Opportunity
As we entered our seventh year of partnership with QBE Insurance, we were very excited to get the brief for developing their new brand positioning. Knowing now what we do about their business, we felt well equipped to tell Australia about the transformation the brand has been on.

Core Thought
Despite achieving good levels of awareness over the last few years, many people still don’t know how they feel about QBE. The brand needed its own place in the hearts and minds of Australians.

As one of the world’s largest general insurers, the QBE brand serves a vast diversity of customers. But the one thing that unites them is the need to manage the risks they can now, so they’re in a better position for the inevitable uncertainties of life.

We saw an opportunity to empower the customer by going beyond the traditional definition of insurance and celebrating the work QBE does to prevent accidents.

This thinking led us to the Core Thought: QBE is your ally against uncertainty.

Core Idea
Our Core Idea was to capture that QBE doesn’t see insurance as just a transaction, they see it as an enduring partnership that covers the ‘what if, what now and what a relief!’

We created ‘QBE - Before & After’ as the brand platform and the central thought for all the creative work. It is the first time the organisation has had a unified brand idea across every area of its business.

Before & After inspired a new visual identity in the form of a Brand Playbook and Toolkit. We also developed new collateral and advertising for various areas of the business. This includes the latest direct campaign for car and home insurance.

Results
The campaign has only just launched so it’s too early to track brand metrics.

Sara Foale, Chief Marketing Officer at QBE AUSPAC said, “We’re incredibly excited to launch our new brand platform, Before & After, which perfectly captures the essence of our customer ambition. We don’t simply offer insurance, we’re all about being there before and after – helping our customers to protect and prevent against the ‘what ifs’ and being there to support if anything goes wrong.”

Hot on the heels of the launch of QBE’s business-wide ‘Before & After’ brand platform, The Core Agency has created a new integrated campaign for its direct home and car insurance arm.

Launched on March 7th 2021, the campaign features four TVCs, digital, OOH, radio and social. The work reinforces QBE’s strength in being there for its customers through every step of the insurance process. The ads communicate how easy it is with QBE to get a quote before you buy and to claim after.

Campaign Credits:
Client: QBE Insurance
Chief Marketing Officer: Sara Foale
Head of Marketing: David Hirsch
Rob Jones: Marketing Partner

Agency: The Core Agency
Founder & Creative Partner: Christian Finucane
Founder & Creative Partner: Jon Skinner
Senior Copywriter: Kevin Macnamara
Senior Art Director: Simone Parravicini
Strategy Director: Andrew McCowan
Business Director: Rebecca Turner
Account Director: Joseph Rosslind
Senior Designer: Nick Williams
Designer: Sophie Adams
Agency Producer: Monique Pardavi

Production Company: Plaza Content
Director: Paul Middleditch
Executive Producer: Pete Masterton
Editor: Peter Barton / The Editors
Post Production: Blockhead VFX
Sound Design: Song Zu

Stills Photographer: Steve Greenaway

The Core Agency launches fresh campaign for new client EASYFLOWERS.

We were super happy to be picked by online retailer EASYFLOWERS in 2020 to create a new integrated brand campaign. The Core Agency was appointed without a pitch, based on the campaigns we have created for other pure play brands.

With its national office in Adelaide, EASYFLOWERS is one of the largest floral networks in Australia, bringing together over 300 local florists to deliver beautiful fresh flowers across Australia, same day. Now in its 20th year, EASYFLOWERS continues to build on its track record of growth with a fresh new Core Idea and integrated campaign.

Our new integrated campaign features TV, print, digital and social. The 30 second commercial went live on Sunday 21 February and highlights how easy it is to forget a loved one’s birthday, yet how easy it is to rectify with same day flower delivery from EASYFLOWERS.

Jon Skinner, Founder & Creative Partner at The Core Agency said, “It’s fantastic to be working with the EASYFLOWERS team – people who clearly believe in the power of creative advertising to drive their business forward. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing the results our campaigns deliver for entrepreneurial clients, and I know this new work will achieve the same for EASYFLOWERS.”

Jacob White, Deputy CEO at EASYFLOWERS said, “We’re thrilled to partner with The Core Agency. They have extensive experience with digital brands and have created a fantastic campaign to communicate our message. The EASYFLOWERS brand has long been considered Australia’s easy choice for delivering love in the form of flowers and we’re confident the team’s energy and creativity will keep us relevant with existing audiences, as well as engage new generations of customers to come.”

