Communication Gurus Unveiled At PRIA Golden Target Awards

The Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) celebrated 40 years of excellence in public relations and communication at the Golden Target Awards (GTAs) gala dinner last night, at the Four Points by Sheraton in Sydney.

The GTAs honour the best individuals and organisations across 25 categories, setting globally benchmarked high standards of achievement for the Australian industry.

The crème-de-la-crème of Australia’s community of professional communicators were recognised for the extraordinary standards of communication across campaigns, crisis communication, public affairs and more.

There were 12 winners of the 25 categories, with one of the big winners of the night, WE Buchan, taking home the award for Large Consultancy of the Year.

“This past year has been the culmination of a substantial transformation program to ensure we continue to replicate the first 30 years of our existence. We started the year as Buchan Consulting and finished as WE Buchan following Seattle based multinational independent agency WE Communications Inc taking a majority stake in our business. Our success is the sum of our team and the wonderful clients we work with,” said Rebecca Wilson, CEO.

The National President’s award was presented to three industry leaders, recognising the significant support of their outstanding contribution to the industry; they were:

• Susan Redden Makatoa (Group Managing Director, Corporate, Ogilvy PR) for her work developing the industry’s first Diversity and Inclusion policy;
• Anthony Lowe (Director, Roxburgh Group) for creating the PRIA Professional Framework; and
• Carol Moore (Principal, Moore Public Relations) for leading the development of benchmarks and best practice in measurement and evaluation of communication campaigns.

A new category this year was the Research, Measurement and Evaluation award which went to Perduco Consulting and the Princess Alexandra Hospital for Innovate PA: Australia’s first large scale digital hospital, awarded by Carol Moore, co-chair of the measurement and evaluation committee, who commented “the hospital’s organisational objectives relating to patient care cost effectiveness and innovation were the foundation for the strategy. All the communication objectives were measureable and included milestones to monitor progress.”

Jenny Muir who was re-elected to her role as PRIA National President earlier in the day at the Annual General Meeting said the Presidents’ award recipients – Anthony, Carol and Susan – make an invaluable contribution to the PRIA and our industry, and provide unwavering support and expertise to her personally.

“I’m proud of the extraordinary leadership that they have demonstrated, and the significance of their contribution to the Institute and our industry. We are genuinely a stronger profession because of them,” she said.

Perduco Consulting were also one of the big winners of the night for their Innovate PA project. Their client, Metro South Health CEO Dr Richard Ashby said “this was one of the best communications campaigns we have ever seen from any government agency and our entire staff did a great job to get trained in the new system and fundamentally change the way they work without missing a beat. The communication strategy, strategy and delivery was simply brilliant, surpassed all our expectations and left our business and organisational culture stronger than before.”

In addition, N2N & Primary IVF took home the night’s highest honour for an individual campaign of the year, selected as the best from all winning entries. Samara Kitchner from N2N said “We are honoured to win the award. We were fortunate to be able to have such an authentic story to tell – the first bulk billed IVF clinic in Australia, as well as the close alignment of the team that worked so well together to deliver this outstanding result.

The 2016 PRIA National Golden Target Award recipients are:

National campaign of the year

• Primary IVF: Increasing access to high quality, affordable IVF – N2N & Primary IVF [WINNER]

Large Consultancy of the Year

• WE Buchan [WINNER]
• Red Agency [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• N2N Communications [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Porter Novelli Melbourne [COMMENDED]
• The Mint Partners [COMMENDED]

Medium Consultancy of the Year

• Sauce Communications [WINNER]
• History Will Be Kind [HIGHLY COMMENDED]

Micro Consultancy of the Year

• Lynsey Reilly Communications [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Timmins Ray [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• LBPR [COMMENDED]
• Rhetoric PR Pty Ltd [COMMENDED]

Consumer Marketing

• Driving world’s biggest gamblers and ecstasy users to Thailand for offshore rehab – VIVA! Communications – [WINNER]
• Perth’s Newest Bar – McDonald’s Melville Burger Bar Launch – Professional Public Relations (PPR) [HIGHLY COMMENDED]

Top sPRinter (Emerging practitioners)

• Porter Novelli – Chanelle Shibata [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Red Agency – Taylor O’Conner [COMMENDED]
• icon.pr – Jack Dyas [COMMENDED]

Issues and Crisis Management

• Christmas and New Year’s Blood Blitz prevents blood shortage – Australian Red Cross Blood Service – Blood Service PR team [COMMENDED]

Public Affairs

• Protecting The North – Suncorp Group – Corporate Affairs Public Policy Team [COMMENDED]
• On-demand Transport Reform – Mills Wilson and Department of Transport [COMMENDED]

