SOURCE Havas PR

The global PR collective Havas PR is distinguishing itself at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, becoming one of the most awarded PR groups at the prestigious gathering, as well as counting two members of its global steering committee-James Wright, managing director of Havas PR operations for APAC, and Katarzyna Przewuska, managing director, Havas PR Warsaw-as judges on the PR awards jury.

Marian Salzman, chair, global steering committee, and CEO, Havas PR North America, said: “Our increased presence at Cannes is indicative of the relevance of the campaigns we deliver-they’re social at the core, make news and oftentimes represent the fusion of breaking news and breaking tech, and our clients are the right brands to break through. We’re excited to have gained so much momentum already and look forward to even greater global successes in the near future and beyond by tapping the rich talent and resources of our group.”

“The visibility Havas PR has achieved at this year’s Cannes Lions festival is brilliant,” said Wright. “The multiple fronts on which we’re seeing recognition is a great validation of the strength of our global collective-built in a short amount of time, given that we just relaunched our brand as a worldwide PR group less than one year ago.”

Havas PR’s winning entries in the 2013 PR Lions include:

• Media, Arts and Entertainment: Metropole Tweetphony-Havas Worldwide Amsterdam (Gold)
• Healthcare and Services: Durexperiment Fundawear-Havas Worldwide Sydney (Silver)
• Celebrity Endorsement: Fair Go Bro-Havas Worldwide Sydney/One Green Bean (Silver)
• Best Use of Digital PR: Most Powerful Arm Ever Invented-Red Agency Australia (Silver)
• Charity and Not for Profit: Most Powerful Arm Ever Invented-Red Agency Australia (Bronze)
• Charity and Not for Profit: Giving Tuesday-Havas PR North America (Bronze)
• Best Integrated Campaign Led by PR: Fair Go Bro-Havas Worldwide/One Green Bean (Bronze)
• Charity and Not for Profit: The Airfood Project-Havas Worldwide Paris (Bronze)
• Best Use of Media Relations: Loveville-Havas Worldwide Milan (Bronze)

And two more Havas campaigns were runners-up: Skinny Skinny from Arnold Worldwide (Retail and E-commerce, Including Restaurants); Fair Go Bro from Havas Worldwide Sydney/One Green Bean(Technology and Manufacturing).

Additionally, Havas PR will kick off its much-buzzed-about events at Havas Cafe on Wednesday, June 19, with a luncheon, cocktail toast and moderated conversation around the concept of “Good.” Fittingly, these events feature Aaron Sherinian, vice president of communications and public relations of the UN Foundation, and Kate Robertson, U.K. group chair of Havas Worldwide and cofounder of One Young World. Steve Barrett, editor-in-chief of PRWeek, will moderate.

Around the world, Havas PR agencies are creating the news-for clients and for themselves. For more on Havas PR, please visit the agency’s website at havaspr.com.

The post Havas PR Wins Nine Lions at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity appeared first on Red Agency.

One Green Bean leads the way for Australia in the PR category, with three nominations for the Virgin Mobile Fair Go Bro campaign starring Doug Pitt.

The Red Agency, whose MD James Wright is on the jury, has also scooped two nominations for the Most Powerful Arm Ever Invented campaign for Save our Sons and Duschenne Foundation.

McCann Melbourne’s Dumb Ways to Die has also been recognised twice, as well as the Impossible Orchestra for the Department of Family, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

However, it looks unlikely Australia will top last year’s haul of ten gongs from 15 nominations, with just 11 nominations overall.

The Australian nominees:

Campaign/client/agency

Fair Go Bro, Virgin Mobile, One Green Bean (3)

The Most Powerful Arm Ever Invented, Save our Sons and Duschenne Foundation, The Red Agency  (2)

Dumb Ways to Die, Metro Trains, McCann Melbourne (2)

Small World Machines, Coca-Cola, Leo Burnett Sydney

Who Gives a Crap, Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper, Naked Communications

Impossible Orchestra, Department of Family, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, McCann Melbourne

Ddurexperiment Fundawear, Durex, Havas Worldwide Sydney

The Lions winners will be announced on Monday evening Australian time

The post Cannes: OGB and Virgin Mobile lead PR again – Red Agency receives a Cannes Lion nomination for Most Powerful Arm Ever Invented. appeared first on Red Agency.