Credits:

Client: EASYFLOWERS

CEO: Jason Squire

Deputy CEO: Jacob White

Agency: The Core Agency

Founder & Creative Partner: Jon Skinner

Founder & Creative Partner: Christian Finucane

Senior Copywriter: Kevin Macnamara

Senior Art Director: Simone Parravicini

Strategy Director: Andrew McCowan

Business Director: Rebecca Turner

Senior Account Manager: Max Whitehouse

TV Producer: Bill Doig

Production Company: Airbag

Director: Ariel Martin

Executive Producer: Alex Tizzard

Line Producer: Megan Ayers

DOP: Aaron McLisky

Media Agency: Wavemaker

Client Director: Leonora Beresford

Client Executive: Kellie Patrick

Edit House: ARC Edit

Editor: Charles Ivory

Conform: White Chocolate

Sound House: Rumble Studios

Sound Designer: Cam Milne

Sound Producer: Katie Harper

Photographer: Steve Greenaway

Opportunity

Longstanding agency client QBE and SafetyCulture had formed a joint venture to create a new pureplay insurance brand. Its point of difference was their focus on preventing accidents before they happened, with the use of smart monitoring devices and digital tools. Its customers would then be rewarded with lower premiums.

Core Idea

Following category research and a collaborative workshop, the name Mitti was selected as it abbreviates the new brand’s key benefit – mitigating risks before they happen. We developed the brand strategy, tagline and identity – with the design solution created to communicate the pairing of data and people. The identity was executed across all channels and assets including a website sales platform – the new destination for the brand.

Results

It has been universally adopted by all stakeholders as the ideal personification of the brand. Following the launch of the business on the ASX in October 2020, the lead client said, “The Core Agency have been instrumental in building out our visual identity to convey who we are and the message we want to portray to our customers. In a very crowded market, the brand is inviting and distinct and we’re really pleased with how it blends the maturity of our industry with the youthfulness of a start up.”

After winning the Just Better Care account late last year we set about updating their magazine to reflect the new ‘Just for you’ brand positioning.

We rebranded the magazine, You, and created all-new design layouts and grids to bring fresh new reader appeal to the publication.

It is distributed nationally to a broad audience including existing customers, GP surgeries, local community clubs and allied health providers.

Now in its third issue, You is growing as a source of latest news, views and thought leadership pieces for the aged care and disability sector.

Super happy with our latest promotional campaign for IGA!

The whole team has done a great job to create and deliver some work that zags the category norms…

The full press release below…

IGA has launched a new Scratch and Win promotion to reward customers for shopping at IGA.

The promotion gives shoppers a one in five chance of winning instantly, for every $30 they spend in-store, and is supported by a playful TV campaign that shows customers winning real prizes.

“This promotion offered a great opportunity for us to further differentiate IGA from the big supermarkets," The Core Agency founder and creative partner Christian Finucane says.

Each of the TVCs shows shoppers who are initially happy with receiving a miniature novelty product until they discover they could have won the real thing at IGA.

The integrated campaign is running across TV, print, radio, digital and social and went live on January 29, 2020.

IGA is a network of 1,400 independently-owned stores, whose communities help shape what goes on their shelves.

Because they have a unique and genuine connection to their local communities, they can tailor their ranges to give local customers more of what they like.

This means IGA shoppers can discover unique local products, plus trusted everyday staple brands and products.

“We wanted to reward IGA shoppers with a collection of products they can actually use," IGA general manager marketing Tracy Wilson says.

"There are millions of real prizes to be won including groceries, IGA Gift cards and four $5,000 cash prizes. This latest promotion is a clear demonstration of how IGA delivers value to our local shoppers.”

This latest campaign comes just a month after the agency announced it had won national aged care and disability services provider, Just Better Care in a competitive pitch.

Credits

Client: Metcash
Brand: IGA Supermarkets
Executive General Manager, Retail Channels: Danielle Wilkes
General Manager Marketing: Tracy Wilson
Head of Marketing – Brand: Helen Kealy
Senior Brand Development Manager: Stephanie Amann

Agency: The Core Agency
Founder & Creative Partner: Christian Finucane
Founder & Creative Partner: Jon Skinner
Senior Copywriter: Kevin Macnamara
Senior Art Director: Simone Parravicini
Senior Designer: Nick Williams
TV Producer: Bill Doig / Monique Pardavi
Business Director: Rebecca Turner
Senior Account Director: Sid De
Senior Account Manager: Max Whitehouse
Strategy Director: Andrew McCowan

Production Company: Helium
Managing Director: Brenden Johnson
Director: Mike Oldershaw
DOP: Jason White
Producer: Ben O’Donnell
Food Production: Tony Luu
Food Stylist: Ben Masters
Casting: Fountainhead
Post: Vandal
Music: Rumble

Opportunity

Just Better Care is a leading national provider of aged care and disability support services. Following the account win, we were tasked with updating the visual identity for use across campaigns and collateral, in line with the new brand positioning, Just Better Care - Just for you.

Core Idea

Built on the Core Proposition, ‘Getting the right support unlocks possibilities’, our design solution uses a collection of interlocking shapes to amplify the idea. The shapes alone represent the support professional or the customer, and when two shapes fit together, they represent the pairing of the customer with tailored support.

