Our team was engaged to provide public relations support to revive the 2022 ImpactInstitute Disability Expo program by building greater awareness and increasing attendance through targeted media relations across six events.

The challenge

After two years of COVID-19 disruption, ImpactInstitute wanted to revive the 2022 program by expanding awareness and increasing attendance. The challenge was to drive awareness of the ImpactInstitute Disability Expo across six markets – Sydney, Melbourne, Nepean, Hunter, Gold Coast and Brisbane. ImpactInstitute sought to elevate the profile of the Disability Expo by partnering with high profile disability ambassadors that would appeal to mainstream and local media and generate emotive storytelling opportunities.

The objectives were to:

  • Increase registration numbers by 15% compared to the previous year
  • Increase attendee numbers by 20% compared to the previous year
  • Raise the profile of ambassadors by securing five media coverage items per expo
  • Achieve 20 items of coverage with 300,000 reach per expo

The Solution

ImpactInstitute developed a strategy focused on raising awareness of ImpactInstitute Disability Expo in the media by:

  • Running two outreach campaigns per expo including:
    • 1 x pitch and/or press release detailing the unique story of an ambassador
    • 1 x media advisory encouraging media to attend on event day offering the ambassador and Expo event director for interview

As part of curating quality press materials, the PR team conducted research, interviewed and built relationships with ambassadors to draw out emotive and newsworthy story angles which would appeal to media. The team also engaged with supplementary speakers and exhibitors, and strategically targeted relevant dates such as World Autism Awareness Day and International Day of People with Disability, which coincided with Expo events.

Local media was targeted to generate interest within each local community to encourage event attendance in the different markets. High profile ambassadors such as Paralympian Ellie Cole, war veteran McQuilty Quirke and disability advocate Anja Christoffersen generated mainstream media opportunities, which further strengthened national awareness of the Disability Expo program and highlighted its key differentiators compared to competitors in market.

Disability Expo
Disability Expo

The Outcome

As a result of each campaign, the team achieved the following outstanding results, which exceeded the target of 20 coverage items and 300,000 reach per expo:

Total Reach

0

Coverage Items

0

Reach

Overall registrations and attendance:

  • Registrations increased by 20% compared to the previous period
  • Attendees increased by 23% compared to the previous period

“Our internal PR team consistently produces work to an extremely high standard and routinely lands a large variety of coverage across all earned media channels, including regular TV segments featuring our ambassadors. The value they add to our disability expo program cannot be underestimated. I am proud to work alongside such a professional team."

— Kathryn Carey
Events Director, ImpactInstitute

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