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Executive Summary 2012-2015

This report summarises how the Council on the Ageing NSW has delivered Grandparents Day across

NSW over the length of the project.

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Section 1: History of NSW Grandparents Day

NSW Grandparents Day (GPD) was an initiative of the O’Farrell Government. Formally announced by

that Government in 2011, GPD has subsequently been celebrated in NSW on the last Sunday of each

October. In 2011 the celebration of GPD was co-ordinated by the State Government. Two main

outcomes were delivered in relation to GPD 2011: a GPD visual identity and associated branding

guidelines were developed and a GPD event was held at Taronga Zoo, Sydney. Following this, in 2012

the Hon Andrew Constance – in his former capacity as Minister for Ageing – tasked COTA NSW with

co-ordinating GPD across NSW.

Reporting to then-Minister Constance, COTA NSW was asked to conceive of a GPD strategy from the

ground up. COTA NSW argued that the most effective way of raising community awareness of – and

promoting community participation in – GPD across NSW was to develop an integrated

communications and community engagement strategy. Cognisant of the need to engage the mass

media in our efforts to promote GPD, we engaged staff at Ogilvy PR Health (OPRH), at NGO rates, to

help us develop a communications and media strategy.

One of the primary outcomes of the initial work undertaken with OPRH was the decision to frame

GPD as a community-driven and grassroots-focused event, rather than a Government initiative per

se. In this regard, OPRH noted the value of the visual identity developed for GPD in 2011. In the view

of the media and communications strategists at OPRH, presenting GPD as a community initiative –

albeit one that had the support of the Government – would greatly enhance our efforts to gain ‘buy

in’ to GPD from all stakeholders. They particularly emphasised the value of the GPD

identity/branding in terms of attracting the interest of media workers. It was the view of OPRH that

media workers – whether working for top-tier TV programs or local print publications – were much

more likely to pursue stories that can be identified as community-driven and community-focused,

than Government-driven and Government-focused. Further, the early work undertaken with OPRH

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confirmed the likely benefit to GPD that would arise from having it delivered by COTA NSW. In their

view, COTA NSW was perceived as a community-focused, apolitical non-government organisation,

and as such, well placed to promote interest and participation in GPD across all sectors of the NSW

community. In this regard, the ‘stand-alone’ nature of the GPD identity and brand was seen to

synergise well with public perception of COTA NSW, heightening the likelihood that GPD would be

well-received by members of the public. Having worked extensively with both NGO and Government

clients, the team at OPRH advised that this approach would also be the most productive means of

ensuring that the Government’s role in GPD would be favourably covered. Simultaneously, COTA

NSW and OPRH placed heavy emphasis on identifying a high-value media opportunity that would

enable us to showcase the Minister for Ageing’s role in GPD. Accordingly, we conceived of the

Grandparent of the Year (GOTY) awards as the culminating event of the larger GPD community

engagement and communications campaign.

Since COTA NSW has assumed responsibility for GPD in NSW, each campaign has had the following

broad structure:

1) A community engagement and awareness raising strategy undertaken by COTA NSW

The primary targets of our direct outreach activities are as follows:

State MPs

Members of Local Government

NSW councils

NSW schools

NSW public libraries

NSW community groups

Grandparent carer groups

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2) Community engagement via the GPD interactive website

The GPD website (www.grandparentsday.org.au) provides members of the general public with

information and resources to help them host GPD events, publicise those events, participate in any

of the GPD initiatives/events listed below, as well as providing a portal to find GPD events in their

area. This site is continually updated as the year progresses towards GPD.

3) Community engagement initiatives/events aligned with GPD

In 2015 these initiatives/events included:

The GOTY awards

Competitive community grants program

A GPD Facebook competition

Flagship COTA NSW-hosted GPD public celebrations - including the presentation of the GOTY

awards by the Minister at the Norton St Festa

4) A sustained media outreach campaign, which publicised the initiatives/events mentioned above

and encompassed additional outreach to major print and broadcast outlets

Each year COTA NSW worked with strategists at OPRH to identify an annual theme for GPD. The

rationale behind annual theming is to provide a fresh angle to engage media workers each year. This

annual theme or angle is selected with a view to provoking coverage of both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ media

stories, and this strategy has proven highly successful in previous years. The very high volume of

media coverage sustained for GPD has been reported in previous GPD reports written by COTA NSW

and is summarised in appendix A and B.