Results

The brand’s new visual identity has been unanimously embraced across the business and all its local office owners. Implemented across all the brand’s internal and external channels, the new design solution is helping drive increasing brand recognition and customer growth.

As 2019 wraps up, we’re recognising the amazing individual efforts by the team this year in our inaugural ‘Love Your Work!’ awards.

It’s easy to get lost in the daily deadlines of a busy agency, so ‘Love Your Work!’ enables us all to celebrate everyone’s passion, skills, love, craft and care for what we do.

From being the spirit of the agency to ensuring there aren’t any nasty financial surprises, here’s to each and every member of the Core team – Love Your Work!

You know it’s nearly Christmas when the air is rich with the smell of Duck Ragu and Cafe Patron!

The Core team turned lunch into dinner at Tottis in our usual style at our Santastic party…

Opportunity

IGA Supermarkets has a network of 1,400 independently owned stores that tailor their ranges to give locals more of what they like. It proudly supports Aussie producers by stocking locally made products. And the store owners actively participate in their local communities, doing whatever they can to help local people, schools, surf clubs or hospitals.

Core Idea

The campaign continues with Aussie favourite, Shane Jacobson, who we now see remarking directly to viewers as he recounts true IGA customer and local supplier stories. The TVCs show how simple it was for a boutique relish producer to get stocked at an IGA and how another store manager hunted down an Irishman’s favourite cheese.

Results

The campaign has only recently gone live, but feedback from the store owners, consumers and client is all positive.

Opportunity

Every August, the Australian Federal Police promotes National Missing Persons Week. The event aims to remind the public of the thousands of ordinary Australians that simply disappear every year, and the role they can play in helping to find them. Following a competitive pitch, our concept was selected for this important Federal Government project.

Core Idea

Our idea was to remind the public that missing people are not just statistics, but loved dads, brothers, mums, sisters, wives and kids… They are loved individuals who have not been forgotten. To achieve this, we placed real missing person’s file photos in frames to reinforce that they are still being thought about every day.

Results

While it’s too early to gauge audience impact, a measure of the success of the campaign can be derived by the number of poster sites that are donated by the outdoor media owners. This year a record number of sites were donated from companies including JCDecaux, oOh! media, Outdoor Systems, Paradise Outdoor Advertising and QMS Media.

To celebrate Christmas in July, we got all the Core folks, partners, clients and suppliers together at the Lord Dudley for a few beers, bubbles and mulled wines! It was a great night with festive tunes by the Tinsel Trio while escaping the winter cold next to a crackling log fire…

Opportunity

PwC is renowned for enabling its customers to achieve their ambitions by bringing together the right people, skills and technology. This was captured by the brand in a global marketing initiative known as ‘The Together Effect’.

With Australia the first market to launch the campaign, our challenge was to find a way to bring it to life leveraging a diverse collection of their projects.

Core Idea

Our idea was to use a simple one-word headline solution that showed how PwC had collaborated with its clients and partners to turn a challenge into a solution.

Results

While the creative is new to market, the campaign has been adopted across the consultancy, catching the eyes of current and prospective clients.

Opportunity

QBE Insurance launched a major Road Safety campaign in South Australia as part of its commitment to reducing the state’s road toll. It’s the highest per capita in Australia, with 100 fatalities recorded last year—a 16% rise on the previous year.
In developing the strategic approach for the campaign, The Core Agency applied behavioural science theories, showing how people are more likely to make changes when large tasks are broken down into small individual ones, to appear less daunting.

Core Idea

The creative idea was to place South Australian children at the heart of the campaign to draw on the emotional connection with their parents. The overarching message is that if we all change one small thing about the way we drive, we can all be safe on the roads.

The commercial the children created was then revealed to their parents at a special event at their school. Within the creative, the children share their treasured moments captured in family photographs.
These photos then become a visual metaphor for cars – crashing into trees, lamp posts, and each other. Shot in super slow-motion, the visual is intended to show how much devastation a vehicle impact can have, in particular on the families involved.

Results

The campaign made an immediate impact. The launch was picked up by breakfast TV, newspapers and international marketing websites. In fact, it generated 82 media stories across 38 publications and TV channels. QBE’s PR partner has estimated the value of the media coverage to be in excess of $15m.

And the post-campaign research results are compelling: 

· 6% Increase in brand awareness post campaign
· 6% Increase in brand consideration post campaign
· 78% of respondents stating they will take more care while driving
· Reached over 15.2 million people (SA population only 1.6 million)

The single most rewarding result was that the campaign helped reduce road fatalities in South Australia during 2018.

Bettina Pidcock, Chief Customer Officer at QBE Australia & New Zealand said:

“There’s nothing more important than keeping our roads safe for everyone. We hope the authenticity of this content will help this critical message cut through to drivers and encourage them to make small commitments to changing their behaviour.”

