Well it’s no fluke and good marketers know there’s existing media hype everywhere ripe for the picking.  Keeping a keen eye on existing media hype around particular themes that relate to your brand and piggybacking
off this hype is a really cost effective way to get your message to the masses.

Over the past three months the team at Threesides has been working closely with the marketing team at NSW National Parks and Wildlife, and their incumbent PR agency Starr PR to roll out a marketing campaign to increase visitation to coastal national parks during a traditionally quiet winter period.

The annual migration of whales from Antartica to
warm water breeding grounds provided the perfect
platform on which to hook the campaign.  The whales swim right past many of the coastal NSW national parks
gaining significant media coverage as they go, so why not tap into this hype to further the reach of the marketing messages for coastal national parks
and turn the whales into the biggest billboards you’ve ever seen!

So what does an 18metre long billboard with a tail actually look like -  it looks like this:

• A new website
• Customised Twitter feed with tweets on latest whales spottings up and down the coast
• Customised Facebook presence with video and data capture
• Electronic Direct Mail to exsiting database of over 20,000
• Pay per click advertising to capture existing search engine traffic
• Development of a whale watching mobile app
• Point of sale presence in visitor centres
• National media coverage and ongoing media coverage

You didn’t really think we spray painted a bunch of whales with the national parks logo did you?

Todd (and some famous friends) presents a Tourism Award to the team at Mount Majura Vineyard.

Recently we posted about the top ten ways to turn your Awards into Rewards.  That is, how to make sure your award win (or entry) brings maximum benefits to your business.

Part one (which can be read here) covered the first five ways, which were:

1. Promote yourself
2. Thank your staff, suppliers and supporters
3. Tell your customers
4. Contact the sponsors
5. Contact other entrants

So what are the other ways of ensuring your award win is the gift that just keeps giving?  Read on ….

6. Get feedback on your entry

Winners, finalists and entrants can all benefit from feedback and if it’s offered, getting independent feedback on your business through an award submission can be a valuable piece of research.

Contact the organisers to see if there is feedback sessions available and make the time to attend one.

7. Provide feedback to the awards organisers

Feedback on the entry process, the awards night and the follow up promotions can be useful tools to event organisers to ensure the ongoing success of the program. If you have something to say – event organisers are always willing to listen to helpful suggestions

• Make a quick phone call or email to the event organiser with feedback.
• Complete a feedback survey if one is available.
• Attach a quick note of thanks to the organisers if you enjoyed and benefited from the experience, it might be their job but everyone deserves to know when they have made a good effort.

8. Look for other awards programs that would be of benefit

Now that you’ve written one award the hard bit is over. Have a look in your industry or in other industry sectors that your business works in and see if there are other awards that would be worthwhile entering. Are the applications similar? Can you use information that you have already prepared for one application as the basis for another one?

9. Consider entering again in the same or another category

Not wining an award is a challenge to become a winner next time. Wining an award is sometimes harder because you not only have to keep up your winning ways but you know everyone wants to beat you next year.

• Set some goals in your business to create positive action to give you a reason to win in next year’s award.
• Have a look at the categories and take on the next challenge. You might have been in a new business category this year so next year its business growth.
• Have a look at previous winners and establish what you think made them award winning businesses and work out what you need to develop in your business to get there.

10. Have fun!

Most award processes have a presentation or ceremony of some kind.  Enjoy these occasions — and congratulate yourself for all of your hard work!  Entering an awards process can be a daunting task, but the benefits and rewards are certainly worth it.

Some chefs we know Tom Moore from Grazing and Knead Patisserie, Ross O’Reily from Knead Patisserie, Andy Hollands from Ellacure and Chris Whitlock from Lambert Vineyards have got together to run an chef apprentice development program, which aims to educate their apprentices and trainees from farm to plate.  Each quarter they take their apprentices to meet a regional producer of an ingredient, learn some more about the ingredient and participate in a Masterclass to learn how to cook with it.  The apprentices are then set the challenge of using the ingredient to develop a  menu for a dinner for the chefs and their guests.

Move over Masterchef – this is the real deal!

So like most good ideas, the chefs wanted to talk about this one over a couple of beers and we never say no to beer.  So far we’ve assisted the chefs to create a brand name and logo The Four Chefs, set up a basic website, got our good friend photographer and office flatmate Paul Chapman involved to create some stunning imagery, generated some media attention and connected them with our client the Capital Region Farmers Markets – who have built a mobile kitchen that the guys and their apprentices are using for monthly public cooking demonstrations using regional produce.

So what did I learn about Truffles that I didn’t know before:

1.    They are a fungus that grows on the roots of certain Oak Trees – the ones that grow all around Canberra so maybe a truffle hunt in the streets of Ainslie might be on the cards!

2.    The romans were the first ones to eat them though who knows what possessed them to eat something that resembles something that comes out the rear end of a horse

3.    They can retail for anywhere up to $3000 a kilo depending on quality

4.    The French use female pigs to sniff them out as their smell resembles the feromones of a male pig on heat which means they need no training to find them

5.    In Australia pigs are not allowed to be used for sniffing out truffles and so dogs are trainined similar to customs dogs to sniff out the prized nuggets
And where to from here with The Four Chefs?  Well like most good ideas the next bit will also come over a couple of beers – truffle infused this time!

Some ideas so far have included a capital region cookbook, cooking school and Masterclasses, gourmet tours of Canberra, special event dinners and maybe even a kitchen product range.

If you’re like me and became a Masterchef tragic over the last month, what are your ideas for where The Four Chefs idea could go? If you leave us a good one you might even get a look in at the next quarterly dining experience.

We all know the type of building and construction on-site signage that you mostly see around the place – flimsy old signs that are dog eared and covered in cement!