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Section 2: Key Results 2012-2015

Over the length of the GPD project the integrated community outreach and media outreach

campaigns implemented by COTA NSW have successfully secured high levels of community

engagement and brand awareness that have increased with each year of the project.

From 2012-2015 the number of event registrations has more than tripled, from 38 event

registrations in 2012 to 160 registrations in 2015. (Figure 1)

In total, COTA NSW has supported 421 community run GPD events over the length of the

project, in addition to the nine GPD events directly coordinated by COTA NSW in

partnership with a variety of local festivals (including the presentation of the GOTY Awards

each year).

Figure 1

The GPD media outreach strategy has been incredibly successful in attracting top tier

coverage for GPD each year in order to raise awareness of the contributions made by

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160

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2012 2013 2014 2015

GPD Event registrations 2012-2015

Event registrations

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grandparents in NSW. From 2012-2015 GPD has been covered in more than 520 media

pieces across print, online, radio and television.

From 2012-2015 GPD has received top-tier prime time television coverage of the GOTY

awards from every commercial and public broadcaster, including ABC1 , ABC News 24,

Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10, and SBS . Furthermore, the GOTY awards has continually

proven to be an effective means by which the Minister can highlight the contributions made

by grandparents in NSW and raise public awareness of issues faced by grandparents.

Figure 2

The number of unique visitors to the GPD website (which was significantly updated in July

2013) has increased nearly eight-fold from 2012-2015 (from 4000 visitors to 35,150 visitors),

while the number of page views has increased by around 470% (from 14,000 to 80,625).

(Figure 2)

From 2012-2015 the GPD website has gained 184,279 page views. Since July 2013, the new

GPD website has had 68,000 unique users, many of whom have returned as visitors year

after year.

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20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

90000

2012 2013 2014 2015

GPD website results 2012-2015

Unique visits

Page views

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NSW schools were identified early in the project as a valuable target for community

outreach strategies and a strong platform from which to raise awareness of the

contributions made by grandparents due to their existing relationship with grandparent

carers. Over the length of the project they have provided the highest returns for community

engagement and their role as key stakeholders has become increasingly valuable.

The number of GPD events registered by schools has grown at an increasing rate year after

year: from 2012, when only five schools registered GPD events, to 2015, when 103 schools

registered, making -up the majority (64%) of all registered events. (Figure 3)

Figure 3

These high engagement levels are further illustrated by the number of unique visitors to the

‘Schools’ page of the website, which has dramatically increased from around 1,000 visitors in

2013, (the year the website was updated) to more than 13,000 visitors in 2015. The number

of page views for the ‘Schools’ page has increased from just over 1,300 in 2013 to more than

17,500 pageviews in 2015.

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40

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2012 2013 2014 2015

GPD total event registrations v. school event registrations 2012-2015

Total event registrations

School event registrations

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At an increasing rate, COTA NSW has successfully made use of social media to increase the

reach of the GPD campaign. The peak of this success was visible in the high reach of the

2014 GPD competition run on Facebook, which reached 997,600 members of the public,

with a further 885,000 reach in the following year’s competition.

The GPD digital newsletter has been an important outreach tool and has resulted in high

engagement levels with the GOTY awards, event registration and the community grants

program. This newsletter has maintained an average click through rate of 32.4%, well above

the industry average of 25.45%, as well as an average click through rate of 19.3%, far

surpassing the industry average of 2.8%.1 As can be seen in these results, these

communications targeted highly engaged members of the community and consistently

provided a platform to translate high interest and awareness levels into high participation.

1 Industry benchmarks taken from Mailchimp: http://mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-marketing-benchmarks/

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Section 3: 2012 GPD campaign

2012 was the first year that COTA NSW coordinated GPD and was therefore the point at which for

COTA NSW established some of our key relationships with stakeholders. It also represented the first

year COTA NSW developed and implemented a workable community outreach and media outreach

campaign that would promote grassroots uptake of GPD and public awareness of the contributions

made by grandparents in NSW.

3.1 Community Outreach

One of the major successes of this initial year was the establishment of relationships with key

stakeholders. In 2012 we developed a community outreach plan which would provide the basis for

future years’ plans. The key components of the initial plan included:

- Hard mail-out (Including a briefing kit and event planning materials)

- Email direct marketing

- Meetings and conferences with a variety of targeted community groups

- Information and resources provided through the newly established GPD website

- Collaboration with existing seniors focused newsletters expanded reach to new mailing lists,

including Seniors Card e-newsletter mailing list, NCOSS email lists, Clubs NSW email list.