Opportunity

Commbank is in the process of creating a Sydney metro precinct of new and upgraded workplaces for its agile workforce. One of the key new locations, South Eveleigh, will be home to around 20,000 people within the next year or so.

Our task was to create an integrated internal campaign to inform their team on how to use the facilities within their new tech-enabled workplace.

Core Idea

We created a campaign around the idea of the building itself being ‘happy to help’ the newcomers. To achieve this, we created a series of 15 stills and short animations that each show a face shape being made from different aspects within the building.

The campaign appeared on internal screens, posters, mobile updates, eDMs, intranet and in town hall briefings.

Each execution is used to communicate how staff use an aspect of the new workplace.

Results

The campaign has been executed across the Sydney metro campus buildings and has also been earmarked for a national roll-out across Commbank workplaces.

The Core Agency has just launched a new integrated campaign for QBE’s CTP offering in the South Australian market.

QBE entered the SA market in 2018 with a major road safety campaign that featured Adelaide school children. Their message was that if we all change one small thing about the way we drive, we can all be safe on the roads.

This latest campaign launches QBE’s CTP offering and includes TV, digital, social and website integration. The new campaign continues using the brand’s long-running animation style. It introduces a new character ‘Rego’, who pops up in scenes unexpectedly.

Christian Finucane, Founder & Creative Partner at The Core Agency said: “CTP insurance is not something most people take a great deal of interest in. QBE’s animated campaign style will help the brand cut through and engage consumers in a fun and friendly way.”

Bettina Pidcock, Chief Marketing Officer at QBE Insurance Group said: “The South Australian CTP market is extremely competitive, and we required a campaign to help us win against the local providers. By introducing the new ‘Rego’ character we make a clear link as to when customers need to consider QBE for their CTP insurance.”

QBE Insurance is amongst clients at The Core Agency including Fidelity International, Key Pharmaceuticals, Commbank, PwC, NSW Government, RSVP and The Fred Hollows Foundation.

Opportunity

IGA Supermarkets are independently owned with many of the owners having compelling personal stories. Building on the first round of ‘Soul Stories’, we travelled the length and breadth of Australia to unearth the next 15 stories and capture them as video content for internal and consumer audiences.

Core Idea

The ‘1400 Stores, 1400 Stories’ content campaign was resonating well with owners and consumers, so we simply needed to continue to tell the stories with genuine authenticity and emotion. We brought in a young filmmaking team with experience that includes documentaries to direct and shoot this latest batch.

Results

Feedback from the store owners, consumers and client is all extremely positive.

When we were approached by PwC to create a series of internal comms films about Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace, we all agreed they couldn’t be the normal (boring!) training videos. Although it’s a really important issue, it didn’t have to mean that the content was dry or worthy. Entertainment gets remembered!

So, we created a series of five short films centered around:

1. Flexible working

2. Parental leave

3. Support and empath in the workplace

4. Onboarding new team members

5. Recruitment and teaming

They feature a rather unusual pair of characters at the helm. Check them out…

Spikes Asia Awards Finalist

We are very proud to say that our ‘Safer Roads’ campaign for QBE Insurance was recognised at the first awards festival it was entered into – the Spikes Asia Awards

Congratulations to the whole client and agency team!

Opportunity

RSVP is Australia’s largest dating brand, though it faces significant competition from the new mobile swiping apps and other niche dating brands.

We needed to build on the previous year’s ‘Find a keeper’ campaign to further communicate that RSVP is the place to be matched with quality singles.

While most dating apps create matches using a very rational algorithm, or from a mutual swipe based solely on visual appearance, RSVP uses a rational and emotional measures to best match people.

Core Idea

Our idea was to create a campaign of TVCs with a series of scenes that show a newly dating couple. Each scene shows that special moment when one of them realises they have found a keeper. Each of the moments is punctuated with the ‘Hallelujah!’ chorus to add to the emotion and comedy.

Results

· 20% increase in brand consideration
· 17% increase in unprompted awareness (25-39 year olds)
· Recognised at The One Show, New York
· Recognised at AWARD, Australia

Shoots to shenanigans!

Here, there and everywhere captured for all time in glorious jpeg-ness…

At The Core Agency we believe 'Core Ideas Conquer'. Powerful ideas that combine smart marketing strategy and creative thinking to help brands win.

Congrats Bec Turner!

We are very proud to announce that Bec was recognised at the 2019 AdNews Awards in the ‘Emerging Leader of the Year’ category. As one of just six young people selected from the entire marketing, media and advertising industry, it’s a significant achievement.

And for those of us who work with her, it’s also no surprise as she’s truly deserving of the selection. Congrats Bec!

Opportunity

Elders Insurance, one of Australia’s oldest and largest regional and rural insurance providers, is in the process of extending its footprint into metro areas. The brand is held in high regard in country areas by customers who view their local Elders agent as a dependable member of the community. Our brief was to capture the brand’s genuine ‘people’ and service-oriented DNA, so the brand could extend seamlessly into new metro markets.

