The Big Weekend!

Hi...

Again! (hopefully you all read my first blog entry which explained why my blogs are coming so soon after one another)

Perth Fashion Festival (PFF) came around fast after weeks of planning and I can gladly say that Hawaiian and Carillon City's Every Body Counts (EBC) campaign was a great success and such a fun weekend!

 So here's how it panned out..

FRIDAY 23RD SEPTEMBER

First up, the media launch. An early start to the day to complete the final set up and a quick chat with the top 14 before guests started arriving. This was a chance for the media to get some photo opportunites of the finalists as well as our three speakers, MC and Head of PR and Marketing at Hawaiian, Kata O'Hara, PFF's Mariella Harvey-Hanrahan and EBC's ambassador, Gemma Walsh.

Then it was back to the office for the quiet before the storm, and then a back to the venue for a quick change in the set up for the VIP after party and then we were off to the GPO building for the first parade. I was given the task of backstage photographer where I captured the nervous smiles of the 14 ladies, and a few shots of the lovely male models (sigh), who were taking to the catwalk with the ladies.

The Top 14 waiting backstage

The parade was a success with many cheers and applause from the crowd. The top 14 were abuzz with nerves and adrenaline, and most of all everyone was ready for a well deserved champagne!

Back at the party, the champagne flowed and music played, while a mix of Perth media, the 14 finalists, family and friends, the male models and other guests mingled. A great night, and I didn't mind enjoying the glamourous side of working in PR either!

SUNDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER

The second parade saw the girls being a lot calmer and ready to get out on the catwalk and have fun with the male models who seemed to love playing it up to the crowd, and between you and me, I don't think the crowd minded it either.

This parade didn't have such a glamorous ending as Friday, but more a tinge of saddness with the women saying they thought they would have withdrawals from all the adrenaline and pampering!

Overall, the weekend was really rewarding to watch unfold after the many weeks of preparation that went into this campaign. I definitely understand how the 2010 Every Body Counts won the 'Little/Mini Guns Best Enhancement of an Existing Campaign' award at the Shopping Centre News Australia & New Zealand Marketing Awards!

So I will leave you with a video that sums up the whole campaign, enjoy!

Every Body Counts Campaign

Amanda

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Our tutors weren't lying.. Planning is everything!

Hi everyone!

Here's my second (updated) instalment of my time with Hawaiian.

Now that the 14 gorgeous ladies (one finalist had to pull out for personal reasons) had been selected by our judges, things started progressing much faster with the team planning the parades with Perth Fashion Festival, the media launch for the Every Body Counts campaign and VIP after party.

Everything, from media liasing to goodie bags to catering to running sheets, was kept on top of with daily communication and fortnightly WIP meetings between the PR and Marketing team at Hawaiian, Carillon City and marketing consultants from Intersectcommunications. I found that the meetings were really good in the way that they were unstructured so encouraged more creativity in the discussions and brainstorming.

Seeing all of this from a 'behind the scenes' perspective was really interesting because there are so many finer details that require a lot of consideration and time that would more often than not be overlooked by the untrained eye. I know that we learn about this in our PR degree, but seeing it all in reality rather than plain theory allowed me to realise how important understanding these finer details is and the time allocation often required.

During these planning weeks, our 14 finalists were going through fittings, modelling workshops and being pampered on photoshoots! When I met up with some of the ladies for an interview with the West Australian, it sounded like so much fun, but here's a link to a behind the scenes video so you can see for yourself and meet some of the finalists!

Every Body Counts Behind The Scenes

Fast forward a few weeks and all this preparation and planning brought us up to the week of the parades, media launch and VIP after party. So until Blog #3...

Amanda
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Working at Hawaiian

Hi all,

So this is officially my first blog as I made the mistake of posting my blogs elsewhere, meaning no one could read them (not embarrassing at all!). So Katharina kindly sent me the invite for Reflective Blog 2, so my blogs will come pretty much all come at once as I re-write them all to read in the correct tense.

I completed my work placement with the company, Hawaiian. Most people are probably unfamiliar with the company so here is a little background on them before I get into my experience.

Hawaiian is a WA based property group, established in 1993, and owns Australia-wide commercial, retail and hospitality properties. Some that you may all be familiar with are Parmelia House and the KPMG buildings (commercial), the beautiful Cable Beach Club Resort and Spa, and of course the amazing retail properties including, Carillon City, The Colonnade and everyone’s new favourite shopping destination, Claremont Quarter.

So I was pretty lucky with getting to work with Hawaiian, as they have the best of both worlds, with the combination of corporate and retail public relations! My work was more focussed on the retail side of things but I was able to see the behind the scenes of the corporate side as well, which has been interesting.

Although I was doing a bit of everything, my main focus was on Hawaiian and Carillon City’s campaign that they run in conjunction with Perth Fashion Festival, Every Body Counts. This is a campaign that promotes the use of ‘real women in fashion’ and gives everyday women, like you and I, the chance to have that most girls dream of, strutting down and catwalk after being pampered with professional hair and makeup, being styled by the wonderful Des Eddy, as well as a professional photo shoot, modelling workshops with choreographer Kelly Holmes, media launch and the most fun of all, the VIP After Party!

The gorgeous Top 15 Finalists

It was so much fun to be involved in the process organising such a fantastic campaign, so watch this space for a few highlights from the two parades!

Amanda Bobrige

Bentley Campus

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