In addition to hard and soft mail-outs to primary target groups (listed on page 3) direct outreach was

made and meetings held with a number of valuable community and commercial groups, including:

grandparent support groups across the state, Clubs NSW, Department of Veteran Affairs Week, the

Local Government and Shires Association, commercial groups including Bunnings and a number of

shopping centre groups. The existing contacts that COTA NSW held with many grandparent carer

support groups, in particular, placed us in an excellent position to engage these groups with the GPD

project and, therefore, to better represent the role of grandparents in NSW.

The successes of this initial year made it clear that GPD outreach was most effective when it

engaged with community groups directly, rather than with commercial organisations, and

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encouraged these community groups to engage local business with their community events as

venues and sponsors. For future years this this grassroots-to-commercial approach was maintained,

resulting in continually expanding grassroots uptake of GPD and ever expanding numbers of events

being registered on the website.

3.2 Media outreach campaign

With GPD still in its initial stages in NSW, COTA NSW dedicated significant resources to raising

awareness through a media plan which achieved optimum exposure. On the basis of the expert

advice of the staff at OPRH, we established a media plan that included both a ‘hard’ and ‘soft’

news angle that allowed us to leverage a greater level of media attention:

1. In 2012 COTA NSW undertook detailed research of Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

data to understand and provide analysis on a number of key issues relating to

grandparenting activities in NSW. We analysed ABS data that showed that grandparents

were playing an increasingly important role as carers for their grandchildren, thereby

saving parents – and the NSW community – millions of dollars in childcare associated costs.

Highlighting the contribution that grandparents made proved to be a highly effective way

of gaining media coverage of GPD.

2. This ‘harder’ news item was accompanied by coverage of the GOTY Awards, supported by

Andrew Constance, Minister for Ageing and Minister for Disability Services, which allowed

us to identify grandparents who could articulate some the issues that could be profitably

addressed in the context of GPD.

This media plan served as the model for future years and has been crucial to maintaining media

interest in GPD from 2012-2015. The third tier of this media plan included securing local media

coverage through small scale GPD events across the state, in line with a community outreach

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strategy that encouraged a grassroots community campaign, including the GPD event grant program,

which would be introduced in 2013.

Developed in collaboration with OPRH, a range of media and communications resources materials

were developed to aid media outreach. Focusing on metropolitan media as well as targeted regional

and local areas across NSW we developed:

- Media fact sheet outlining key facts, statistics, and Grandparents Day messages

- Media release for news media

- Tailored media release for distribution to suburban/regional media across NSW with a

spread sheet of localised figures

- Audio News Release and script for pre-recording with Ian Day, CEO, COTA NSW

- Identification, interviews and profile development for key case studies

Additionally, from the commencement of COTA NSW’s coordination of GPD we and and OPRH have

sought to ensure high-value media opportunities for the Minister could be obtained to express the

NSW Government’s support for GPD and raise public awareness of the role grandparents play in

NSW. Accordingly, we conceived of the GOTY awards and have traditionally ‘reserved’ them for the

involvement of the Minister as this occasion represents the GPD related activity that − according to

the media strategists at OPRH − is most likely to attract top-tier media coverage. This has indeed

occurred during 2012 – 2015, with the Minister’s presentation of the awards receiving prime-time

TV news coverage from every commercial and public broadcaster.

3.3 GPD events

As previously mentioned, in 2011 GPD was coordinated by the NSW Government, which had limited

itself to a single event at Taronga Zoo. In 2012 COTA NSW provided a much higher level of support

for a larger number of community events. In addition to providing support to local community

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groups to hold their own events (including planning resources and promotion via the GPD website)

COTA NSW also had GPD branded stalls at the following community festivals:

- The Fairfield Street Carnival

- The Strathfield Food Festival

- The Norton Street Italian Festa

These events successfully secured media interest in GPD. However, it was determined that COTA

NSW would be able to reach more members of the community by changing tactics, and focus on

prompting people to organise and run their own grass-roots GPD events. This shift in focus has

provided highly successful (as detailed in the following pages). However, we retained our

involvement in the Norton St Festa in order to use it as the site from which the Minister for Ageing

could present the GOTY awards. This event remained a valuable staging point for attracting media

coverage, with its inner city location making it accessible to TV crews who were present each year of

the awards, as well as being a strong means of engaging with diverse NSW communities, with

around 125,000 people attending the festival each year.