Core Idea

We created the Core Idea, ‘Our way never gets old’ to leverage the brand’s strong heritage as a customer-centric business.
The creative pokes fun at how technology has got in the way of good ‘old fashioned’ human customer service.
The campaign was rolled out across TV, print, digital and social.

Results

Using the brand’s tracking scores as a benchmark, the results were immediate and impressive as indicated by post campaign surveys:
• Inbound leads up 41%
• Franchisee applications (and quality) up

Opportunity

We won the pitch from a ‘shortlist’ of over 20 agencies to create the brand strategy and visual identity for Australian Marriage Equality. The opportunity was to create a brand that would unify and motivate the ‘YES’ vote in the proposed plebiscite on same-sex marriage.

Core Idea

The new brand needed to instantly reach out to all Australians from Darlinghurst to Dubbo, regardless of their age, gender or sexual choice.

The issue of same-sex marriage can be polarising in mainstream Australia, so we created the brand making EQUALITY front and centre. It’s a promise that most fair-minded people find hard to deny others.

We designed the identity on an existing unified form that Australians can relate to – the states and territories coming together to unite Australia. The signature rainbow colours of the movement were used to create an instantly recognisable moniker.

Results

The success of the YES EQUALITY brand identity can be measured in how many different groups have adopted it to badge their individual campaign activity. While Australian Marriage Equality was the commissioning client, the actual campaign is made up of hundreds of different community, corporate, grassroots and organised groups right across the country.

The identity we created has been universally adopted.

From Kylie Minogue wearing a branded t-shirt to TV commercial end frames, everywhere on social media to street posters.

RSVP campaign recognised at One Show

We are super chuffed that our ‘Hallelujah Moments!’ TVC campaign for RSVP was recognised at the One Show Awards in New York.

Congratulations to the whole team!

Opportunity

Regardless of how far away they live, many Sydneysiders don’t consider parking at the airport when they travel because parking there is not seen as convenient or affordable.

Core Idea

We wanted to flip the assumption that you always get a taxi or lift to the airport by building awareness of parking at Sydney Airport as a smarter option. We decided to make Sydney Airport Parking a sub-brand and thus a simple tangible choice in people’s minds.

Using the cheerful line, ‘Easy-peasy parking’, our new creative work positions Sydney Airport Parking as an approachable, simple, easy and user-friendly option. The campaign imagery uses a world of toy die-cast cars to convey the ease of parking at the airport.

Results

The ‘Easy-peasy parking’ campaign had a significant positive impact on both brand tracking and sales results. In the first sales period after launch, pre-booked airport parking revenue increased by 9%.

Following the launch, Core was then tasked with overhauling the Sydney Airport Parking online user experience. We simplified the booking process, graphic interface and eDM / CRM to deliver an online experience in-line with the new ‘Easy-peasy’ brand.

Opportunity

Pet Circle had grown to become Australia’s largest online pet supplies retailer using digital and search media, but the business needed a meaningful brand to go to the next level. The opportunity was to create an emotionally engaging brand, one with a purpose that expresses the special connection we have with our furry friends.

Core Idea

Like all Core Ideas, the one we created for Pet Circle was more than advertising. Starting with a contemporary new visual identity, the brand threw its arms around every consumer touchpoint including the website, eDMs, catalogues, social conversations – right through to the packaging that the products get delivered in.

The idea we created was, ‘Pet Circle. Nourish Them’. It captures the insight that pet owners want to give their animals the best they possibly can. And that’s not just more nutritious food, but feeding them with love, play and the right healthcare. The idea also leverages the trend by pet owners who are moving away from basic supermarket pet food brands to products that are better and healthier for their pets.

Results

The ‘Pet Circle. Nourish Them’ idea has been adopted by every aspect of the business, from communications and advertising channels to the t-shirts worn by the warehouse crew.

The advertising had an immediate impact, with the TV spot delivering over 600 new customers after airing once on the first day of the campaign.

New campaign for Spotcap launches

Spotcap, a non-bank lender headquartered in Germany, has launched a new brand campaign in the Australian market. The work has been developed by The Core Agency following an international competitive pitch.

Spotcap empowers SMEs to create and embrace growth opportunities by providing unsecured loans between $10,000 and $400,000. It is growing customer numbers with its unique credit algorithm that draws financial data from online sources to provide a genuine understanding of the applicant’s commercial health. This enables Spotcap to make responsible loan approval decisions and have funds available to businesses within just 24 hours. Spotcap opened its Sydney office in 2015 and also has operations in the UK, Spain and The Netherlands.

The new ‘Spot on business loans’ campaign introduces bold branding elements to help differentiate Spotcap in the growing category of non-bank lenders. Executions in the campaign show what customers can do with the loans to help grow their business. The campaign is launching using a variety of targeted digital and social video content formats.

