Can you tell me about your winning campaign? What was the objective and why was it so successful?

In late 2010, Deloitte Canada (Deloitte) asked Broad Reach to develop and implement an English-language media relations campaign to secure widespread national, regional and trade/industry media coverage for its 2011 Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions report. We were also asked to generate a second wave of media coverage over a two-week period, during which TMT Predictions events were held across the country in St. John’s, Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Edmonton.

The overarching goal of this campaign was to showcase the knowledge and expertise of Deloitte TMT leaders across the country by generating widespread media coverage for TMT Predictions among target audiences in national, regional and online stories. In doing so, Broad Reach ensured that all aspects of the communications plan positioned Deloitte’s TMT Predictions and spokespeople as the leaders in global and Canadian TMT Predictions.

The launch of this media relations campaign exceeded all goals, objectives and client expectations. An unprecedented volume and quality of media coverage was generated: over 128.5 million audience impressions were generated in 210 on-message stories, 95 per cent of which appeared in top-tier media. It wasn’t easy to improve on last year’s campaign, which was very successful at 92 million impressions, but we committed to delivering even better results this year. And we did.

In addition, at least five top-tier media stories were generated in each region (with most regions receiving between two to six times as many stories). All stories mentioned Deloitte in a very positive tone; 92 per cent of stories focused exclusively on TMT Predictions; the term TMT Predictions was included in 80 per cent of stories; the report’s co-author, Duncan Stewart, was featured in 60 per cent of stories; all 10 regional spokespeople participated in high-profile media interviews; and 26 media outlets attended road show events across the country.

How did winning an award contribute to the agency’s brand?

This campaign was among Broad Reach’s most successful media relations campaigns to date. A prestigious ACE Award positions us as a leading Toronto PR agency that produces outstanding work and delivers exceptional results. It is also rewarding to have some of our best work recognized by our peers.

What inspired you to submit this campaign for an award?

We knew that this campaign was among our most successful and, as a result, we wanted to honour the team that worked on it by submitting it for an award. We were also fortunate enough to win a CPRS National Award of Excellence and IABC/Toronto OVATION Award for this same campaign.

What were the challenges associated with submitting the campaign?

The only challenge was that it was time consuming, which is to be expected. However, the Broad Reach team rose to the occasion and it paid off in the end.

What were you sure to include in your binder?

We included a wide range of materials including: the research and rationale for our recommended approach; a series of quantifiable goals and objectives; our strategy, a list of target audiences; a description of the campaign theme; our media relations tactic; a wide range of media materials; spokesperson briefing documents; an MRP (Media Relations Rating Points) report of all media coverage generated; a high-level results report; and clips of both TV and radio coverage.

How did it feel to receive your award at the gala?

I’m thrilled that our team has won yet another prestigious PR award for Deloitte’s TMT Predictions. This award is a testament to our unique business model of only working with seasoned senior practitioners. It also demonstrates that when talented and experienced practitioners have the opportunity to work in a flexible and family-friendly work environment, they can produce outstanding results together.

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Archived presentation: Public Relations Knowledge Exam @PRKexam (42:32)
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Note: This information session is available for public viewing.

Click the arrows in the bottom right corner to watch in full screen.

Research shows that Executives identify a gap between the competencies required by their organizations, and the skill set available within their communications team.

It has also been stated that PR agencies are challenged with the high number of applications received for entry-level positions and internships. They are looking for ways to better assess candidates and junior-level staffers, specifically for individual strengths and capabilities.

In response, the Canadian Public Relations Society is launching the first national entry level exam for the Public Relations profession. The Public Relations Knowledge Exam (PRK)™ is endorsed by the Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms and supported by Cision.

On October 11, 2012 the following three speakers discussed what you should know about the exam and about entering the profession:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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