Developed exclusively by the Cosentino R&D department, Dekton® by Cosentino is an ultra-compact surface made with TSP technology (Technology of Sintered Particles), a manufacturing process that uses an accelerated version of the high pressure and high temperatures processes that occur naturally over thousands of years to produce natural stone. With Dekton®, the process is replicated and condensed into a four hour production period.

The result is a product with infinite design possibilities that will last a lifetime. With superior technical characteristics, such as resistance to UV rays and extreme temperatures, very low water absorption and porosity and high resistance to scratching and abrasion, Dekton® is resistant to all major environments.

“We are incredibly excited about the potential for all of our products in the Australian market, and Dekton® is no exception.  With our strong focus on R&D, we are working to continue to develop products that can be used is new and innovative ways, while continuing to meet our high technical specification to ensure they will stand up to any application. Dekton® will be available towards the end of the year, but the industry is already buzzing,” said Gary Isherwood, Country Manager for Cosentino Australia.

Dekton® is perfect for a multitude of uses, including flooring, stairs and walls, ventilated facades, countertops and work surfaces, providing the flexibility for both commercial and private use. Manufactured with a mixture of sophisticated inorganic, raw materials found in glass, porcelain and natural quartz, the environment has served as the key inspiration behind Dekton®’s design and innovation. Initially available in a range of nature-reflective colours and finishes and in large format, Dekton® allows surfaces and spaces to be designed without any limits or interruptions, where colour and texture flow freely.

Dekton® is Cosentino’s greatest technological and commercial achievement to date, and reflects the Group’s commitment to continuous innovation. Cosentino Group has invested a total of $172 million (AUD) and 22,000 hours of research to launch Dekton®, in order create their most versatile, environmentally-friendly and innovative product yet.

Dekton® by Cosentino is proof of continuous innovation still required in the field of materials for architecture and design is still possible, and increases the already extensive range of materials within Cosentino’s brands.

Dekton® will be available in Australia from Q4 2013.

The post Dekton®- the ultimate ultra-compact surface by The Cosentino Group appeared first on Red Agency.

Foodbank Victoria is the state’s oldest and largest food relief organisation that delivers nutritious, healthy food to people experiencing hardship.

David McNamara, CEO of Foodbank Victoria estimates that 1,725,000 meals will be required to feed Victorians doing it tough this winter.

“Sadly our business is booming as the need for food relief has increased by 27% each year for the past six years,” Mr McNamara said.

“In this current economic climate and with everyday bills rising, food is often an easy thing to cut out of the weekly budget, leading to Victorians skipping meals or simply not being able to buy fresh produce.”

“We have found that winter is one of the harder times for people to access regular, nutritious meals to keep them on their feet.”

To help raise awareness of how urgently food is needed, Foodbank Victoria has partnered with JMC Academy to create a series of  short films. The short films, illustrate how donated food is distributed and turned into a nutritious meal for a Victorian living in crisis.

Hollywood filmmaker and Producer of the upcoming Michael Hutchinson biopic Two World’s Colliding, Bobby Galinski, donated his wealth of experience to the students to help them capture the hardship experienced by so many Victorians on a daily basis. Mr Galinski said he was glad he could play a part in helping drive donations for such a worthy cause.

“Most people sitting down to eat their daily meals don’t often think about how many less fortunate people there are out there, who may never know where their next meal will come from,” Mr Galinski said.

“Seeing the films created by the students and the interviews with people who require food relief was a reminder that the need is great. It may be your next door neighbour, single mum in the school playground or pensioners who rely on food relief agencies to provide them with their food for the week.”

