Currie Communications

Football champions Gary Ablett Junior, Mark Schwarzer, Billy Slater and David Pocock will take on legendary status today by appearing on postage stamps released for Australia Day.

In a media campaign co-ordinated by Currie, all-time legends Ron Barassi, Joe Marston, John Raper and David Campese will also be immortalised on the 2012 Australia Post Australian Legends stamp issue, which recognises Australia’s four dominant football codes – Australian rules, football, rugby league and rugby union.

The identities of the eight football champions – one all-time legend and one current playing legend from each code – has remained a tightly-held secret until today, when the stamps go on sale.

The 2012 Australia Post Australian Legends will be honoured at the official Australia Day lunch in Sydney today, as well as Australia Day events staged in all capital cities leading up to 26 January. Each Legend will be presented with a 24-carat gold replica of the stamp on which he features.

Nearly three years after the Black Saturday fires that claimed 173 lives and left thousands homeless, 75 per cent of Victorians in high-risk bushfire areas don’t have a comprehensive bushfire survival plan.

The Minster for Police and Emergency Services, Peter Ryan and Fire Services Commissioner, Craig Lapsley, called for this to change as they addressed the Rural Press Club of Victoria Summer Fire Season Breakfast this morning attended by around 80 people and organised by Currie Communications.

This week is Fire Action Week, when all Victorians are urged to prepare and plan for the coming fire season. The message this week is – if you live in a bushfire-prone area, now is the time to prepare and practise your Bushfire Survival Plan.

A hard-hitting state-wide advertising campaign, due to be launched today, is expected to emphasise the importance of taking responsibility for your personal safety.

The Commissioner outlined key changes that have been made since Black Saturday. “Primacy of life” is now the acknowledged number one priority for all emergency services involved in fighting fires. Issuing of timely and accurate information by the emergency services is also critical, particularly to support people to take responsibility for their own safely in bushfire situation.

The Minister also announced a secondment program whereby six career firefighters from CFA and six from MFB will swap jobs in an effort to share knowledge and increase understanding between the two agencies.

Currie Communications now has a Florida affiliate through its network, the Public Relations Global Network. And one of its Australia Post campaigns has been recognised in the network’s awards.

The Miami-based Conroy Martinez Group is the 41^st agency to join the PRGN, which held its bi-annual conference in Chicago late last month.

The winners of the PRGN’s inaugural Best Practice Awards were also announced at the conference, with  Currie’s Australian Legends campaign for Australia Post took out third in corporate communications.

Currie is the exclusive Australian affiliate of the PRGN, the fourth-largest network of independent public relations companies in the world.

Did you know the whooping cough vaccine wanes over time or adults often pass the highly contagious disease to young children?

Go to www.myvaccination.com.au – the new one-stop shop for all vaccination information. It is a simple tool that everyone can use to answer pertinent questions about preventing infection and maintaining immunity.

Currie is promoting the new website on behalf of GlaxoSmithKline. The vaccine manufacturer has spent two years developing the tool and aligned the site to Australia’s National Immunisation Handbook.

We aim to drive awareness and usage of the site through tactical media campaigns aligned to the recent whooping cough outbreaks, birth, travel and the site’s functionality.

Professor Bernie Hudson, an infectious disease expert launched the site to Australians yesterday.

He said the website was timely as most adults don’t know what they have been vaccinated for.

Marketing and communications executives are “going global,” with seven out of 10 saying their organisations currently have, or will have in the next five years, a global marketing function, based on the results of a study commissioned by the Public Relations Global Network (www.prgn.com).

The survey of communications professionals at agencies, corporations and non-profits across six continents, including Australia, reveals that more than four in 10 (43 percent) say their organisations already have a formal global marketing function. Of those without one, more than half expect to have one in the next five years.

Says Australia’s PRGN President-Elect Mark Paterson, of Melbourne-based Currie Communications (www.curriecom.com.au): “Half of the executives surveyed regularly developed relationships with marketing/communications professionals in other countries. About 30% interacted at least once a month, while 20% interacted three to four times a year.