3.4 GPD website competition

In 2012 the GPD competition was established to allow an opportunity for grandchildren to

participate in GPD and thank their grandparents. This competition, which was based on the theme

‘My Grandparents Taught Me…’ established important relationships with a number of schools and

community language groups3.5 GOTY awards

In 2012 COTA NSW, in collaboration with OPRH, conceived of and established the GOTY awards as a

means of engaging members of the community with GPD. Along with providing a strong hook for

media campaigns, the GOTY awards provided an avenue through which to engage local communities

and community organisations with GPD in a non-event based way.

In 2012 the GOTY awards were awarded across three categories:

Grandparent Carer of the Year

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Grandparent Mentor of the Year

Grandparent Volunteer of the Year

The awards received considerable media attention pre and post the announcement of the winners.

Given the involvement of the Minister in the judging and presentation of the awards at the flagship

event, the Norton Street Italian Festa, they also provided a successful means for the Minister to

show his public support for grandparents in NSW. The grandparent winners and finalists became

compelling ambassadors for the messages associated with GPD and provided highly engaging case

studies we were able to use to promote GPD in future years.

3.6 Key results

GPD received television coverage on three of the five free to air networks:

ABC News 24 (Afternoon Live, The Drum, 19:00 News), Channel 7 (Afternoon news), Channel

10 (The Project), ABC 1 (ABC News).

Statistics from the ABS research achieved national coverage across print, broadcast and

online media outlets, raising community awareness of the role grandparents play in

Australia.

In total GPD received coverage in a total of 131 media pieces across print, radio, online and

television. This included coverage of the ABS research, coverage of local communities

holding GPD events and coverage of the GOTY awards, including nominee and winner

profiles.

The GPD website established itself as the top search result for ‘Grandparents Day’ and

attracted over 4,000 visitors in this first year, with over 14,000 page views.

More than 250,000 individuals were reached by accessing the mailing lists of other seniors

focused newsletters.

Partnerships established in the community in this first year of the project have had lasting

benefits to the grassroots growth of the campaign. Events that were organised

collaboratively with community groups, such as the Coffs Harbour Local Grandparents of the

Year Awards, have become annual events through which communities continue to engage

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with GPD. Some of these local community events attracted more than 300 people and from

this first year have proven to be an excellent means of securing local media coverage of

GPD.

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Section 4: 2013 GPD campaign

4.1 Community grant program

In keeping with COTA NSW’s desire to focus on prompting members of the community to plan their

own GPD events, in 2012 a highly successful competitive grants program was established to provide

community groups with event funding. This program was based in key learnings from 2012 that

suggested COTA NSW could achieve higher community engagement with GPD through supporting

community led GPD events, rather than COTA NSW sponsored events. . The objective of this grants

program was to increase the number of events held across the state and increase our capacity to

record information on GPD events. The grants were capped at $1000 in order to provide the

prospect of funding for community groups that would provide a meaningful level of financial support

to those contemplating a GPD event, but would not to provide so much funding that community

event planners would only run their event if their application was successful. The grants program

was also intended to put us in contact with members of the community who would be supportive of

our efforts to interest media workers in their events, thereby providing us with an additional,

valuable media hook for GPD each year. The community grants program has proven to be highly

successful on both of these fronts.

This program garnered immediate community interest, receiving 140 grant applications in its first

year (of whom 27 groups received grants of $150-$1000). The program contributed to a significant

increase in event registrations and put us in contact with highly motivated and engaged members of

the community who would be supportive of our efforts to interest media workers in their events.

4.2 Media outreach campaign

The media outreach campaign for 2013 was modelled on the highly successful media plan of 2012,

and surpassed the results of the previous year in terms of coverage and reach. Despite a highly

challenging media environment, with serious bushfires leading to a state of emergency in NSW and

rolling coverage in the week proceeding Grandparents Day, we secured high levels of media

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coverage through continuing the successful media outreach activities established in 2012 (see page

10).

4.3 GPD website

In order to facilitate more efficient, streamlined and professional communication with stakeholders

regarding Grandparents Day activities, COTA NSW redeveloped the GPD website. This included

building e-newsletter functionality that co-ordinated with a number of online forms on the site.

Upgrading the website in this way allowed us to increase the amount of communication and support

we could provide to community groups..

This website redevelopment aligned with our desire to do more to activate members of the

community to plan and execute their own GPD events. As a result we gained an interactive website

that housed a much wider range of resources (including template media releases for event holders,

GPD branding materials, promotional material), downloadable forms, and provided a portal for

event organisers to register – and thereby promote – their event.

