In the build up to the prestigious PRCA National Awards, we spoke with two of the Awards judges, Neil Broderick, Creative Director, The Academy, and Fiona Goldsworthy, Deputy MD, Business and Technology Brands2Life, to get their insights into what makes a great, award-winning communications campaign.
Q&A with Neil Broderick
What does innovation mean to you as it relates to communications campaigns?
Neil: Any means to find the right way to reach and positively engage your audience.
What’s more important to you – trying to reinvent the wheel or take solid, proven campaign strategy and delivering it exceptionally well?
Neil: There is no hard and fast rule, it’s about coming up with the right ideas and the right ways to reach and positively engage your audience. Every campaign is different and we always look to find new, inventive ways to reach people – that doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel every time, but we try to stand out and avoid rehashing what’s been done before.
What are the core pillars to a great communications campaign?
Neil: A great communications campaign for us is one that gets noticed, makes a difference and passes into popular culture. The channels we use depends on the brief, but our works encompasses PR, live experience, digital, design and advertising and the more we can combine the bigger the impact tends to be.
Q&A with Fiona Goldsworthy
What does innovation mean to you as it relates to communications campaigns?
Fiona: Being bold and doing something slightly unexpected. For me the most innovative ideas are the ones where, when the brand behind a campaign is revealed, you are initially surprised but then understand why it works.
What’s more important to you – trying to reinvent the wheel or take solid, proven campaign strategy and delivering it exceptionally well?
Fiona: It is definitely less about reinventing the wheel or doing something that ‘no one has done before’ (arguably impossible), and more about how the idea originated (the insights that led to it), how it was executed and – ideally – a surprising twist or element. Solid and proven needn’t equate to boring but the foundations are vital to get a campaign to resonate with the target audience.
What are the core pillars to a great communications campaign?
Fiona: Insights, ideas and impact, which is how we develop better stories for bigger impact. How these manifest themselves can vary – and indeed often do – but demonstrating a clear understanding of the target audience, the industry, competition, landscape, and proving why the idea is relevant and conveys a clear message through actual measurable impact, is what sets memorable and winning communications campaigns apart from others.
This years PRCA National Awards headline sponsor, 3Gem global market research helps you to understand your audience, get a measure of your market, gather feedback on new concepts and drive PR and marketing campaigns. The Awards are also sponsored by Firstpoint Print Victoria, Kantar, Milk and Honey PR, Polpeo, Reuben Sinclair, Ginger Comms, and Intrado.