Mr McNamara said he encouraged everyone to check out the incredibly moving short films and donate to the Warm Up Winter campaign that will run for the month of June.

“Just $25 can feed a family of four for a week,” Mr McNamara said.

How the community can help

• Visit www.warmupwinter.org.au
• Donate what you can to help feed Victorians living in crisis
• Share the short films via Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness of the work of Foodbank with the hashtag #warmupwinter

Statistics

•  526,700 Victorians are living below the poverty line
• Approximately 90,000 of these people are children
• 11.4% of people in Melbourne live below the poverty line
• 12.9% of Victorians outside the capital live below the poverty line
• 29% of households in poverty had a wage earner as the main income
• 25% of sole parent households are in poverty
• Foodbank Victoria’s services save community organisations’ and food relief agencies approximately $32 million in food each year.
• 11,000 breakfasts provided to school children through Foodbank Victoria’s KickStart Breakfast Club Program each week
• Foodbank Victoria distributes food and material aid to over 550 community organisations across Victoria
• 85% of Foodbank Victoria agencies do not have enough food to meet current demand.

For more information, to donate and view the short films visit:

www.warmupwinter.org.au

The post Warm Up Winter campaign launched to support the 500,000 Victorians struggling to meet the cost of living appeared first on Red Agency.

James joined Havas and Red Agency in April 2011, and his impact was immediate—he doubled the size of the Australian operation in less than two years. During his tenure, the agency has won business from such major brands as Accor, Origin Energy, Yahoo!7 and WWF. In 2012 Red Agency picked up 12 national and international awards, making it one of the most-awarded PR agencies in Australia during the period, including becoming one of the first Australian PR agencies to win a Cannes Lion, with two at the 2012 awards. In 2013, James will serve as a judge for the Clio Awards and at Cannes.

“The APAC region has a great appetite for technology, and this sits at the heart of many of our ideas. My vision for the region is to develop campaigns that are deliberately social; they don’t have to necessarily live in social media, but they are campaigns that people want to share, talk about and interact with,” said Wright. “As we are a new kid on the block, we don’t have the same old ideas—we have new ones and think differently about how we achieve them. And our award-winning campaigns speak for themselves.”

“We are excited for James to bring his winning leadership style and ambition to oversee our expansion in the APAC region,” said Marian Salzman, CEO, Havas PR North America, and chairperson, Havas PR global steering committee. “He understands that in all our practices around the globe, Havas wants to break from conventional marketing thinking, break new ground and be unconventional—and James does all that on a daily basis.”

In 2008, James was PRCA Consultant of the Year (U.K.) and International CSR Leader (PR News).  Previously a board director at Grayling U.K. (owned by the Huntsworth Group), at 26 he became the youngest board director in a Huntsworth-owned agency, Trimedia.

Around the world, Havas PR agencies are creating the news—for clients and for themselves. For more on Havas PR, please visit the agency’s website at havaspr.com.

The post James Wright named Managing Director of Havas PR operations in APAC region appeared first on Red Agency.

The pinnacle of awards for the construction industry, which is jointly presented by the Australian Constructors Association and Engineers Australia, saw the Royal Children’s Hospital by Lend Lease and the RMIT Swanston Academic building by Brookfield Multiplex named joint winners out of seven finalists.

It is the first time in the award’s 16-year history that two projects share the award.

The $1 billion Royal Children’s Hospital is regarded as one of the world’s leading hospitals – both from a medical and aesthetic point of view. With a peak construction workforce of more than 2,100, the sheer scale and complexity presented many coordination and logistical challenges during the four-year construction.

“Constructing a new hospital next to an existing one that must continue to operate is a major construction challenge and Lend Lease’s approach ensured that the construction and transition of patients could occur in tandem,” Marton Marosszeky, Chief Judge said.

At 11 storeys and over 35,000 square metres the RMIT Swanston Academic facility is an imposing building in one of Melbourne’s busiest precincts. The project was delivered 108 days ahead of schedule and $3.4 million under budget and has set new benchmarks for education facilities. The facility includes leading-edge teaching and specialist learning spaces and is home to 850 academic and administration staff with a student capacity of 6,000.

