Posted by: Suzzie Harvey

07Dec / 2011

Donate your phones this Christmas to help children and animals!

Three of Queensland’s favorite charities have joined forces with Mobile 4 Charity and Westpac bank to raise money through the recycling of mobile phones.

Westpac Calamvale will host the launch of the consortium’s mobile phone fundraising appeal at their branch on Wednesday December 7th 2011 at 10am.

Westpac General Manager Jason Garner will officially launch the program at 10am with a formal announcement.  Also in attendance will be representatives from the RSPCA, PCYC, Bravehearts and mobile4charity.

The launch will see the consortium come together and officially kickstart the program with the backing of Westpac QLD.  The TVC will be released and appeal targets and environmental impacts will highlighted

Bravehearts, PCYC and the RSPCA are proud to announce their consortium with Mobile 4 Charity that will raise much-needed funds from the collection of mobile phones from all Queensland Westpac bank branches.

With hundreds of charities competing for the same community and corporate support the alliance will not only help the children and animals they assist but also the environment and will strengthen their fund raising capabilities.

Westpac are helping to facilitate the consortium’s fundraising efforts by hosting a ‘mobile4charity’ mobile phone collection bin at every Queensland Westpac branch.

The general public, Westpac customers and staff can drop their pre loved and unwanted mobile phones in the collection bins at any local Westpac branch in Queensland.

Mobile4charity, an internationally recognized mobile phone recycling program, then collects the phones for recycling with the consortium raising funds for every phone collected.

“We are delighted to have formed this partnership with both the PCYC & RSPCA and to be a part of a program that not only enables our organisations to raise funds, but also makes a difference environmentally,” said Peter Duffy, Bravehearts ‘Commercial Manager.

Charities have felt the brunt of the tough year endured by Queenslanders so finding alternatives to asking the public to constantly reach in their pockets is vital to fundraising efforts.  With Christmas just around the corner the public are generally more open to giving to charities but asking for dollar donations is still tough.

“Christmas is a peak time of year for new phones purchases.  All we ask is that when consumers purchase their new phone, they think about how they recycle the old one.  Placing the phone in the bin poses an environmental hazard and most phones can be re conditioned and sent to developing nations where affordability is minimal.  By dropping your old handsets into the deposit bins at Westpac you’ll be disposing of your phone properly and helping to raise funds for these three iconic Queensland charities that do so much for the wellbeing of our children and animals.”  Explained Mobile4charity director Cam Hanns.

“This program is a convenient option for businesses and individuals to support our charity’s without having to outlay additional revenue. They simply donate their unused phones in a convenient and secure program.” added PCYC Sergeant Gary Penny, General Manager Fundraising & Marketing.

The goal is to collect 50,000 mobile phones and Christmas is the perfect opportunity to discard unused mobile phones whilst assisting three very worthy causes.

About the members of the consortium:

Bravehearts, Australia’s leading child protection advocacy group and the nation’s only charity specifically dedicated to combating child sexual assault in Australia.

PCYC, Queensland Police-Citizens Youth Clubs who facilitate and encourage participation in sporting, recreation, cultural and welfare programs.

RSPCA Queensland, a non-government, community-based charity dedicated to protecting the welfare of all animals.

Mobile 4 Charity is an Australian owned and operated mobile phone recycler that collects unused mobile phones from businesses and the Government. The phones are then sold at a vastly reduced price overseas with the money going to charity. According to a recent study by Nokia, only 3% of mobile phone users recycle their old phones. If each of the three billion people owning mobiles brought back just one unused device we could save 240,000 tonnes of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gases to the same extent as taking 4 million cars off the road. The program is simple in concept, with counter top collection bins delivered to workplaces, retail outlets or agreed venues. These are then collected with no cost or financial outlay to the business.

For further information or to obtain a collection box please contact any one of the following:

Peter Duffy (Bravehearts) on 5552 3000, pduffy@bravehearts.org.au

Gary Penny (PCYC) 3909 9558  gary.penny@pcyc.org.au

or

Diane Baartz (RSPCA) 3426 9916 dbaartz@rspcaqld.org.au

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28Nov / 2011

What’s new to Facebook this week?

Although we thought the new timelined profile layout would hit our screens weeks ago it is still yet to be launched to the general public.  We are so excited for this feature as the layout looks so clean and fresh but without a formal announcement from Facebook on an exact date it’s just a matter of wait and see … in the meantime here are some updates that have been made to insights that are worth knowing about.

Facebook has improved the insights by adding new metrics to help admins get a better understanding of the audience they are reaching and how they interact with the page.

Measurability is an ongoing battle for businesses who know they need to be a part of the social movement but also need to be accountable for the dollars they are investing in moving to social networks and what ROI it is delivering.  These updated insights are a great starting point for measurability with the following metrics now readily accessible:

  • Graphical representations of how many posts you have made, how many people your post reached and how many talk about those posts
  • Detailed breakdowns of each post how many people you reached and engaged with and the virality of that post.  What’s so good about this for newcomers to Facebook is that you can actually assess what communication messages your fans are engaging with and which ones are not working so well.  The higher the viral % the better the result!
  • The ability to export the data is also a great tool for internal and external reporting

If you are an admin of a page you most likely would have already seen a notification to take the tutorial, we suggest you take the tutorial and start getting the most out of your Facebook page.