4.4 Outreach to NSW schools

In 2013 a great deal more GPD outreach was focused on NSW schools. This outreach not only

included the hard mail-out and email communications, but was fostered through collaboration with

the Department of Education to include GPD promotion in the Schoolbiz newsletter, as well as

through the creation of new resources for schools on the website to assist them to hold their own

GPD events (including classroom activity guides and media liaison kits). As a result we saw an

increase in the number of schools registering GPD events, with one in five of all event registrations

made by schools.

4.5 GOTY awards

Each year COTA NSW − in conjunction with OPRH − reviews the GOTY award categories to ensure

they align with the theme and the messaging of the year and will attract nominees who will fit the

demands of the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ news stories. These multiple categories also allow the awards to

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recruit a pool of nominees who reflect the diverse contributions made by grandparents and older

people in NSW, not only within the family, as with the full-time grandparent carers, but also to

younger generations in their community. In 2013 the award categories were revised to include:

Grandparent Carer of the Year

Awarded to an outstanding grandparent who is also the full-time carer of their grandchild/ren

Community Grandparent of the Year

Awarded to a grandparent actively engaged in volunteer work related to children in their

community

Grand Friend of the Year

Awarded to an individual aged 50 years or over who has made a positive contribution to

children’s lives in a professional capacity (not necessarily a grandparent)

The website update in 2013 allowed us to move the GOTY nomination form online, which along with

increased outreached, resulted in over 80 nominations for the awards – a significant increase on the

previous year.

4.6 GPD Instagram competition

In 2013 we engaged OPRH to design and run a GPD competition to further promote community

engagement with GPD. With no budget for social-media promotion, however, the Instagram-based

competition had limited reach, and the results indicated that our target group were under-engaged

with Instagram as a social media platform. These learnings contributed to an enormously successful

GPD competition conducted on Facebook in 2014, which received high returns in terms of

engagement and reach.

4.7 Key results

The 2013 media outreach campaign generated more than 140 media pieces, with a reach of

well over 4 million Australians.

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The GOTY awards received national coverage on the main evening bulletins on the ABC,

Channel 7 and Channel 10, with regional media coverage of local events on Prime 7.

The GPD website maintained top search ranking for ‘Grandparents Day’. After launching in

mid-July the website received over 12,000 unique visits (tripling the results from previous

year) and around 31,000 page views (more than double the previous year’s page views).

Increased outreach to NSW schools increased the number of schools registering their GPD

events on the website. One in five registered events in 2013 were held by NSW schools.

89 GPD events were registered via the new website by community groups across the state

2013 saw an increase in commercial support for GPD, with ExperienceOZ running a

competition promotion around GPD and The Brewery hosting a special GPD lunch. This

increase in commercial interest provided the potential for GPD to reach a broader audience,

based off the larger advertising and promotion budgets of a commercial organisation.

The number of nominations received for the GOTY awards increased 33% following the

introduction of an online nomination form.

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Section 5: 2014 GPD campaign

5.1 Media outreach strategy

Much of success of the 2014 media outreach campaign was based in the high level of coverage we

were able to get for nominees, finalists and winners of the GOTY awards, underscoring the value of

the staff time COTA NSW invested in publicising the awards across the NSW community. (see 5.5

Key results)

In addition to the high levels of coverage achieved by the GOTY awards, this year’s ‘hard’ news story

also gained top-tier news coverage on ABC focusing on research conducted by COTA NSW and the

Productivity Commission on the increasing number of grandparents providing high levels of informal

childcare each week.

5.2 Community outreach strategy

Building on the successful community outreach activities of past years (including the hard-mail out

and email outreach) we engaged with new mailing lists to expand the reach of our email outreach.

As a result an estimated 250,000 individuals received information about the competitive grants

program and GOTY awards via: NCOSS email lists, Human Services Network, Community Builders

NSW, and CommunityNet.

5.3 GOTY awards

In 2014 COTA NSW developed a partnership with the Australian Centre for Perinatal Science (ACPS)

with the aim of broadening the reach of the GOTY awards. The scope of the Grand Friend of the Year

award was ‘tweaked’ so that the many outstanding health professionals connected with ACPS who

work closely with children could meet the award’s criteria.