Opportunity

We won the Fidelity International account in a competitive pitch in July 2019 with the creative idea that we are now rolling out.

The investment company looks after the long-term investment goals of its customers through a portfolio of passive and actively traded funds.

The opportunity was to build on their successful market performance with a truly ownable brand idea and campaign.

Core Idea

We presented our ‘F-word’ idea to Fidelity in the pitch and were putting the first creative executions into production just a few weeks later.

The idea uses the graphic F symbol from their brand to create a series of different ‘F-words’. Each execution describes a feature or benefit of the brand.

The integrated campaign extends seamlessly across print, film, digital and social.

Results

The roll-out of the brand campaign is still in progress, but the initial results are compelling:

• 14.4% uplift in brand awareness
• 12.4% increase in purchase intent

The campaign has been nominated in four categories at the 2019 MAX Awards. The event recognises excellence in marketing, advertising and sales in the Australian financial services industry. Fingers crossed!

Opportunity

The Fred Hollow’s Foundation is one of Australia’s most loved and regarded not-for-profit organisations. It continues the sight-restoring work pioneered by Fred Hollows in developing countries around the world. In fact, Fred’s image remains the key driver of brand recognition and donations to the charity.

Our challenge was to find a new way to use the powerful, yet familiar, archive photos of Fred in a donations campaign.

Core Idea

Our idea was to show how Fred’s pioneering work lives on through the foundation’s modern-day activities, years after his death.

To achieve this, we trawled through the charity’s archives to find old photographs of Fred that would seamlessly marry up with photographs of patients being treated today. The combined images were used across an integrated campaign including outdoor, print, digital, social and TV.

Results

The campaign proved to help the charity cut through during the crucial end of financial year donation period. The integrated campaign delivered above target to provide the charity a record-breaking revenue period, while helping to maintain the brand image of Fred Hollows.

Opportunity

QBE has sponsored of the Sydney Swans for over 30 years, plus the NSW Swifts netball and Perth Glory football for long tenures also. The challenge was how can we leverage these sponsorships while promoting QBE’s commitment to customer service?

Core Idea

We created a campaign around QBE’s Core Idea – 100% Commitment.

Using the brand’s animated style, we created a campaign of TVCs, online videos and social clips that showed the random bounces of a footy ball as an analogy for the unpredictability of life.

The animations show the calamity caused by the footy ball as it bounces from one scene to the next. An iconic music track, ‘Jump Around’ by House of Pain was used to amplify the cut-through.

The films are resolved with the QBE brand character, Penny, catching the ball before it can do any more damage.

Results

The campaign was launched on the stadium screen at season launch game at the Swan’s home ground. In post campaign research the work achieved a remarkable likeability score of 90%.

Opportunity

The Fred Hollows Foundation had the opportunity to pitch an idea for an art installation to Vivid Sydney, but needed a winning idea. The opportunity was huge as it provided the foundation the chance to engage a younger audience and create social media content.

Core Idea

The concept needed to satisfy the primary criteria of being a magical art installation that would entertain visitors to the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas. However, it also needed to communicate what the foundation does, without being dry or educational.

Our idea was to create an invisible art show, ‘The Gift of Sight’ – a first for Vivid Sydney.

We commissioned 20 of Australia’s best street and graphic artists to create original artworks using only special UV inks. The artworks lined the dark interior of a specially adapted shipping container, located at Darling Harbour.

On entering the container, each visitor was given a special UV flashlight and used it to reveal the invisible artworks as they walked through. The art literally shone out of the blackness in vivid glowing colours – a powerful analogy of the foundation’s work in restoring sight to the needlessly blind.

Results

The ‘Gift of Sight’ installation had over 1,500 visitors through it in just the first three hours on the opening night of Vivid Sydney. Across the two weeks of the festival the installation had over 47,500 through it.  It generated a huge spike in social media video and photography sharing, achieving its objective of raising awareness of the foundation to a younger audience.

Opportunity

Federal election campaigns are one of the key periods when the key issues around nursing and the health system are elevated into the broad public debate. We needed to promote the issues to all Australians without politicising them.

The Core Idea

We created the nursing campaign around the idea, ‘If you don’t care, we can’t care.’ It worked in tandem with a cut-through and challenging key visual of a concerned nurse with their hands literally tied behind their back.  It showed how they are being held back in their desire to provide the best possible care for their patients. The campaign was rolled out across TV, outdoor, radio, digital and social. It enabled all the state and territory-based nursing federations to deliver their own localised messages, while keeping the campaign unified nationally.

Results

The campaign achieved widespread coverage in national press and helped propel Medicare to be one of the key issues in the election.

Blasts from the past!