“The location of the building made juggling the requirements of the already high existing foot and vehicle traffic with a busy construction site a major challenge. However the team were able to deliver a state-of-the-art combination of practical rooms for teaching and social, study and open spaces to encourage learning.”

“Obviously we were comparing very diverse projects: they varied vastly in scope, size and technology. All finalists have demonstrated our industry’s capacity for innovation and design excellence. These attributes underpin the future prosperity of our society. The cost and quality of our infrastructure contributes significantly to the competitiveness of our economy, and hence our prosperity as a nation,” Mr Marosszeky said.

Other finalists this year included:

Project: Northern Sewerage Project
Alliance Melbourne Water, Yarra Valley Water, John Holland, SKM & Jacobs Associates (VIC)

Melbourne’s Northern Sewerage Project is one of the largest, most complex wastewater tunnelling projects in recent Australian history. Overcoming challenging geology and complex site conditions, the $650 million project involved construction of 12.5 kilometres of sewer tunnels under eight Melbourne suburbs. Construction continued 24 hours, six days a week for 4.5 years.

Project:  One One One Eagle Street
Construction Leighton Contractors (QLD)

One One One Eagle Street is a 57 level office tower located in Brisbane’s Golden Triangle. The building embraces best practice in sustainability and has pushed the boundaries in design, aesthetics and construction due to its complex, shifting geometry setting. The final perimeter column arrangement has been dubbed the ‘fig tree’ frame due to the similarity of the column pattern to the large Moreton Bay fig trees on the opposite side of Eagle Street.

Project: Brookfield Place
Construction Brookfield Multiplex (WA)

Brookfield Place has transformed a vacant lot and five dilapidated heritage buildings in the heart of Perth’s CBD into an exciting civic space. The site the building is one of the most famous and historical sites in Perth having been the city’s infamous “hole in the ground” for 20 years. Now standing in its place is a 45-storey tower with the tallest side core in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the largest commercial floor spaces in Australia.  And at 234 meters, the stunning tower dominates the Perth skyline.

Project: Southbank Cultural Precinct Redevelopment
Construction Baulderstone (VIC)

Thirty three years after its opening in 1980, Melbourne’s main specialist concert venue, Hamer Hall, was in need of an upgrade. The location of the $135.8 million re-development introduced specific challenges. The refurbished Hamer Hall features improved acoustics, new seating, cutting-edge staging systems and technology in the auditorium, new and expanded foyer areas – as well as exciting new connections to the city and riverbank.

Project Ipswich Motorway Upgrade
Alliance Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads, Abigroup Contractors, Fulton Hogan, Seymour White, Parsons Brinkerhoff, SMEC Australia (QLD)

The $1.95 billion federally-funded Ipswich Motorway Upgrade was one of the most complex road infrastructure projects ever undertaken in South-East Queensland. The high risk project upgraded included upgrading and widening 8 kilometres of the highway, and the introduction of new service roads to improve connectivity. Although 40% of the motorway was submerged for days during the Queensland floods in 2011, and the project office was wiped out for weeks, a high quality, smart modern motorway was officially opened six months early on May 15, 2012.

More information

Samantha Bamford
Red Agency
Samantha.Bamford@redagency.com.au
PH: (03) 9670 8350
Mob: 0424 355 903

The post Iconic Melbourne buildings win the 2013 Australian Construction Achievement Award appeared first on Red Agency.

15 May 2013: If you think back to key moments in recent history, chances are that before you can remember any of the headlines, an iconic image will spring to mind. Think the grainy shots of Neil Armstrong taking man’s first steps on the moon or Shepard Fairey’s ‘Hope’ poster, which became the visual anthem for Barack Obama’s presidency bid.

These are just examples of stories that shifted the world as we know it. If even these ‘stop press’ points in time required a strong visual, what hope does a new product, service or trend have of cutting headlines without one?