Respondents who engaged in regular global contact said the benefits were:

• Increased awareness of their organization’s brand (50%)
• A more positive attitude toward their organization (49%)
• Increased support of their organization’s business objectives and strategies (44%).

The industries from which communicators were most likely to connect globally were:

• Manufacturing (27%); and
• Commercial and professional services; media; food / beverage; and tobacco (each cited by 20% of respondents or more). 

The biggest barriers to global communication were culture and language, each cited by more than 40% of respondents.

Says PRGN President Francine Robbens: “This last finding underscores the value of communications networks such as PRGN, which enables our clients to partner with local agencies in international markets to help address differences in culture and language and communicate more effectively to specific audiences in other countries.”

The online survey of 206 communications professionals was conducted in March by the LCWA Research Group, a division of Chicago-based L.C. Williams & Associates, a PRGN member.

The PRGN is among the world’s largest public relations networks. It harnesses the resources of 42 independent public relations firms, 65 offices and more than 900 communications professionals to connect international companies and organisations with individual and culturally diverse markets globally.

Positive economic indicators and widespread favourable seasonal conditions should give many parts of the Australian dairy industry a platform for growth, according to the 2011 Dairy Australia Situation and Outlook report.

Currie’s client Dairy Australia launched the report last week, with Currie providing media relations advice and support.

The report, released each May, provides a summary of current dairy industry conditions, and an outlook for key factors that affect dairy operation and profits.

This year, the report’s authors found operating conditions for most in the Australian dairy industry had improved dramatically this financial year, while national milk production had been maintained with a marginal gain of less than one per cent, taking the total to 9.1 billion litres.

But, varying price signals and demand outlooks highlight significant regional differences, with the outlook for Western Australia and Queensland less optimistic.

Media interest was strong with articles appearing in The Age, several regional papers and online. The Weekly Times undertook detailed reporting in special an eight-page supplement.

A radio news release, featuring Dairy Australia’s Managing Director Ian Halliday and Knowledge and Strategy Manager Joanne Bills, received national pick-up. Other highlights included interviews for ABC’s Country Hour and Landline.

To view the 2011 Dairy Australia Situation and Outlook Report, visit www.dairyaustralia.com.au

Currie Communications Managing Director Mark Paterson was appointed president-elect of the Public Relations Global Network (PRGN) at a meeting in Belgium.

Mark will become the first Australian president of the PRGN next April, when he takes over from Francine Robbens of the Brussells-based PRP Public Relations Partners. Currie is the exclusive Australian affiliate of the PRGN – a worldwide network of independently-owned public relations companies. The network turns over revenues of more than $US110 million a year.

A former award-winning journalist and newspaper editor, Mark specialises in high-level strategic counsel, media relations, strategic planning, brand positioning and crisis management.

‘I’m looking forward to taking on the role next year’, says Mark. ‘The benefits to our clients are enormous – our combined resources through the PRGN span six continents, and more than 900 communications professionals’.

At its April meeting, the PRGN also added three new agency members: YESwecan Public Relations in Paris, France, Cabinet Privé de Conseils in Geneva, Switzerland and LVBA Comunicação Public Relations in São Paulo, Brazil. The new agencies have expanded the network’s global reach and capabilities to a total of 24 countries.

More than 1000 clients across six continents depend on the combined resources of the Public Relations Global Network (PRGN) to deliver targeted public relations campaigns in more than 80 markets around the world.

PRGN is among the world’s top five public relations networks. PRGN harnesses the resources of 42 independent public relations firms, 65 offices and more than 900 communications professionals to connect international companies and organizations with individual and culturally diverse markets globally.

Visit PRGN online at: www.prgn.com.

Australia’s burgeoning population jumped back on the national agenda when the Global Change Institute (GCI) (www.gci.uq.edu.au) hosted a speech by one of the country’s greatest thinkers this evening.

