The unlucky contestants weren’t named and Mango’s managing director Claudia Macdonald doubts they’ll be revealed any time soon. She says there was no incumbent, “or at least not for four years”, and the airline didn’t have an agency in Australia either as it’s all been done internally up until now.

Mango, which has a good travel heritage through clients like Tourism Malaysia and Tourism Victoria (it still has Air New Zealand listed as a client on its website), will handle PR, media relations and events for Qantas, working closely with the airline’s teams in Auckland and Sydney. And, with the ‘Spirit of Australia’s’ reputation faltering recently after strike action grounded planes and the #QantasLuxury Twitter competition backfired, Macdonald says “it’s going to be very interesting”.

“Qantas is one of those brands you dream about working with,” she says. “There is so much more to the Qantas story in New Zealand than has been told in recent years and we’re very much looking forward to partnering with them. It’s very exciting.”

Qantas’ regional general manager for New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, Rohan Garnett, says the airline, which has served New Zealand for over 50 years, has “a clear focus on the premium market” and part of Mango’s role will be to help strengthen Qantas’ reputation as the leader for trans-Tasman business travel.

“Mango will also play an important role in publicising Qantas’ community activities and sponsorships in New Zealand,” he says.

Mango joins a global roster of PR agencies representing Qantas in Europe, the United States and across Asia.

As part of a campaign developed by Mango, between January 2-13 More FM listeners were encouraged to enter online and nominate a town or tourist attraction they wanted radio host Clarke Gayford and the Pascall team to visit during their two-week road trip in a pair of branded Britz campervans (all entrants went in the draw to win their own road trip in a Britz campervan, as well as $5000 cash, and the prize will be drawn after the tour finishes on Jan 30).

Gayford is broadcasting his drive show each night from one of the campervans and, in typical PR style, the road trip is getting a good, regular airing on the station, with trailers, mentions and ad libs.

During many of the adventures, which are all being filmed by a videographer and posted on the More FM website and Pascall Facebook page, a local resident has the chance to be Gayford’s adventure buddy by entering regional text-in-to-win competitions. And, as you’d expect, lots of free Pascall treats are being handed out along the way.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Social media is becoming an increasingly important channel for FMCG brands (especially if you’re trying to attract the ‘bored mother’ demographic), and the promotion also aims to build up the Facebook fanbase. And, after soft launching its page two weeks before the promotion kicked off, it has added over 6000 fans in one week through tactical ad placement (including ads on Facebook), on-air promotion and Facebook updates showing the itinerary and sampling details for each location, plus an update of every adventure.

Pascall brand manager Will Radford says the key objectives behind the campaign are to promote Pascall as New Zealand’s favourite lollies, link the brand with the fun of going on a road trip with family and friends over the summer (and promote the classic Pascall varieties like Pineapple Lumps, Jetplanes and Milk Bottles as the ones to be eaten on the way) and ultimately increase sales.

“I guess the key out-take is that we are integrating our comms from above with radio and outdoor through to instore, resulting in increased sales and improvements in our instore brand health metrics.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper FMCG campaign without some instore action, and it currently has five Road Trip-themed promotions created by Apollo Promotions happening across Countdown, New World, The Warehouse, Shell and BP (another Britz camper holiday is being offered in Countdown supermarkets nationwide).

The account is split into three parts, with Treasury looking for “one or a number of service providers to provide marketing services, design services and communications services”. As per, no-one was able to talk about the account or the rumoured list of suitors, but one source we spoke to heard there are six or so agencies in the mix, including Ogilvy, Clemenger BBDO, TBWA\ (which has an existing Mighty River Power connection) and some of the big PR agencies (we also heard some of the presentations took place in Treasury’s marae, so they had to be given sans shoes).

