Our Work
Priority Communications has a strong client base at a local and national level across a wide variety of agencies, companies and projects. Take a look at some examples of our work below. We also provide pro bono public relations support to Allergy New Zealand and Birthright Canterbury.
Contact us to learn more about the work we do and to find out how we can support your business with strategic, effective communications.
Timaru District Council
What’s In Your Bin? - Silver PRINZ Award, Consumer or Customer Relations, 2022
In 2020 and 2021, we were contracted by Timaru District Council to help develop and implement a major public awareness campaign to reduce the amount of rubbish being put in recycling bins. Residents’ failure to sort their recycling and waste correctly was causing significant issues. These ranged from Council staff having to handle highly contaminated recycling, to the district’s landfill expiring at a much faster rate than predicted.
We worked closely with the Council’s waste recovery and communications teams to create ‘What’s In Your Bin’, a highly engaging campaign that received strong national and local media coverage. The campaign involved elected members of the Council and several other high-profile Timaru people including popular actor and comedian, Josh Thomson. It ran for several months across the district, encompassing social media, news coverage, billboards, video, web content, district-wide mailouts, and radio advertising.
Within six months of starting the campaign, there was a 24 per cent improvement in recycling habits in the Timaru District. The What’s In Your Bin campaign was credited with playing a major role in this success.
Emerge Aotearoa Trust
Emerge Aotearoa Trust is one of our long-term clients and we are delighted that our work for the organisation has resulted in two PRINZ Awards.
COVID-19 Response - Silver PRINZ Award, Internal Communications 2021
In 2020, we were asked to lead the communications for the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic response. This was to ensure the 1200 staff across the Trust’s four entities had the information they needed for essential services to continue; for kaimahi and clients to feel safe and supported; and to reassure external funders, government agencies and organisational partners that the overall response was being well managed.
We made sure the right tools were in place to communicate with all kaimahi; creating and launching a microsite by the end of the first week of lockdown; producing and implementing a communications strategy; delivering targeted daily communications updates; writing resources; producing multimedia content; and regularly monitoring and evaluating our efforts to make sure communications were hitting the mark.
In the final evaluation of the Trust’s COVID-19 response, good communication was said to be one of the keys to its success.
“My staff said they couldn’t have asked for better support. They were kept updated daily with reassuring and easy-to-access information that helped alleviate the feeling of being overwhelmed. They felt connected through engaging in polls on the microsite. They said they have never received such fantastic support from an organisation, and felt they were truly appreciated and valued. You and your team did a phenomenal job and it was felt on the front lines.” – Service Manager
Building Stronger Futures - Bronze PRINZ Award, Internal Communications 2022
We also won a Bronze PRINZ Award in 2022 for developing and implementing the communications for an Emerge Aotearoa Limited internal communications campaign called Building Stronger Futures.
Our work for Building Stronger Futures saw the development of individual communication plans to support nine different workstreams; regular newsletters; updates for managers; intranet articles; videos; information guides; and more.
This work helped improve the organisation’s processes and kaimahi practices for the benefit of clients and staff across the country.
Harness Racing New Zealand
In 2021, Priority Communications worked with Harness Racing New Zealand to lead its community consultation on the future of Forbury Park in Dunedin. The consultation was the first of its kind since the passing of the Racing Industry Act 2020 and was expected to set the standard for future consultations on the sale of New Zealand racing venues.
The Future of Forbury Park consultation involved engagement with a wide range of government, iwi, and community stakeholders, as well as neighbouring residents and businesses interested in the future of the site. We first developed a strategic consultation plan and then led the project, including the development of all marketing and communications collateral; media management; planning and booking advertising; stakeholder liaison; event management, and conducting a thorough analysis and report on all feedback gathered.
Both organic and paid media coverage were important tools in promoting the consultation, as was the use of digital and traditional communication methods, such as a coordinated letterbox drop to more than 300 of the Park’s neighbouring properties.
A sudden change in COVID-19 alert levels during the consultation required swift and considered management to maintain stakeholder engagement.
At the conclusion of the consultation, more than 300 submissions had been received, with contributions from a variety of stakeholders, including nearby residents, community groups, government agencies and racing enthusiasts. This substantial feedback was to be used by Harness Racing New Zealand and Forbury Park Trotting Club as they negotiated the transfer of the site to the racing code and considered the Park’s future sale.
General Manager Liz Bishop said:
“I highly recommend Priority Communications for their professional and thoughtful manner, and the regular contact with us meant we could tailor the process as we needed to. Priority Communications ensured that the whole consultation process ran smoothly and that we received substantial community and stakeholder feedback to make our decisions. They were great to work with and their report was of good quality and captured the key findings really well.”
Ashburton District Council
Priority Communications has been providing as-required support to the Ashburton District Council communications team for many years. This has included strategic communications advice, public awareness campaigns, consultation communications, and support for the Mayor and senior management team.
Some of our work has included managing communications on environmental issues such as Mid Canterbury water issues; the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak (working with the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Mayor); and the Council’s new library and administration building.