Each year AdNews requests creative agencies put forward some speculative ideas for some mock briefs. The Core Agency has participated regularly over the years and many of our concepts have been selected to appear in the AdNews annual and online. Check out some of our favourites…

Opportunity

How to overcome consumer reticence to get a competitive insurance quote and then switch, when the process often involves a long phone conversation or completing forms online.

The Core Idea

Core created the concept for ‘Send and Switch’ following a conversation during QBE strategic retail workshop. It became clear that consumers didn’t just want better value or discounted insurance, they wanted to simpler way to get a competitive price.

QBE Send and Switch created a simple new way for consumers to send their existing policy information, all they need to do is snap a photo of their current policy and email it.

The consultants then do all the administration and data entry work before calling the customer to offer QBE’s best possible deal.

We created a new TVC, radio and digital work to launch and explain the concept across key markets.

Results

QBE Send and Switch has made a significant contribution to increased sales since launch.

Opportunity

Fred Hollows was awarded Australian of the Year in 1990 and the foundation wanted to mark this anniversary with an awareness campaign.

Core Idea

Our idea was to show other former Australians of the Year talking about Fred’s amazing sight-restoring work and the positive legacy of the foundation he created. The TVC featured people including Steve Waugh, Dick Smith, Ita Buttrose, Adam Goodes, Lee Kernaghan and Dr Fiona Wood.

The integrated campaign ran across TV, social, digital and radio.

Results

The campaign was picked up by the media and was featured on numerous TV shows including The Project. Also, while it was not designed to be a fundraising campaign, the work contributed towards the foundation having a record-breaking year for donations.

Donate

If you would like to help The Fred Hollows Foundation you can donate here.

Opportunity

The Cook Islands are a collection of 15 islands located in the heart of the pacific, halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii. Our challenge was to create a new website that unified the previous per-market approach. Therefore, creating a centralised site that would persuade more people on the destination so they couldn’t resist booking a trip.

Core Idea

We identified three key roles the website needed to fulfill. The most important was to help visitors discover the destination. With users knowing little to nothing about Cook Islands it was critical that the CX showcased the islands, giving compelling reasons to visit and addressing any inaccurate, preconceived ideas the user may have. It’s only once they’re convinced Cook Islands is their destination of choice, that we can help them plan their visit and then connect them with a retailer to book.

The website is built around a combination of content and video ‘cards’. Being conscious of the high tendency for users to scan destination websites, the cards aim to aid with visual storytelling, so visitors are constantly being shown exciting content in an easy to digest way.

Results

Traffic increased by 177% in the three months following launch, and mobile traffic increased by an impressive 335% in the same timeframe.

The average duration on the site is now above two minutes and a massive 6,513 new email sign-ups occurred since launch.

Opportunity

Each year in the autumn, new strains of the flu shot vaccination become available and the public is encouraged to get treated ahead of the peak winter season. The opportunity also provides Primary Health Care a reason to talk with people about preventative health.

Core Idea

We created an integrated campaign across out of home, radio, digital and social using the theme of, ‘Feel smug this winter.’

Using a humorous tone, the creative idea captures just how it good it feels to not be sick.

 Results

The campaign achieved over 2x the target number for vaccinations administered, with many medical centres having to roster on additional doctors to facilitate demand from walk-in customers.

Opportunity

Malnutrition and morning hunger are silent epidemics across the developing world and specifically in the Asian region. The issue manifests in millions of children starting their day hungry and not being able to concentrate and learn at school.

We were approached by Kellogg’s Asia Pacific, who are a significant stakeholder in a movement to address the issue. The collective includes Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, The Breakfast Revolution and The Power of Nutrition as funding partner.

In mid 2018, The Core agency joined as Social Change Creator with the challenge to create a brand identity and manifesto for the initiative.

Core Idea

Following a rigorous strategic process, we created the Bright Start brand. It captures the feeling of optimism held by the partners that genuine, large scale change is possible when this issue is put under the spotlight.

We created a brand identity and manifesto for the initiative that was launched at the inaugural ‘Solving Morning Hunger Summit’ in India in September 2018.

Results

The new brand helped to unify the messaging and encouraged new members to sign up to help achieve the group’s ambitions across Asia.

Plans are underway to create a pilot program in India that aims to provide 1,000 tonnes of food for children to have the best possible start to their day and their lives.

Opportunity

For many years RSVP was Australia’s largest and most trusted online dating website. Then, with the evolution of smartphones, the category changed with the introduction of app-based dating solutions including Tinder.

Our challenge was to promote the superior matching abilities of RSVP, along with its large database of quality Australian singles.

We needed to do this in a way that evolved the brand’s personality yet stayed true to its core user base.

Core Idea

We launched a refreshed brand idea with the new ‘Find a Keeper’ line as part of a major integrated campaign.

We created an integrated campaign including two 30 second TVCs that used free-to-air and subscription TV, supported by a digital campaign.

