Ms Russell and Dr Duncan worked together on the award-winning campaign.
Massey University’s public relations team has won a public relations award for its work promoting public discourse around last year’s general election.
The team were presented with the top prize in the Special Project or Short-term Campaign category at last night’s prestigious Public Relations Institute of New Zealand Awards that are held annually to celebrate excellence in public relations and communications.
The award entry, entitled People Power: Engaging the New Zealand public with the 2017 general election, detailed the team’s efforts to work with Massey University academics and media partner stuff.co.nz to “start a conversation about the issues that matter to New Zealanders”.
The project, led by deputy public relations director Sidah Russell, saw School of People, Environment and Planning Associate Professor Grant Duncan run two surveys to gauge New Zealanders’ level of interest in the election and the issues they cared about.
Survey results were used to determine the topics put to political leaders at a pre-election debate, with New Zealanders also invited to submit a question. The “crowd-sourced” questions were used to identify debate topics of national interest, with more than 90,000 participating.
The debate, held in Wellington, was live-streamed and reached more than 265,000 people.
Showcasing Massey expertise
Ms Russell says the success of the project highlights the team’s efforts to amplify Massey’s academics and research.
“Providing expert insight and innovative solutions to the challenges facing New Zealand is part of Massey University’s ‘civic leadership’ mandate. Massey’s goal is to be known for its leadership on the social, economic, cultural and environmental issues faced by New Zealand and to promote informed evidence-based and inclusive public debate,” she says.
“The 2017 general election offered an opportunity for the University to showcase its thought leadership to prospective students and contribute to the debate about where New Zealand should head in the next three years and beyond.”
She says the project was a success due to the hard work of the University’s Corporate Events and Sponsorship team, Dr Duncan and other academics, including Professor Richard Shaw, who wrote several opinion pieces for traditional and social media as part of the campaign.
The judges described the project as creative and well conceived. “[It was] incredibly well executed and obviously well received in terms or results. Good public relations and engagement in action. We want to see more projects like this.”
The team was also successful at last year’s awards, receiving a Highly Commended award for their campaign to promote the flexibility of the University’s distance programme by showcasing the experiences of a number of high performance athletes studying and competing at the 2016 Olympic Games.