Vince runs a small, family owned outfit that specialise in high end renovation and remodelling projects in the price range of 100k +.  He prides himself on delivering a very personalised service that helps his clients relax through their renovation, and a very high quality finished product in conjunction with some of Canberra’s leading architects and interior designers so we needed his signs to say something about this.

With Vince’s hammer close to hand, design firm Love Design delivering the graphics to our brief, and Signage One in Mitchell taking care of our printing onto an antigraffiti bullet proof aluminium, threesides project managed the job to deliver a signage concept that included a quality timber framing with solar panel lighting (as renovated by Vince).   The call to action on the signs is to visits Hot Chippies website to find out more about a specific offer Relaxed Renovations

And the result – well how do you track results of people looking at a sign?  Get them to provide their postcode when they register for more information on the Hot Chippies website which is showing an increase in postcodes that align to the regions where the signs have been placed on display.

When was the last time you did something different with your promotions like Vince?

So if you loved the movie Mall Rats and have ever wanted to find out if ghosts really haunt the halls of Canberra’s museums and galleries, now’s your chance!

Who said there’s no nightlife in Canberra

Image courtesy of The Canberra Times

The National Gallery of Australia’s blockbuster exhibition, Masterpieces from Paris has smashed the exhibition attendance record of 370,000 and expects to hit 400,000 visitors by Easter Saturday.

Threesides was contracted at the commencement of the exhibition to assist the Gallery with the tourism and partnership marketing. This included working with tourism industry partners to develop Masterpieces packages and encourage visitors to Canberra. Partners include 100 local tourism operators as well as the likes of QANTAS, the ACT Government and Accor, to name a few. As result of these successful partnerships and marketing efforts, with current daily figures of about 5,000 projected to continue Masterpieces from Paris may even reach half a million visitors.

“The response to Masterpieces from Paris has been incredible and we are very pleased that people from all over Australia and, indeed, from all over the world have experienced this exhibition.” Gallery Director, Ron Radford said.

“About 80 per cent of visitors have travelled from interstate or overseas, and feedback continues to show that more that 97 per cent of visitors surveyed rate the exhibition as impressive or very impressive,” He continued.

Due to popular demand, visitors may also spend a night with the Masters when the gallery opens its doors for 32 hours straight on the last Saturday of the exhibition, April 17.

Masterpieces from Paris is on show at the National Gallery of Australia between 10am and 5pm from Sunday to Thursday and 10am and 9pm on Friday and Saturday’s. Tickets are available online via Ticketek, $25 for adults and $6 for children up to the age of 16.

So does tourism marketing work for attractions? 400,000 people can’t surely be wrong!

Events and launches are a great way to highlight your cause and create a buzz about your business. It gives you a chance to thank your customers, welcome potential new customer and also raise your public profile through the media. But events don’t get into the news just by happening, and trying to get media there can feel like pulling teeth. Endless effort sending invitations, alerts, media releases and several follow up phone calls to get ‘I’ll see what’s happening on the day.’

So if it is not possible to get that famous sister to open or launch your event, how do you get media to an event?

Media swarms as Antonia Kidman officially opened the 2009 Floriade

With so many stories competing for media attention it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. You need to know what makes you ‘newsworthy.’  Journalists are more likely to favour events that have a unique story, involve celebrities or local heroes, raise money for charity or launch what has or will become an exciting annual event.

So to maximise your chances of getting media to your event, here are some tips. Have a respected profile launch or open your event. Time it so that reporters can still make their deadlines, give media at least a day’s notice of the event, send your release a few days before and call the reporters a day before to confirm. Ensure have extra copies of the release on hand or if you have time, put together a press kit to include a little more information. Lastly, always have ‘the image’ in mind; make sure you have something visually appealing for cameras.

Canberra’s home of quality produce, Manuka Fine Foods, has just been announced as the ‘Best Cafe in Canberra’ in the I Love Food Awards. The awards are Australia’s largest customer voted restaurant and food awards.

The I Love FOOD Awards are Australia’s largest peoples’ choice restaurant awards run by the Lifestyle Food Channel at www.lifestylefood.com.au. The awards received close to 100,000 votes nationally in the 16 categories, and Manuka Fine Foods faced some stiff competition both locally and interstate.

“The cafe is a large part of the Manuka Fine Foods experience so we are very honoured to have it voted as Canberra’s best,” said owner and head food lover at Manuka Fine Foods, Shelley Thomson.

“There aren’t too many spots in Canberra that you can drop in for a coffee and muffin in the morning and leave with a selection of gourmet cheeses, pasta, bread or ready made meals to cook for dinner that night,” Shelley said.

“We focus on sourcing regionally made, unique produce that isn’t sold in every deli across Canberra. We focus on the quality of the products and building solid relationships with suppliers to ensure that we continue to get the latest and best products for our customers.

“There are many different industry awards for restaurants and cafes around, but the fact that this award is purely voted for by customers, shows that we really are keeping our customers happy.

“We have built up a local following from our own Manuka workforce who drop in for coffee each morning and we have become a regular pit stop for local residents on their way to work in the city or Woden,” Shelley said.

Manuka Fine Foods is located in Palmerston Lane in Manuka, and is open from Monday to Thursday 8am – 5.30pm, until 6pm on Fridays, and Saturdays 8am – 5pm.

This presentation, made to over 250 Tourism managers, economic development officers, shire councillors and mayors at the Local Government Shires Association Conference in Kiama – March 2009, provided some new ways of thinking about tourism product development.

Leading with the experience, developing products around consumer needs, reseraching consumers prior to the product development process and developing smart branding and communications where all topics proposed to help start the discussion.