Case Studies

In mid-May of 2009, Vancouver ad/marketing agency Hot Tomali recruited AHA to develop a national media relations campaign to support the launch of a public awareness campaign focused on the growing unemployment issue in Canada. The campaign was already planned and set to launch on June 1.

Within a two-week period, AHA:

* Developed the media relations plan and received approval.
* Developed messaging for both national and locally focused audiences.
* Developed a national media database.
* Developed national and local news releases, photo opportunity events and photo opportunity releases.
* Media trained the spokespeople.
* Worked with several key stakeholders (including union and government) to produce a news conference at Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Our efforts over the six-week media relations campaign resulted in more than $600,000 in editorial value. The campaign was considered a great success by the client.

TRENZ (Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand) is New Zealand’s largest trade show focused on tourism. In January 2009, as part of the PR/social media team for Canada for Tourism New Zealand (TNZ), AHA put forward a proposal to TNZ in response to concerns that, potentially, many travel trade media and travel industry professionals might not be able to attend TRENZ due to the downturn in the economy and other global influences such as H1N1, etc.

In order to engage travel and tourism professionals and media, AHA developed the TRENZblog. This interactive blog provided the foundation for those who could not attend the trade show to participate by reading information on tour operators, commenting on the blog and emailing questions about specific tour operators attending TRENZ.

It was decided that AHA partner Ruth Atherley would attend TRENZ and blog about the new and interesting tourism-related products being showcased. In order to add value and some colour to the blog, as well as to help familiarize Ruth further with New Zealand to assist in future media pitches, etc., Ruth would arrive in the country a week ahead of the start of the trade show and would blog about her experiences touring the South Island of New Zealand.

We developed a news release announcing the blog that was distributed to travel trade media, travel professionals and English-speaking consumer media worldwide. (The blog was written in English.) We developed an extensive Canadian media database and TNZ provided the release to all of their PR agencies in English-speaking countries around the world for distribution.

As Ruth is active in social media, we set up a Twitter account for TRENZblog and she also sent out Tweets on her AHAPR Twitter account. Throughout a 12-day period, several times daily, Ruth blogged, updated Facebook and sent out updates with photos and links to the blog on Twitter.

We approached the Prime Minister of New Zealand (who holds the portfolio for Tourism) and requested an interview for the blog. Prime Minister John Key agreed and Ruth became the first travel blogger to interview New Zealand’s leader.

TNZ considered this campaign a strong success. The blog delivered exceptional results. Readership of the blog was very high and coverage was strong – consumer and travel trade media linked to the blog and it was picked up by several bloggers.

While there were not many comments on the blog, Ruth received several emails asking for advice and daily visitors to the blog continually increased from its launch through to the last post.

Facebook and Twitter were strong contributors to the success of the blog. On her Facebook page, Ruth received comments from associates/colleagues who said they were considering a trip to Australia and had now decided to go to New Zealand instead.

At TRENZ, there was a strong buzz among the tour operators about the blog. Ruth was sought out quite often by tour operators who wanted to be profiled, as well as by many who wanted to know more about the value of social media and share what they were doing to promote their product/service.

Trade journalists that did attend TRENZ requested that the blog be kept online for several additional months, so they could link to it in their articles.

Through our partnership with QUAY Strategies Inc., AHA Creative Strategies Inc. was asked to provide an online/social media strategy to support the internal launch of a new brand, vision, and set of goals for the Vancouver Convention Centre (VCC).

The objective of the online initiative was to further improve internal communications within VCC, and encourage both staff and contractors to have a role and participate in the ongoing culture shift. A major challenge faced by this organization was that their staff and contractors were geographically spread out and had different work hours. Further to that, because of their role within the organization, some staff did not have daily access to a computer.

AHA developed an internal website with the short-term goal of encouraging participation in an internal survey and the long-term goal of building an engaged online community site. The site held information on the organization’s goals and vision and housed a blog written by the GM.

Through email invitations, department meetings and other online and in-person outreach tactics, staff and contractors were invited to visit the website and comment on the blog and take a survey. The initiative was very successful, a large percentage of both staff and contractors visited the site (website stats were strong and staff and contractors stayed on the site much longer than expected) and the number of participants in the survey exceeded the client’s expectations. The responses were well thought out and provided valuable feedback for the organization.