Competition for column inches is fiercer then ever before and beyond the traditional news sources, we exist amongst a character-controlled buffet of content. To make your message stand out and be heard, you need a strong package which includes includes imagery and/or video to support your well-crafted words.

In addition to assisting with media cut through, including a visually compelling image or video in your outreach plan also increases its chances of being shared.

But don’t just take my word for it. Statistics from Facebook, the heartland of social sharing, show that users are 12 times more likely to share a video than text alone, and twice as likely to share an image than text. Over on Twitter, where a 140-characater limit enforces the idea of less is more, over 700 video links from YouTube are shared every single minute.

Sold yet? If so, here are a few tips for making the most of images:

1. Decide on your strategy 

What is the best way to depict your client’s story visually? Perhaps it is a photo-shoot demonstrating a new product range for a review program. Maybe a short, shareable video finishing with a call to action suits the campaign’s needs. Or perhaps it’s the type of story that is already visually engaging, in which case you could choose to stage a one-off photo-call and invite media to attend.

2. Keep it professional

Sorry to break it to you. An out-of-focus photo shot quickly (and from a distance) on your iPhone isn’t going to cut it. In the majority of circumstances, media outlets will not publish any images that are less than professional standard.  Hire a professional to film, photograph and edit. Always.

3. When you need Plan B

Sometimes you just don’t have access to nor the time or resources to generate original photography. This is when stock photo websites such as iStock, Shutterstock or Getty come in handy. Each provides a wealth of images across of range of themes. Just remember that you need to pay a premium for exclusive use, so if you are purchasing with a limited license, that photo may very well pop up somewhere else.

Photos gone viral: Seth Casteel’s underwater dog photos quickly went viral after someone posted a few to the social sharing site Reddit. The images resulted in over 150millions views within 24 hours, the crash of Casteel’s website under the load of traffic and eventually a book deal.

The post Why a picture (still) says a thousand words in the world of PR appeared first on Red Agency.

29 April 2013: I remember coming home from school about 15 years ago and all I wanted to do was settle in on the sofa to watch TV. No distractions. Anyone who tried to distract me would be met with a ‘shhhhh’.
Fast forward to the present day. And I can’t watch TV WITHOUT distraction. Why? Because I am compelled to jump on to my social media profiles and share my thoughts on the show I’m watching and see what others are thinking too. When a show flashes a hashtag up on the screen at the start of the show, I jump straight on it. If there’s a Facebook page, I’m there. And I find thousands doing the same.

Call me a social media addict but this distraction is perhaps typical of today’s modern day culture and it is something to embrace.

In an instant, you have access to a string of tweets and posts ranging from the sarcastic to the analytical right through to the damm right hilarious. It’s as if you have thousands of people sitting right beside you sharing your experience in the living room. Your tweets could be read and re-tweeted by anyone and you could receive replies from random people you don’t even know. Sure, it’s not for everyone but there’s something very unique about unifying a nation by a TV show everyone is watching.

This is media convergence at its most powerful and media companies and brands are getting on board. The Australian Open on Seven was one of the first to utilise this social TV commentary with Yahoo!7′s Fango service coming to the fore to allow fans to vote on who they thought would win the big games. This year, as part of their sponsorship of The Voice on Nine, Vodafone have rolled out a ‘Home Coach’ microsite to allow fans to choose their winners of the Battle Rounds. It is interactivity at its finest and it makes TV viewing a fun and vibrant activity.

Of course watching TV while browsing social media can have its drawbacks. The finale of My Kitchen Rules on Seven saw the winners announced on Queensland screens seconds ahead of its transmission across the rest of the country with QLD viewers tweeting the winner’s names before others had seen it. ‘Spoilers’ are not uncommon but this is something TV networks can and are addressing as they try to keep up with the power and speed of social media.

What happens next is anyone’s guess but one thing is for sure – watching TV with eyes firmly fixed on the gogglebox without distraction is a thing of the past.

