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Celebrating 35 years of WrightsMany Australians believe the perfect serving size of baked beans for one person is having enough to fit neatly onto two slices of toast, with research confirming people are craving a can size that is easy to enjoy with friends and family without waste.
So, much-loved household favourite, Heinz Beanz turned to Wrights to re-launch the brand with its ‘Can Size for Every Aussie’ where it boldly removed its well-established logo for a limited time to replace it with the new names to highlight the dining occasions: ‘Lil One’ (130 grams), the ‘One for One’ (220 grams), the ‘One for Two’ (300 grams) and the ‘One for All’ (555 grams).
With a nod to iconic Aussies that are known and loved just like the Heinz Beanz product, Wrights commissioned artworks to celebrate the ‘Can Size for Every Aussie’ campaign where Sabre Norris was secured to represent the ‘Lil One’, Lleyton Hewitt as the ‘One for One’ can and Bert and Patti Newton as the ‘One for Two’ can.
Each of the personalities jumped at the chance to work with Heinz Beanz and be part of such a novel concept, joining Wrights as VIP guests to reveal the unique artworks at a pop-up exhibition in Melbourne. Generating a groundswell of talkability, the campaign was a huge success thanks to Wrights coming up with an ingenious way to make headlines for Heinz Beanz.
Wrights has undertaken many roles for the Victoria Racing Club (VRC) over the past two decades and has adapted to the changing needs of this dynamic club.
Today, Wrights works with the VRC to manage more than 1,300 media at the Melbourne Cup Carnival. This remains the largest media contingent for any event in Australia. We help keep the media informed on issues surrounding the Melbourne Cup Carnival.
The VRC and Wrights have enjoyed a close and beneficial relationship and we are proud to continue our role with the Club, its community of stakeholders and its hallmark event, the Melbourne Cup Carnival, Australia’s major horse racing event.
Wrights worked with Hungry Jack’s and Make-A-Wish Australia to raise awareness for the 2022 Hungry Jack’s Wishmaker campaign which raised a whopping $1.52 million to help support Make-A-Wish Australia in granting wishes to critically ill kids.
Over a four-week period in March and April, the Hungry Jack’s community smashed last year’s total and set the scene for even more wishes to be granted.
Wrights secured media hits reaching a potential audience of more than 14 million potential donors.
The most notable pieces of coverage included features in The Sydney Morning Herald on fundraising differently and long-time volunteer Robyn Moore’s feature in Woman’s Day magazine.
Wrights reached out to influencers and secured a number of influencers to post pro-bono on socials with a potential audience reach of over 165,000.
The ongoing impacts of COVID-19 forced Make-A-Wish to think differently and pivot away from traditional fundraising models.
The Wishmaker campaign is an exceptional and innovative collaboration with Hungry Jack’s, and a unique experience for everyone involved.
This year’s Wishmaker donation are going towards supporting the travel and experience wish program.
Wrights was….
Over the past two decades, Wrights has proudly undertaken many and varied roles with the Victoria Racing Club (VRC). This includes managing the largest media contingent at any event in Australia.
Since COVID hit Australia in 2020, Wrights has assisted the VRC to present Melbourne Cup Carnival to the world through the media.
In 2020 the Carnival was closed to everyone except participants, officials and a handful of media. Wrights was there to assist and to help introduce a virtual media service to those journalists prevented from attending live by government requirements. With less onerous restrictions in 2021, Wrights worked with VRC to manage more than 350 media at the Melbourne Cup Carnival.
Wrights continues its relationship with VRC and is excited to have been part of one of the few major events that managed to deliver during COVID in both 2020 and 2021.
The National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Doll House: Miniature Worlds of Wonder exhibition at Como House in South Yarra was a unique event that proved incredibly popular to a diverse audience once its had been promoted by Wrights..
The exhibition (still current at time of publication) features more than 40 doll houses, furniture and accessories that were drawn from private collections, showcasing unseen doll houses from the 1880s to present day. Carefully placed in each room at Como House, the exhibition transports visitors into the creative world of doll houses and miniature life.
The exhibition closed temporarily due to Victoria’s lockdowns during 2021 and reopened just in time for the 21/22 summer holidays.
The public relations campaign saw considerable traditional, online and social media coverage, including interviews with ABC Radio Melbourne, The Age, and a feature in Frankie. And the crowds came flocking to this novel exhibition.
Make-A-Wish Australia brings the local community together to grant life-changing wishes of children with critical illness. Since 1985, Make-A-Wish has delivered more than 10,000 unforgettable wishes to children with the help of the Wish Force.
Wrights continues its relationship to assist and work alongside the Make-A-Wish team to generate media coverage from a range of wishes and campaigns. Coverage generated by Wrights includes print and online newspapers both national and local, online blogs, national and local television as well as local and national radio.
In 2020 and 2021 due to the impacts of COVID-19, Make-A-Wish has more than 800 seriously ill children waiting for a wish. Although it has been a challenging year for all, Wrights was still able to assist Make-A-Wish in generating coverage for a range of campaigns including Bake-A-Wish, where individuals from around the country were able to participate and raise funds.
Wrights is honoured to be continuing our relationship with Make-A-Wish which is recognised among Australia’s most reputable charities and part of the world’s largest wish-granting organisations.
Wrights was tasked with helping the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) increase visitation to the Old Melbourne Gaol during the busy December/January school holiday period. Targeted towards children and their families, ‘Escape the Gaol’ was introduced exclusively for the holiday period, providing a new and interesting experience to capture the attention of media and drive domestic attendance.