The organization provided an update to staff and contractors regarding the feedback received and indicated that some of the suggestions were being implemented immediately and that others were being put forward for discussion to the appropriate staff members.

There are plans to expand this internal community and develop a comprehensive intranet that includes a strong, interactive component that will allow staff, contractors and senior executives to continue this positive conversation.

In March 2008, we were contracted to develop a strategic online communications plan for a national financial organization.

In our initial meeting, we discovered that the senior executive had a range of knowledge of online media and differing opinions on the importance of developing an online community for the launch of the organization.

In order to be effective, we recommended to the senior team that before we began to develop a plan, that we needed to first provide the senior executive with a foundation of knowledge and understanding of online media, its uses, opportunities and challenges. Then, as a team, come to a decision as to whether developing an online communications plan was the right approach for this organization.

In this case, there were substantial and legitimate concerns regarding creating an “open online conversation” in light of strict regulations, laws and the challenges of perception regarding security and privacy that many financial organizations face.

In order to demystify and explain the online world to a busy team of senior executives, we created a series of short workshops that educated, enlightened and opened the world of online media, developed specifically for this organization. Each component was done in small “bite sized” pieces, so as to not overwhelm the participants. It also provided the opportunity for them to digest and reflect on specific components. At a follow-up workshop, we assisted them in putting what they had learned previously into context in their specific roles in the organization. The small sized workshops provided a “safe” environment for the senior team. They allowed AHA, in our role as communication consultants, the ability to discuss, dissect and thrash out the idea of a social media community for the bank.

Over a three-week period, the senior executive was taken through the benefits and risks of developing an online community for both external and internal use. Our role was not to “sell” them on the idea, but to provide facts and stats, case studies and to facilitate the discussion. Challenges, threats and weaknesses were given as much discussion time as opportunities and strengths.

At the end of the three weeks, it was unanimously decided that we would move forward and develop the plan. This would include an online approach to a 24 – 45 age demographic that targeted entrepreneurs and small to medium sized business owners and would be at the heart of our communications strategy. The overall plan also encompassed promotional PR, as well as the original external and internal corporate communications campaigns.

We then developed an online communications plan that included guest blogs by industry professionals such as a business coach, accountant, financial planner, PR specialist, management consultant and more.

The online community would be available to the general public. Organizations and individuals—who chose to do business with this financial organization—would have access to a password protected, more robust site.

The plan was not focused on a one-way push out of information, but included a forum, wiki, offered blogs for small business, engaged members in LinkedIn and Twitter, and had many more functions and benefits. It also created “In Person Meet Ups” in specific cities across Canada that encouraged networking and professional connections.

The plan was presented to the senior executive and the board of directors and it was unanimously approved.

For an independently produced documentary television show that featured the importance of animals in health care, we had a “star” llama (named Wallace) that was famous for working with patients with dementia. We brought Wallace to the set of the now defunct Vicki Gabereau talk show. After the taping of the nationally televised show, in which Wallace and the Healing With Animals’ writer and director were featured, we then took him onto a busy city street and he “signed autographs” with his hoof. We had alerted media to this unusual autograph session and received national coverage, both on the Vicki Gabereau show and in newspapers throughout the country.

A Canadian animation studio that was growing was about to move into a new building that the founders had purchased. In the big picture, this purchase did not contain any news value (it was exciting for the company, but not necessarily for anyone else). However, we approached the Minister of Small Business, Technology and Economic Development and the Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts and invited them to help “christen” the building with a group of 100 animators – using water balloons. We held a media conference and had a strong visual with 100 animators throwing water balloons, mostly at the building, but a few threw them at the founders, which was all in good fun. We received national media coverage as a result.

Vancouver Film School is situated in Vancouver, BC, but more than 40% of its students come from outside of British Columbia. In order to effectively position the school to potential students, we developed a “Road Show” that had us take components of the school to cities in Canada where potential students lived. (We visited Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton.)

In each city, we created media interview opportunities for staff and, where possible, interviews for graduates that were doing well in their field. We held open auditions for the acting programs and provided portfolio reviews for classical and 3D animation, film and interactive media. The acting auditions quite often attracted media because of the visual of actors performing. The instructors from each program were regularly invited as guests on breakfast shows because, as professionals, they had impressive backgrounds. We also had a recruiter on-hand for those students who needed help in filling out their application.