With the government hoping to raise as much as $10 billion from the initial public offering of Mighty River Power, Meridian Energy, Genesis and Solid Energy over the next four years, it’s a massive account. Apparently a full brief hasn’t been given yet and it’s more of a credentials pitch but one guess is that the government is hoping to do one campaign for each of the assets, and it’s likely to spend $2-2.5 million per campaign on the comms (plus a significantly higher amount to pay all the brokers who sell the shares).

While it’s big, it will also be very difficult to get right. As the election showed, asset sales are a very contentious issue, and some believe the government still doesn’t have the mandate to do it, so a big part of the campaign will presumably be based around convincing Kiwis that it’s a good idea to shell out for some shares—and, from a PR point of view, dealing with the inevitable criticism.

PRINZ chief executive Tim Marshall says the case studies aim to illustrate the importance of strategic PR and communications management in building and sustaining an organisation’s reputation and stakeholder relationships and he sees the book as one of the best ways to “describe what PR people do and the value of our work to organisations in achieving business results”.

“It is a vital plank of the ‘PR for PR’ that we know our members want,” he says. “… The eBook includes ZESPRI’s communications response to the Psa outbreak in the kiwifruit industry, the relaunch of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s worldwide intranet, the communication regarding the weekend closure of Auckland’s southern motorway at Newmarket and the search for a distinctive Kiwi voice for the TomTom GPS units.”

PRINZ Awards chief judge Gordon Chesterman hand-picked entries in addition to award winners and highly commended entries to be included in the eBook. And he said each case study showed sound planning and creative execution of communication responses in challenging situations.

The eBook, which will now be an annual feature, is available to PRINZ members as part of their membership benefits. Non-members can buy it for $60 + GST  on www.prinz.org.nz.

One disgruntled designer has set up a website to show how long he’s been waiting and Twitter is abuzz with the link and tech blogger Ben Gracewood has also changed his tune on the product, which was promoted as saving customers $40 a month when it was launched, as a result of the customer service issues he’s had to deal with.

Orcon has had a fairly chequered history in terms of its reputation for customer service. But, with Special Group winning the Cannes Grand Prix for Iggy, DraftFCB and Pead PR, it’s never lacked good advertising and comms. Still, as a service provider, the most important thing is to provide a solid, reliable, cost-effective service. So it seems there’s an element of the classic Bill Bernbach quote ‘nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising’ (and bad customer service) on display here.

Quentin Reade, Orcon’s head of brand and communications, told the NBR the number of ads were reduced in response to the greater than imagined demand for the product. And, when it became clear the call centre couldn’t cope, more staff had been hired and trained. And while Orcon seems to be doing the best it can (it responded to all the Geekzone queries), it’s not a particularly good look. Added to that, there’s nothing modern tech-savvy consumers hate more than being kept waiting. Who knows how many videos of cats they might be missing out on.

Click here to view the embedded video.

MLG chair Megan Clark says the list represents the best of the best and, unsurprisingly, many of those chosen were winners at Cannes.

“There are some amazing campaigns taking place worldwide. The common theme throughout all of them is a truly creative and often unexpected idea at their core. Strong strategy that engages consumers and media alike and excellent results are also evident.”

Coming in second was Watermark for Bundaberg Rum. Following the floods in Queensland last January, Bundaberg created a limited edition rum called Watermark “to mark the point where the floodwaters peaked and to mark the spirit in the towns on the road to recovery”.

Watermark festivals were held in the pubs of the top-16 worst hit towns while the rum went on sale nationwide, all with the aim of raising awareness of the victims of the flood. Proceeds went towards rebuilding Queensland.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Interestingly, many of these campaigns were developed by advertising agencies, working in tandem with PR companies to leverage the ideas into media and word of mouth. When advertising and PR work together closely for a common client goal, amazing things can happen,” Clark says.