We have also helped implement many Council-led campaigns, including Roading Worx - which aimed to increase public understanding about Ashburton’s large roading network; the Start with a Smile campaign - which was generated by the Canterbury Mayoral Forum; Welcoming Communities - an Immigration NZ initiative which aimed to bring locals and migrants closer together; and Our Place – a stakeholder engagement campaign to involve the community in the Long Term Plan process to help determine future project priorities. The Our Place campaign was highly commended at the 2019 SOLGM Awards.
Ashburton District Council - Start with a Smile Campaign
We were approached by Ashburton District Council to provide ongoing communications support in 2014. As part of this work we led the development and implementation of its Start with a Smile (SWAS) campaign in 2016.
Our brief was to use the bright blue smile-shaped couch in whatever ways we could to engage the local community, encourage a more welcoming environment for newcomers and migrants in the district, and ultimately see the local community initiating SWAS activities that would last long after the couch had left the district.
SWAS has been an enormously successful campaign in the Ashburton District. Our work included launching the campaign to the community; working with local community leaders; producing and coordinating a wide range of marketing material; liaising with media; and creating a buzz on social media.
The success of SWAS was a major factor in Ashburton becoming one of Immigration New Zealand's trial regions for its Welcoming Communities programme. We were asked to develop and deliver a communications strategy to introduce it to the community and launch the region's Welcoming Plan. The campaign we developed received national and international media attention.
SlapSee fundraising campaign
The team at SlapSee came to us halfway through their Kickstarter campaign. Their goal was to raise $50,000 to start producing a new range of polarised, slap-on sunglasses but two weeks into the campaign, and with almost $25,000 pledged, interest began to die out.
We had just under 10 days to help SlapSee reach the target. It was a tight deadline, but we did it! We got media kits out to key lifestyle and business reporters and ramped up SlapSee’s social media activity. We followed up with various media and worked with them to profile the new glasses and their Kiwi inventor. We also explored new social media avenues and substantially increased engagement with the SlapSee Facebook page. Our work led to the campaign picking up speed in its final few days and, finally, exceeding the $50,000 target.
Blackcurrants New Zealand
Blackcurrants New Zealand asked us to help raise awareness of new research into the benefits of NZ blackcurrants on sports performance.
The aim was to make the most of England-based researcher Professor Mark Willems’ visit to New Zealand. Professor Willems’ had found that NZ blackcurrants improved the performance and recovery of cyclists.
To promote his findings and that of other NZ-based blackcurrant researchers, we produced a series of media releases that were not only covered by local daily media but also national media (Spoke Magazine and NZ Road Cyclist Magazine). Best of all, TV One’s Breakfast Show saw the implications this research could have for sportspeople and our local blackcurrant industry and featured a story on the growers, the research and Kiwi athletes who were eating blackcurrant supplements as part of their daily diet.
Pegasus Health's Annual Report
Pegasus Health approached us for support in moving the organisation's annual report from a hard copy to online format. We worked with them and Guru Digital to develop a microsite that would allow visitors to quickly and easily make their way through the Annual Report. We also worked closely with Pegasus Health staff and members to write interesting, engaging content in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Most of the Report's photographs were also taken by us. Once the microsite was developed, we provided technical guidance on how to use the content management system.
Frances Jerard - Vancouver Fashion Week
When Wendy Jerard, of fashion label Frances Jerard, asked us for help with promoting her debut at Vancouver Fashion Week, we knew we were in for a lot of fun! Wendy is such a creative, talented designer and it's always a pleasure to support local businesses.
Wendy needed a hand with updating her website, writing media releases and posting to her social media channels. Working to a tight deadline, we produced two press releases for the organisers of Vancouver Fashion Week to send to Canadian media.
We also edited a promotional video and produced a brief social media guide that Wendy could take with her while travelling, so her customers and fans could be kept up-to-date, no matter where she was.
Christchurch's Holi Festival of Colours
We sponsored the city’s first annual Holi celebration in March 2014 at the Pallet Pavilion to help get the festival on its feet. Working with Hitesh Sharma and Sandeep Khanna from Revel Events, we spread the word about Holi; got the media interested; and had heaps of fun welcoming more than 1500 people on the day.
We continued sponsoring the event for four years, with more than 10,000 people attending the event in 2017.
ImagineBetter
ImagineBetter asked us to help create content that would better reflect their work and highlight disabled people achieving their dreams. Their goals were to create content that was easy to read and could be used on all of their platforms by anyone. Our work included working with disabled people and their whānau to provide real stories that had high impact.
We were challenged to turn traditional disability-speak on its head for the information that AccessAbility was providing on all of its communications channels. The language we used needed to speak directly to disabled people, putting them in charge. As part of this work, we profiled disabled people who used AccessAbility’s services and coordinated new photography.
Previous experience
Learn about Director Michele Hider's work on projects including the Canterbury swine flu campaign, CERA Recovery Strategy and Housing New Zealand communications post-earthquake.