NAB Media Party February 20, 2011

With the AFL pre-season competition: the NAB Cup now heading into its 2nd week (Go Bombers! James Hird as new coach looking to have already injected some much-needed toughness into the team) it had me thinking back to some of the events I got to assist and attend when working on the NAB account while working at ESP.

One of my favourites was the NAB Media Party. Especially arranged for the football media in Melbourne as a special cocktail party kicking of the NAB Cup Season 2008.

The event was organised and rolled out seamlessly by the ESP events team, with the cocktail event being held at perennial worldwide Japanese favourite Nobu at Crown Casino, Southbank.

The Monday night festivities included red carpet entry, speciality cocktails, miniatureNAB  footballs (I never want to pump footballs again in my life!), delicious Nobu canapes (the yellow tail was unbelievable) and a quick speech from Collingwood legend and (at-the-time) club Captain, Nathan Buckley.

Having retained great working relationships (and I still do!) with sport media, it was great catching up in a relaxed atmosphere over a drink with the journalisits and producers, rather than “needing something off them” for once. A large contingent of attendees came from NAB media partners, such as Ch 7, Ch 10 and News Limited, and included my old boss from Ch 7 and one of my good friends Rick, who is an ex- Essendon footballer, and now footy commentator at Ch 7.

One final note on this party, was the fantastic invite idea as devised by the ESP events crew (wish I had thought of it). The invite was the front cover of a spiral notepad. Such a clever idea for journalists…and perhaps they might even use the notepad. I love invites that a quirky and have special resonance to the event.

September Club January 5, 2011

Being stuck back in Australia for a couple of months, while fun for a number of reasons, namely: catching up with friends, the beach, the footy, the cricket, the sausage rolls, the beer, the humour and the races…there has been one thing lacking, which has made my posts rather lacking (or more so, non-existent..) a lack of events! It is surprising to note, while I could scam my way into exclusive events with actual bona fide A list stars in Hong Kong and New York City (hello the Fonz!), in Australia its notoriously harder. Unless you are one of the footy WAG’s, who become famous doing absolutely nothing except snagging a bogan footballer (for more on WAG’s, check out my Guest of a Guest article here) or a D grade soap star it is hard to swindle your way in.

Pining to be back on the non-stop Hong Kong event circuit, I nonetheless am remembering some events I did manage to attend in Aus, mostly because I was working them. One of the best is the annual AFL Grand Final corporate hospitality my old work place agency (ESP) run: The September Club.

Essentially a set of corporate hospitality tents that are available for the most prominent of AFL sponsors, such as NAB, Channel 10 etc., the tents are all housed in a grassy enclosed commune outside of the hallowed MCG during that one day in September to entertain important clients and VIPs. While the actual match is from approx 2.30pm-5.30pm, The September Club starts at 12pm and goes to 12am. That’s a whole lotta socializing to be done!

Inviting key clients, football personalities and pseudo Australian celebrities the action really kicks off after the Grand Final has been won and the serious drinking can begin. With all the corporates and celebrities back from their MCG seats, the fully catered tents become an open field day- where you can drink and mingle among all the different tents.

Adding to this is band who play in the tent square…the year that I went 2007, the band was one of my favourites (and perennial goldie oldie favourite): Little River Band. While my work friends closer in age to me looked at me like I was nuts- I raced over to join the throng at the front, bumping into my 40/50plus old bosses from Channel 7, singing along “Hang on…help is on it’s way..”

Finishing my night doing Jagerbombs with Jonathan Brown and Peter Hellier (Stauchnie), The September Club is a fantastic, well organised, stylised event for each Grand Final (and not just saying that because ESP run the thing). Here’s hoping I can score an invite next year

Xbox 360 Halo 3 (Australian) Launch December 7, 2009

Xbox engaged ESP to promote the launch of their new game Halo 3 on September 26, 2007 and achieve a connection with NRL (National Rugby League) and AFL (Australian Football League) and appeal to their primary audience of sport fans. We devised a media activity that pitted the best kickers of the AFL against the best kickers of the NRL to take part in three different activities at a heavily Xbox branded football field.

Results: Channel 9’s The Today Show (equivalent to NBC show) provided over 10 minutes of coverage. Newspaper, MX also ran a half page feature. Xbox were thrilled with our ability to achieve cut through in a saturated Grand Final week (for both codes).

NAB AFL Auskick Clinic (Adelaide & Perth) December 7, 2009

ESP was appointed project manager for well-received NAB VIP Customer Clinics held in Adelaide and Perth on February 16 and 17 2008. I was responsible for planning, organizing, invitation design and production, sourcing and production of giveaways, sourcing of AFL players and photographers, liaison with venue managers, catering, budget, corporate hosting and writing articles on event for internal NAB communications. Excellent response was received from NAB VIP customers on the event, especially the photo session for all the children and the AFL players.

I

NAB Supergoal PR December 7, 2009

 Every time a player kicks a nine-point goal in the NAB Cup (AFL pre-season competition in Australia) NAB generously donates $1,000 back to the player’s nominated junior club. As a result of Scott Lucas from Essendon Football Club kicking three of these “NAB Supergoals” (the first time a player had ever kicked three in the one game) we at ESP pitched the idea of a special presentation of the $3,000 NAB contribution to Camperdown Football Club at Essendon Training on Thursday 6 March, 2008.

 One of NAB’s key objectives was to obtain positive PR in country towns, not just metropolitan centres. Scott Lucas’s junior club, Camperdown is located in a large key regional area of Warrnambool in Victoria, so this presented a fantastic opportunity to obtain some coverage for NAB in this area.

Once ESP had secured a time for Scott Lucas to have a photo shoot and interviews, we arranged for Herald-Sun (Australia’s highest circulated newspaper, located in Melbourne) and WIN TV to be in attendance to capture this presentation with representatives from Camperdown Football Club being transported (thanks to NAB) to Essendon Football Club for the occasion, alongside 60 lucky NAB AFL Auskick participants who hail from Camperdown. Furthermore, having spoken with regional papers, such as Camperdown Chronicle we had pre-arranged coverage I would then email to them immediately after the shoot.

In addition, we arranged for Scott Lucas to present the club with its “NAB Super Centre Resource Kit”, containing essentials for the upcoming NAB AFL Auskick season, such as ground markers, ball carry bag and junior bibs. Every one of the 2,500 NAB AFL Auskick centre’s nationwide received these kits, and was NAB’s key component of their AFL sponsorship.

The result: WIN TV showed the Scott Lucas story as one of the leading bulletins, third story in. There was footage of the NAB Cup game, when Scott Lucas kicked his three NAB Supergoals and footage of the NAB Supergoal cheque being presented.

Articles in: Herald-Sun; Corangamite Extra (word for word from our media release too!); The Standard (highest circulated paper in the region) and the Camperdown Chronicle.