The campaign successfully saw Wrights secure media coverage with a number of key news, tourism, parenting and lifestyle media.
As a result of Wrights’ PR activity, the National Trust noted a significant increase in visitation to the Gaol for the duration of the original campaign and the experience has now become a permanent fixture on the Melbourne tourist trail.
For more than a decade, Wrights partnered with the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria to deliver the media relations campaign for Victoria’s largest annual community event, the Royal Melbourne Show.
Each year Wrights generated anticipation and excitement for the Royal Melbourne Show, beginning in 2006 with the unveiling of the $108 million redevelopment of Melbourne Showgrounds and a new-look event.
Whilst the Royal Melbourne Show’s diverse offering of agriculture, award-winning food and beverage and entertainment evolved, the challenge for Wrights year-on-year was to continue its growth and excite and entice audiences to attend the event.
Every year, throughout its ten-year evolution, Wrights positioned the Royal Melbourne Show as a must-attend event, reaching millions of people through earning extensive traditional media and social coverage; this coverage helped to attract more than half a million visitors to Melbourne Showgrounds annually.
Australia’s largest free festival, the St Kilda Festival found the perfect public relations partner in Wrights, the big events specialist.
Pre-publicity for this seaside celebration of music, arts and culture generated record media coverage to help attract more than 400,000 people to the event.
By packaging engaging stories and photo opportunities, Wrights demanded media attention from outside the realm of music, arts and culture titles to reach audiences beyond the typical festival fan.
Throughout the nine days of the St Kilda Festival, Wrights managed media attendance on site, coordinating journalists, photographers and film crews and providing strategic counsel for crisis communications.
The National Trust of Australia (Victoria) is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that actively works towards conserving and protecting heritage for future generations to enjoy.
The National Trust is a major operator of house museums and historic properties in Melbourne that are open to the public, including the Old Melbourne Gaol, Rippon Lea, Como House and Gardens, the Polly Woodside tall ship, and several other heritage places throughout regional Victoria.
Wrights generates widespread publicity designed to spark consumer interest and drive attendance to these properties during key periods throughout the year, showcasing special events and exhibitions and highlighting important milestones such as the 150th year of Rippon Lea in 2018 across all communications.
Wrights supports the National Trust’s advocacy efforts through a strategic media and issues management program, which includes managing reactive media enquiries as well as identifying opportunities for the Trust to be thought leaders in heritage issues. It has been at the forefront of gaining heritage listing for Melbourne’s Federation Square.
Renowned charity YGAP, Polished Man approached Wrights to implement the public relations program for the 2016 campaign to help raise awareness and funds for the one in five children globally affected by physical and/or sexual violence; the campaign centred around encouraging people to paint one finger nail to show their support for the charity.
Wrights’ strategy was designed to target major news outlets, amplify existing partnerships, identify and engage with ambassadors and work swiftly to create ‘new news’ through creative responsiveness as the campaign unfolded.
Wrights identified and secured well-known ambassadors who aligned with the core essence of the campaign, including Hollywood movie stars Chris and Liam Hemsworth.
The star power of these supporters stirred the interest of the media and generated talkability.
Toll Group invested $311m to boost Bass Strait trade marking the largest ever investment by a logistics business on this route.
To celebrate Toll’s investment, it engaged Wrights to stage two ship naming ceremonies (one in Burnie and one in Port Melbourne).
In less than six weeks, Wrights leveraged all of its key assets to create and execute two major events with the Prime Minister Scott Morrison attending one event and the then opposition leader, Bill Shorten attending the second.
Wrights’ integrated approach to PR put Toll in the strongest position to deliver two seamless celebrations, build relationships with key stakeholders and generate close to 100 media hits in two days.
When Wrights was appointed as strategic communications counsel to Hungry Jack’s, the brand had less than 200 quick service restaurants nation-wide. Hungry Jack’s now has more than 400 restaurants across Australia and has consolidated its position as one of Australia’s most recognisable brands.
Wrights provides communications support to Hungry Jack’s on all facets of the business, from product to property, and helps communicate with more than 17,000 employees and millions of customers annually.
Not only has Wrights supported the business through issues communication, it has also been involved in the implementation of major Quick Service Restaurant announcements over the past 20 years.
To share the health benefits of hemp, Wrights identified and secured nutritionist and health advocate, Alex Pendlebury, as an ambassador.
An intimate brunch event in June 2019 saw 20 food, lifestyle and fitspo influencers invited to give into #hemptation.
Wrights curated coffee suppliers to perfect a hemp-infused latte and collaborated with caterers to design a menu showcasing the various uses of the Essential Hemp range.
Wrights worked with Make-A-Wish Australia and Cricket Australia to help bring to life seven-year-old Archie Schiller’s wish to become captain of the Australian Cricket Team.
As part of his wish, Archie, who battles with congenital heart disease, trained with the Australian team in December 2018 before joining his co-captain, Tim Paine and India’s cricket team captain, Virat Kohli for the biggest day on the Australian cricket calendar, the first day of the Boxing Day Test.
Wrights led the media relations element of the campaign to capture and share Archie’s journey, generating more than 350 media articles in Australia.
Highlights included three metropolitan newspaper front pages, national news across all major TV networks and two breakfast TV appearances. Archie’s wish activity generated significant increases in donations to Make-A-Wish, web traffic, brand awareness and engagement.
Archie’s wish is a continuation of the immensely rewarding partnership between Wrights and Make-A-Wish Australia.