Our ideas use humour to leverage brand truths and dial up specific product features that illustrate the depth of human connections with real matches to real dates.

Lara Delahunty, Senior Marketing Manager at RSVP said:

“RSVP is home-grown, modern, and captures the excitement of dating. The campaign highlights that singles have fun on RSVP, while still making genuine connections, all with an Aussie sense of humour.”

 Results

The new campaign drove a 200% increase in new user registration compared to the pre-launch period. That growth was achieved on half of the media spend of the previous phase.

Opportunity

How to drive the QBE direct insurance business in a category dominated by giants, with media budgets many times greater than ours.

Core Idea

Following a successful creative pitch, we rebuilt the brand communications on a new brand platform - ‘100% Commitment’. It addresses key consumer concerns with insurance providers around claims payment, service and customer engagement.

The integrated new campaign (brand, product and direct response TVCs, radio, OOH, digital and social) we created leverages a new premium animated look to cut-through and drive personality and differentiation.

The campaign was launched across different channels to drive and awareness and response with highly targeted communications, while staying consistent with the new brand look and feel.

The campaign characters are being used nationally across all media channels.

With the campaign now in its fifth year, we have created numerous brand and product executions using the brand’s distinctive animated style.

 Results

The campaign made an immediate impact. Brand recognition and recall went from being barely measurable to sitting alongside the giants in the category. This was the critical shift required to get onto the consumer’s shortlist for comparison at policy renewal time.

Opportunity

How the NSW Government organisation should use the internet to reach out to problem gamblers about the counselling services on offer.

Core Idea

Core conducted a strategic review of the aims, ambitions and opportunities for the digital and mobile channels for NSW Gambling Help.

We learned that problem gamblers, their families and their workmates wanted to reach out for help and counselling services on their terms and in their own timeframe. The user’s desire to stay anonymous was also a key consideration.

However, the key insight we uncovered was that gamblers who are seeking to better understand their issues are empowered by discovering how others have overcome their gambling problem. So, we created an online community under the theme of, ‘You’re not alone’.

The forum-centric website enables the easy upload and sharing of audio, video and written success stories from reformed gamblers, supporters and professional counsellors.

Results

Website analytics show that traffic, engagement time and return visitor metrics have all exceeded the initial targets. The content sharing platform has also garnered and distributed hours of authentic new video and audio stories from gamblers keen to let others know how they have beaten their addiction.

Opportunity

How to encourage responsible gambling and promote awareness of the counselling services available on the Gambling Help website.

Core Idea

Following a competitive pitch, Core created an innovative smartphone app, ‘Stay on track’ which has been designed to encourage positive behavioural change for gamblers.

The app enables users to set a betting budget, update their bets (losses and wins) and track how they are doing via a simple visual dashboard. The app is a useful and ongoing tool for all forms of gamblers, both online and offline, from pokie rooms to the racetrack. It also provides access to simple advice and tips on how to keep gambling spending in check, as well as links to online chat and SMS reminders.

Our concept is straightforward in that we believe if a user can simply visualise their level of spending then they’re better placed to address it before it becomes an escalating problem.

Results

The app and its supporting digital campaign proved to be an outstanding success. The app was downloaded 2x more than projected and its ongoing engagement metrics prove that it has found a useful role in thousands of people’s lives.

The app was picked up and reskinned to be used in other jurisdictions including South Australia and Singapore.

The ultimate success of the initiative will be measured in helping people to better recognise the signs of problem gambling and to know where they can receive help.

“We want to give people tools to better monitor their gambling spending and reach out to those who are looking for help. We believe the ‘Stay on Track’ app created by Core will help people recognise sooner if their betting is becoming a problem for them.”

Jenny Crocker, Senior Communication Consultant, Responsible Gambling Fund, NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing.

Opportunity

How to inform and engage responsible bar-goers of new laws being forced on venues, in a bid to counter alcohol-related violence.

Core Idea

Our idea to engage and rally the overwhelming majority of bar-goers, the responsible drinkers, to speak up against the harsh new restrictions and add their names to an online petition.

We created a microsite, dontpunishus.com.au, and integrated it with social media platforms and mobile technology so people could simply join the cause and share the message across their social groups.

The multi-channel media and experiential campaign we created and produced deployed activation teams in venues with cameras that took photographs of willing patrons to join the petition. These numbers were further boosted with the ability of people to join the campaign using the cameras on their smartphones.

The campaign, from concept to producing the website and managing the on-premise activations was delivered in market in just three weeks.

Results

The results were over 35,000 photographs and names of responsible bar-goers on the petition that was handed to the NSW State Premier, plus seven days straight frontpage media coverage.

In the following weeks the laws were amended as a consequence of social media and mainstream pressure.

The campaign vastly exceeded expectations and the original petition target of 5,000 people was surpassed in the first week.

“The frontpage news the campaign attracted was one of the key factors in the project’s success.”