The speech, entitled The Rise of Big Australia, by internationally-recognised trend forecaster and social demographer Bernard Salt is part of the GCI’s thought-provoking Insight lecture series.

Australians will have to change the way they live, Mr Salt, a partner with KPMG, told GCItv http://tinyurl.com/66gug7b before addressing 200 guests at the Brisbane Convention Centre.

“The quarter-acre block – part of our cultural history - is a thing of the past,” he said. “We can’t continue to grow our major cities in the way we grew them in the latter part of the 21st Century. “

“We need to dense up (units, apartments and high rise housing).  I still think we will have separate houses on separate blocks of land, yet, they will be, at best, one-eighth of an acre in size.”

“A big backyard is simply no longer sustainable.””

The challenge of The Rise of Big Australia emerged last year with the controversial prediction of the 2010 Intergenerational Report that Australia’s population would grow to 35 million by 2050.

The concept of a big Australia is scary to many, particularly in the past couple of years when Australia has posted record levels of population growth (465,000 in the 12 months to June 2009).

The GCI was set up by the University of Queensland in 2010 to coordinate collaborative research, learning, engagement and advocacy in major global change issues. It will investigate complex, interconnected issues in innovative ways in order to contribute evidence-based, progressive solutions to the problems of a rapidly changing world.

The debate about the introduction of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) may be hot in Australia, but a leading global climate change expert says the positive spinoffs of an ETS in Europe are already being seen.

Currie’s client the Global Change Institute (GCI) this week hosted Jill Duggan, European Commission – Directorate-General for Climate Action, who was in Australia to discuss the lessons learnt from the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EUETS) and other measures it has undertaken to mitigate global warming. 

Addressing the audience at The University of Queensland, home to GCI, Ms Duggan said there had been a serious amount of concern in the UK before the ETS scheme was established.  

“Starting any trading scheme is going to be met with caution from government and industry,” she said.

“Quite often you need to make compromises to get started.”

Ms Duggan’s observations on the keys to success in the EU were political consensus and a strong push from industry for trading.

She said there were many positive spinoffs from the introduction of the EUETS including the start-up of low carbon manufacturing businesses and other sustainable enterprises – sectors that would not have existed without the EUETS.

During her Australian visit Ms Duggan held talks with the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, and Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage, Greg Hunt, as well as meetings with government officials, NGOs, industry and business groups in Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Sydney.

The seminar was part of the Insights Seminar Series run by GCI at The University of Queensland. To view the podcast visit http://gci.uq.edu.au/VideoGallery.aspx

About GCI

The Global Change Institute was established by The University of Queensland twelve months ago to better address major global challenges. The Institute is committed to becoming a change-agent, helping to foster innovative research and multi-disciplinary collaboration worldwide, as well as acting as an experimental think-tank in which new ideas can flourish and be explored. To learn more about GCI visit http://gci.uq.edu.au/Home.aspx

If you thought you saw Currie consultants Katrina and Jenny doing a spot of gardening at a Melbourne tram stop this morning, you were not mistaken.

The pair donned their gloves and braved the winter-like conditions to transform a metallic tram stop into a living, breathing garden on behalf of our client, Metlink to draw attention to its sponsorship of the Edible Garden at City Square.

The Metlink Edible Garden is part of the Melbourne International Food and Wine Festival which started on 4 March and will wind up on 13 March.

A part of Metlink’s ‘nature prefers public transport’ campaign, the tram stop garden was a hit with commuters, some requesting the garden stay in place all year round.

Those wanting an even bigger edible garden experience should check out City Square, where Metlink has worked with the Diggers Club to set up 30 metres of fruit, vegetables and edible flowers.

Metlink’s ‘nature prefers public transport’ campaign seeks to highlight the environmental advantages of trams, trains and buses. For instance, one full tram can remove as many as 140 cars from the road.

Metlink helper Jack at the edible garden tram stop this morning