The full list is:

1. Replay, Gatorade

2. Watermark, Diageo

3. Vac from the Sea, Electrolux

4. Best Job in the World, Queensland Tourism

5. Decode Jay-Z, Bing

6. Shine a Light on Opportunity, Durand Academy UK

7. Marmite Bringing Home the Kiwis, Sanitarium

8. Tramp a Benz, Mercedes-Benz

9. Reunite Barbie & Ken, Mattel

10. Best Couple in the World, Michael Hill Jeweller

Davies has been instrumental in uncovering many of the questionable practices within News Corporation and he also coined the phrase ‘churnalists’ (instead of journalists) because of the masses of material churned out in ‘news factories’, coupled with the increasing proliferation and influence of PR practitioners.

Many years ago I trained as a journalist and I think journalism can be a noble and important function in our daily lives. And as a PR consultant I disagree with both the claim that journalistic standards are declining and also the view that PR is somehow responsible for undermining news quality. News Corporation has been the architect of its own troubles.

Everyone agrees a good PR campaign has its roots in sound strategy and that it needs to tell an interesting story, but clients don’t always know whether their public relations efforts have been successful. That, in my view, is the single biggest issue that has hindered the PR industry.

In recent years, the way results are apportioned to campaigns has become crucial to the PR industry, particularly as the internet now plays a major role in both measurement and strategy. News is now real-time and stories are instantly updated as they play out. This makes monitoring more challenging. And, of course, whatever goes online remains as a lasting tribute to how well or how badly a situation was handled, or a campaign played out for a client (e.g Telecom and its atrocious abstinence idea).

So the industry as a whole has started to move away from outmoded forms of measurement that were pinned to the advertising industry, such as advertising value equivalency (AVE), and created new, more accurate metrics. And the social media software available (bespoke or otherwise) that enables every conceivable positive or negative assertion about a brand to be captured and then interpreted also bodes well for the PR industry.

At Eleven we’re an active part of that movement, having recently trademarked our own form of measurement called Explore, which provides several different types of interpretation and analysis, based on broadcast media and online coverage.

Given the fact we all live and communicate in an era of 24/7 news cycles, where PR professionals compete with citizen journalists for unique and compelling angles, what does it all mean for the media and for the public who consume that media?

There may be less of them around these days but the influence and importance of the best journalists remains as strong as ever. They will continue to say no to stories offered up by PR professionals because they lack merit, relevance or context for the audience they’re intended. That’s a good thing and, in my experience, the best journalists are the ones who say no the most often.

And that suggests to me that journalism is still very much alive and well, because the symbiotic relationship between PR professionals and the Fourth Estate is just as it should be: with give and take and a healthy regard for the relevance of each function.

So journalism isn’t dead, dying or otherwise. It‘s simply changing with the times (as everything eventually does). And News Corporation is finally realising it has to change as well.

Sixteen years ago when I joined DDB and got involved in the marketing communications side of PR, New Zealand agencies and clients largely thought PR was corporate communications, reputation management and responding to pesky journalists. Using the dark art to promote an advertising campaign was fairly rare.

How times have changed. Today some of the best campaigns, such as the NAB’s Break Up and Decode Jay-Z with Bing, both Cannes Grand Prix Lion winners, are crawling with PR references. Of course, this awakening has been coming for a while. Yellow might never have cleaned up at our own EFFIEs and Axis Awards two years in a row if the campaigns hadn’t been covered on the 6pm news or the front page of the NZ Herald.

Ask any ECD worth their salt what makes a campaign a success and puts the icing on the advertising cake and the answer is getting positive media coverage, preferably worldwide. Air New Zealand’s Nothing to Hide campaign anyone?

Of course there’s good PR and bad PR, as a few Rugby World Cup sponsors have discovered lately. I lost a bet with my husband that Telecom wouldn’t pull the ‘Abstain for the Game’ campaign. More fool me. I misjudged the mood of this pious nation.

Of course, it all goes to prove my point: that well managed PR can make or break a company’s marketing.

We always advise our clients that the media is unbelievably powerful—as are consumers—and it’s best to engage someone with a good understanding of both media and consumers to take a look at any slightly risqué marketing campaign before you invest your dollars.