Now I’m off to see what people are saying on Twitter about The Voice….

The post Has TV viewing changed forever? appeared first on Red Agency.

10 April 2013:I’m lucky enough to live near Central Station. The frequency of trains from North Sydney means that a learner driver like me can take advantage of the public transport system and get home at a reasonable hour.

Sometimes when I take the M20 bus home, it takes longer as traffic on York Street can get pretty jammed from the bus stops right at QVB. So I can only imagine how it would be like to be stuck in traffic on black spots such as Parramatta Road and the M5 – only now after years and years of problems are we just starting to tackle the issue.

Lesson here is if we don’t put in the infrastructure now and have the foresight to see what we can expect in the future, we will never catch up and provide enough capacity as the population grows, and we will always be inundated with constant traffic jams….

This is how I see the Federal Coalition’s $30 billion plan for an alternative, slower but cheaper National Broadband Network. With the new proposal of guaranteed speeds of 25Mbps to 50Mbps (vs Labor’s current NBN model of 100Mbps top rate speeds) by the time we reach the expected 50MBps rate in 2019, I doubt the infrastructure would be good enough for Australia to compete against other countries.

As AIIA CEO Suzanne Campbell so correctly put, “While these speeds may be adequate for now, with rapid advances and continuous innovation in ICT capability, there is a very real risk that the needs of business and households will not be met in the future.”

It seems awfully familiar. We can opt for a cheaper alternative today, but how long will it be able to futureproof our intentions? How many times have we (or known someone who has) bought a discount laptop for the price, only to realise that it cannot keep up with more current models?

Advancements in technology never stops. Australia needs to properly invest in the NBN to give the country a fair go.

The post NBN: time for us to invest in a speedier future appeared first on Red Agency.

3 April 2013: Getting an internship is a great way to get some valuable work experience and hopefully a better understanding of what is involved in PR agency on a day-to-day basis. However, if the applications for internships to Red Agency’s three capital city offices is any indication, there is a lot of competition out there.

On average, Red Agency receives between 6 to 20 intern applications a week – and even more during some of the busier weeks, usually in March and July when most University semesters commence.

Internships are important because they can lead to full-time work. There are many examples across all three of our offices where interns have become full-time staff members.

So, to help you budding communications people out there, here are some tips to cut through the clutter.

1) Address the internship manager in your state by name
The internship contact for each of Red Agency’s offices are on the careers section of our website. By addressing the individual by name, it shows us that you are not sending a group email. An email addressed ‘to whom it may concern’ is very impersonal – and you might be surprised how many of these we get.  Also, don’t send it to our MD – that is for permanent positions!

2) Tell us why you want to work at Red Agency
With so many PR Agencies, why did you pick Red Agency? Why are you interested in an agency over working in-house? What type of clients and communications activities interest you? Instead of fulfilling a pre-requisite for your PR degree, what are you most looking forward to with your internship? What attracted you to apply to Red Agency?  This not only gives us an insight into you it also shows that you have done some research, put some thought into your application and are eager to learn.

3) Spell check
This tip is so simple, it seems silly to even mention it. However, the amount of times I receive emails with ‘i’ instead of ‘I’ is astounding and evokes an instant disapproval from me. Use the spell checker; it’s there for a reason.

4) Bring examples of your communications work to the interview
It could be an assignment, a media release, a blog post – anything that shows proactivity and an interest in the profession – rather than an internship simply being about a university pre requisite.

5) Ask questions at the interview
Even if your internship interviewer covers off most of what you were going to ask, make sure you have thought of enough questions to ask at least one question at the end of the interview. It could be related to the PR industry more broadly, for example, what did you think of “x” campaign that launched recently? Any question is better than nothing.

Overall we are always after bright and enthusiastic interns at Red. We love their fresh ideas and passion and who knows where it could take you on your career journey…

Best of luck with your search!
Samantha

The post Tips for getting an internship at Red Agency appeared first on Red Agency.