Posted by in Facebook, Hot Tips, Insights, Social Media

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21Oct / 2011

Creatively branded shopping bags

I saw this post on the Lost at E Minor newsletter this morning and it instantly captured my attention as it is something I have always thought about. I guess that thought process goes something like this:

  • Shopper enters shop by choice and instantly volunteers to engage with your brand
  • Shopper makes purchase and continues to walk the shopping center or street with their purchase in your subtly branded, typically bland, run of the mill shopping bag.  Never the less it’s still the shopping bag that you have already invested some form of $ in and will likely be thrown away once the purchaser get home.
  • LIGHT BULB MOMENT OF OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFICATION ANYONE?.. These shoppers are your walking brand billboards, actually they are more than that they are your walking brand advocates.  Why not invest the money you already spend on your bags, maybe put some extra into the design and production and get the most exposure possible out of these walking brand advocates!

In saying this if everyone went down this path it would no longer be as valuable as it would be just another level of clutter.  Anyway something to think about if it suits your brand essence and position (and of course budgets)..  If not have a look at these pretty cool examples anyway!

See the rest at Lost at E Minor here

Posted by in Advertising, Branding, Inspiration

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19Oct / 2011

Are they really listening?

Post by memery staff intern Ambre

As Brisbane’s much anticipated TEDx talks got underway on Saturday, I was left bombarded with photos and comments on my twitter feed about how inspiring each guest speaker had been. Twitter continued to tease me about the amazing ideas and “ah ha” moments that must have been bouncing through The State Library, so I felt obliged to look through the TED archives for some quick fix inspiration.

With millions of talks to sift through I was overwhelmed with ingenious ideas from individuals around the world. One in particular was Seth Godin, an entrepreneur that has written thirteen books about the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and changing everything.

In his talk Godin goes into a thought provoking discussion revolved around why some products and services get noticed and some don’t. These days consumers are bamboozled with too many choices and are forced to ignore what we are telling them. There is now an importance of communicating with people who actually care about what you are talking about – who would have thought!

Seth Godin’s top five tips

  1. Do something remarkable. These days very good is boring, you need to do something that gets noticed and is worth making a “remark” on.
  2. Reinvent what it means to sell your product. An example of this was Aeron who sold billions of dollars of office chairs because turned their chairs a status symbol about where you sat at work.
  3. You need to target the people who care, who are obsessed with something, who desperately care what you have to say because these people will tell their friends and it will spread.
  4. Design is free. Figure out how to get design to work for you.
  5. The riskiest thing you can do is being safe!

http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_sliced_bread.html

Written by our current star intern Ambre.

Posted by in Hot Tips, Insights, PR, Strategy, Twitter, Word of Mouth

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30Sep / 2011

Getting the most from your internship

We get at least 3 intern applications a week.  Over the past 8 months or so this has delivered us a lot of experience reading application letters and resume’s, conducting intern interviews and managing interns in our office.   I thought it about time that we put some of these experiences and learning’s onto paper.

My past experience with internships across many disciplines is that generally applications are very well structured and written, the interns come on board, do the icky jobs ie: data entry, filing, sit in on the occasional brainstorm, get coffees and empty the bins.  The internship is part of the hours needed for uni study and the opportunities to make connections and build relationships simply don’t exist or are not seized by the intern.  However in communications, particularly with smaller niche’ agencies you can’t escape the reality that you will make connections.  How you turn these connections into relationships and make the most of opportunities is entirely up to you and your commitment and passion to the industry.

So a few do’s and don’ts that I recommend for interns are below to get you started on the right foot:

Set hours: try and negotiate with your agency or company a set number of hours and days per week, this will ensure that you get the best opportunity to be involved in as much learning and day to day operations as possible.  The more sporadic your attendance the less value you will get out of your internship.

Phone calls: Generally any employer will understand that you are undertaking this internship along with full time uni commitments and part time paid work and understand that you may not be able to make it into work one day or you may have to leave early.  However I have noticed a rise in the level of emails and text messaging that is used to advise of such situations.  Picking up the phone or communicating in person with your employer or intern manager is the only appropriate way to discuss working hours and attendance.

Knowledge base: The purpose of undertaking an internship is to learn, learn and learn.  To put everything you learnt at uni into practise but we do expect you to arrive at an interview with some level of knowledge of what PR and communications means and involves.  Seems like a silly piece of advice huh? Believe me we get a lot of interns who cannot articulate what PR is and why they want experience in the industry.  Google it, read your text books, have a basic understanding.  This is potentially your career and you should be prepared with some background knowledge, and then by all means continue to ask as many questions as you possibly can, all day, every day.

Be honest: Interns have many and varied motivations for undertaking an internship. If it is to get a kickstart to your career as a publicist that is wonderful, but if it is also to get an idea of the PR industry even though you have studied journalism or because you are only one year into your degree and you want to make sure you are heading on the right career path be honest with your employer.  Likewise if you are interested in corporate communications or fashion PR, tell your employer as this will allow them to structure your program and experience to deliver you the best experience.

Please comment with anything else have you learned from your internships or interns that you’d like to share?  We have a lot of interns read our site and I’m sure they will take value from it.

Suzzie Harvey – Account Manager

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