Business-to-Business Marketing

• The SAP Australian Digital Experience Report – Howorth Communications, in collaboration with AMR Research & The Factuary [HIGHLY COMMENDED]

Community Relations

• LEGENDAIRY Capital – Dairy Australia [COMMENDED]
• Waughs Championing Cause Close to Heart Stroke Prevention – VIVA! Communications – [COMMENDED]

Comprehensive/ Major Campaign

• Innovate PA – Australia’s First Large Scale Digital Hospital – Perduco Consulting and the Princess Alexandra Hospital [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Your vote will help shape Australia – Australian Electoral Commission [COMMENDED]

Content Marketing

• I Love Leftovers’ – Using digital and social content to create a social media movement in celebration of food, leftovers and sustainability behaviours – Icon Agency [WINNER]
• Headband for Good – Haystac [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Building confidence in Queensland Treasury through content marketing – Queensland Treasury [COMMENDED]

Digital and Social

• Primary IVF: Increasing access to high quality, affordable IVF – N2N & Primary IVF [WINNER]
• HBF Run for a Reason: Engaging an army of event advocates – HBF [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Headband for Good – Haystac [COMMENDED]
• From potential backlash to massive support: the power of social and digital on the North McKinnon Centre Level Crossing Removal Project – Level Crossing Removal Authority [COMMENDED]

Experiential

• Brisbane Winter 2015 Campaign – Haystac [WINNER]
• EBAY Innovation Lab – Pulse – Richard [HIGHLY COMMENDED]

Government Sponsored Campaigns

• Raising the profile of TAFE Western Sydney – TAFE Western Sydney/Sefiani [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Water Utility Cracks Records with Integrated Safety Campaign – Seqwater [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• New Horizons – a mission to Pluto – CSIRO [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• ReCreate – National Recycling Week 2015 – Brisbane City Council Waste & Resource Recovery Services [COMMENDED]
• Your vote will help shape Australia – Australian Electoral Commission [COMMENDED]

Health Organisations

• Innovate PA – Australia’s First Large Scale Digital Hospital – Perduco Consulting and the Princess Alexandra Hospital [WINNER]
• Don’t be bone idle- ‘Know Your Bones’ to help curb bone fractures – VIVA! Communications [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Rise & Recharge – Fenton Communications and Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Healthy Bones Action Week – Fit, Fab and 50 Challenge – The Reputation Group [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Understanding genes key to eliminating deaths from anorexia nervosa – VIVA! Communications [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Primary IVF: Increasing access to high quality, affordable IVF – N2N & Primary IVF [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Gaucher Disease: telling the patients story through data visualisation – Weber Shandwick [COMMENDED]
• Health Destination Pharmacy Campaign – Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) [COMMENDED]
• ADHD: It’s About Time – seeing the impact of ADHD through the eyes of parents and carers – Weber Shandwick, with Shire Australia [COMMENDED]

Integrated Marketing and Communication Campaign Strategy

• 2015/16 Yellow Pages and White Pages program launch – Haystac [WINNER]
• Can I Foster?’ Campaign – Superdream [WINNER]
• Northern Adelaide Senior College enrolment campaign: Change your story – communikate et al [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Story Bridge 75 – Brisbane City Council [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Growing Bigger in a Smaller Pool – Pesel & Carr [COMMENDED]

Internal/Change Management Communications

• Innovate PA – Australia’s First Large Scale Digital Hospital – Perduco Consulting and the Princess Alexandra Hospital [WINNER]
• Melbourne Market Relocation – Fenton Communications – Melbourne Market Relocation Team [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Kings Square – HBF [COMMENDED]
• a-FUSION: humanising a massive IT system change – Ogilvy Impact and Canon Australia [COMMENDED]

Small budget/Pro Bono

• Crime Stopper’s Local Suburbs Awareness Campaign – OPF Consulting [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Walking Wounded – Saving returned service men and women from suicide – Red Agency [COMMENDED]

Sustainability/Corporate Social Responsibility

•  ‘I Love Leftovers’ – Using digital and social content to create a social media movement in celebration of food, leftovers and sustainability behaviours – Icon Agency [COMMENDED]

PR Educator of the Year

• Queensland University of Technology – Dr Amisha Mehta [HIGHLY COMMENDED]

In-house PR Team of the Year

• Opening Doors Across Australia & New Zealand – Airbnb [COMMENDED]
• ING DIRECT [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• The Lott PR team – Tatts Group Lotteries [HIGHLY COMMENDED]
• Institute for the Study of Social Change – Institute for the Study of Social Change [HIGHLY COMMENDED]

Entries for the 2017 Golden Target Awards open early next year.