Imagine if adidas had supported the launch of its All Black jerseys with a PR campaign talking about the support it gives to grassroots rugby here. Or if Kiwis found the tongue-in-cheekiness of Sean Fitzpatrick in a pink bumper car relevant because he’d told us that the intensity of a world cup campaign meant we all need a little light relief.

Wouldn’t we all love them that much more. And buy their products more readily?

Personally I’m glad the penny has dropped. It makes it a lot easier to convince companies to ensure their marketing generates good PR by investing in marcomms PR upfront. Using PR to leverage your marketing campaign is doubly powerful but, like marmite, it’s not for everyone.

It’s time now to learn our lessons from the past few months and turn that lonely penny clanking in the bottom of the communications tin into a steady tinkle of PR gold.

“Delivering prominent marcomms campaigns for our existing clients has really fast-tracked our team growth and attracted the attention of exciting new clients,” says general manager Fleur Postill. “We’re also very fortunate to have a stellar team of consultants who will continue to grow in the weeks and months to come.”

Last year that stellar team put the aprons on and did some baking in order to dish out a few first birthday presents. And the team has gone to even greater lengths for birthday number two, with a very well-wrapped gift laden with treats and a CD of classic party bangers aimed at inspiring a few heady games of office pass the parcel.

As for staff, Haystac has recently raided the Mango cupboards to bolster its roster, with senior account director Alice Moros and senior account manager Ana-Mari Gates-Bowey joining the fray, while a yet-to-be-discovered account manager will soon be added to the team.

Slightly further afield, Haystac has also opened offices in Brisbane and Singapore, adding to the offices in Sydney and Melbourne, and a new digital and social media department has recently been established in Australia.

Despite the fact PR is estimated to be a $7 billion worldwide industry, it has been hindered by—and criticised for—its inability to quantify the value the discipline brings to clients/businesses (and for its at-times parasitic reliance on ‘free’ media to get messages out). One of the ways that value has been assigned to PR campaigns is through AVE, which is calculated by multiplying the advertising rate card value of the media coverage achieved by a number (usually between three and seven) that is chosen to reflect the view that editorial coverage has more resonance with consumers than paid for advertising space.

This formula has been used globally for more than 40 years, but it has been rejected in many overseas markets as outdated and insufficient and the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ) was not involved in the 2010 CAANZ Marcomms survey survey because of its less than favourable attitude to AVE as a measurement tool.

But new chair of the MLG Megan Clark of Copper Brand Experiences says the best practice guide isn’t about proposing a one-size fits all solution. It’s about making clear what the approach to measurement should be and the group’s main conclusion is that each and every campaign is unique and therefore PR and experiential metrics can, and should be, ‘made to measure’.

“We’ve pulled together a number of different methods for consideration that are most widely used and recognised worldwide, including, controversially, AVE and its offshoot PRV. What’s important is that the measurement choices selected are clearly linked back to evidencing how campaign objectives are met.”

The CAANZ survey showed measurement was increasingly important to clients, who were being offered experiential PR campaigns without clear ROI. And, according to one online media owner we’ve spoken to, they’re often being overcharged when this measurement tool is used (he gives the example of a PR company valuing a story posted online that had been viewed 50 times at $3000 and he says many are now asking whether stories have been Tweeted or posted on Facebook so they can charge more).

Clark says AVE and PRV are still valid options, but should never be used in isolation of other measures and the group “strongly encourages everyone to move away from measuring output to measuring outcomes such as behaviour change or sales”. This is what the Made to Measure Guide aims to show and proposed metrics for consideration include attitudinal research and consultative audits through to measuring numbers such as unique visitors to websites, social media buzz rates and share of editorial voice (vs. competitors). It also recommends a number of useful websites on the topic.

“It’s important for agency and client to agree on robust key performance indicators and corresponding measurement metrics upfront—before work kicks off—so everyone can see the success, or otherwise, of the activity,” Clark says.

The Made to Measure Guide is available to CAANZ members on the website.