The award was co-branded, providing incentive for ACPS to promote the category broadly within its

extensive networks. As a research centre at the University of New South Wales, ACPS has a broad

reach across the health, research and university sectors. The development of a partnership with

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ACPS proved to be highly effective and resulted in the awards being promoted to many hundreds of

thousands more people across NSW.

5.4 Community grant program

Following the successes of the competitive grant program established the previous year, the scope

of this program was expanded in 2014. Promotion of the grants program began at an earlier stage in

the year and a wide range of direct outreach activities (using phone and email) were undertaken to

encourage applications from a more ethnically and socio-economically diverse range of community

groups. This served the objective of making GPD as inclusive as possible and ensuring that the pool

of media case studies we derived from the community grants program would reflect the diversity of

the NSW community. These strategies resulted in a significant increase in the number of grant

applications received compared to the previous year.

Feedback collected from grant winners provided excellent insight into the experience of event

holders. All respondents provided positive feedback regarding the resources provided to them and

many indicated they were planning to hold a GPD event the following year.

5.5 GPD Facebook competition

In 2014 we invested sizeable funds in a Facebook-based competition, noting the shortcomings

associated with the Instagram based competition the previous year. In addition, we made a

significant investment in social media cross-promotion. Sponsorship from Telstra was secured with

assistance from the Department of Family and Community Services’ Tech Savvy Seniors program,

resulting in the donation of two iPads as prizes. This additional investment was highly successful. The

competition received over 250 entries, nearly a 90% increase from the previous year. The total

media reach of posts was calculated to be 1,058,860 people.

In addition to the Facebook competition, a Thunderclap campaign was also run, with strong results.

A flash alert was emailed to almost 3,000 stakeholders and the target of supporters required to kick-

start the campaign was met, with 103 supporters signing up. At 10am on Grandparents Day an

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automated GPD message was posted on supporters’ Twitter and Facebook pages, resulting in the

GPD hashtag trending on Twitter, with a social reach of 57,253.

5.6 Key results

The GPD website received unprecedented levels of traffic, with 26,955 members of the

public visiting the site over a 12 month period to download resources and publicise their

events. The website received a further 58,654 page views.

Event registrations via the GPD website were up 50% from the previous year.

E-newsletter registrations via the GPD website were up 42% from previous year

85% increase in the number of NSW schools registering their GPD events on the website

from the previous year, while visits to the ‘School’ page of the GPD website increased 41%

from the previous year.

14% increase in nominations for the GOTY awards. This upwards trend in nominations was a

sign of awareness of the day spreading further into the community, particularly as we

received an unprecedented number of nominations from members of the Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) community.

COTA NSW CEO, Ian Day, and one of the three winners of the GOTYawards appeared live

in studio, on the ABC News 24 Breakfast program on GPDThe GOTY awards were

covered by key media outlets, including ABC News 24 Weekend Breakfast and on the ABC’s

main evening news bulletins, as well as profiling of the award nominees in the Daily

Telegraph.

2014 saw an increase in radio coverage for GPD, including a live interview with Ian Day on

2UE Breakfast, discussing GPD and grandparent carers.

Audio News Releases promoting GPD were downloaded 399 times, allowing for widespread

radio coverage including in regional areas.

More than 70 articles across television, radio, print and online media reported on the call for

nominations, reaching more than 1.2 million Australians in NSW. This, along with the ACPS

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partnership, contributed to attracting more nominations than ever received, with a 14%

increase in nominations from the previous year.

The 2014 GPD media outreach campaign generated more than 116 media pieces, reaching

close to 5 million Australians.

The community grants program received 160 grant applications, a 35% increase from the

previous year.

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Section 6: 2015 GPD campaign

6.1 Media outreach strategy

In 2015 with the practice of devising an annual theme for GPD in order to provide a fresh angle to

engage members of the community as well as media workers each year. The 2015 theme -

‘Moments that Matter’ - successfully provoked coverage of both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ media stories,

including- stories that addressed the fact that GPD provides a ‘moment’ for families to celebrate

their intergenerational bonds, through to stories that addressed the fact that even a moment spent

with an older person who does not have a strong social support network may be beneficial to them.

6.2 Community outreach strategy

Building on the successful community outreach activities of past years (including the hard mail-out

and digital mail-out) we engaged with new mailing lists to expand the reach of our email outreach.

As a result a much expanded audience received information about the competitive grants program

and GOTY awards via: Extra! the Seniors Card newsletter, the Schoolbiz newsletter, The Shed Online,

Play Times the Playgroups NSW newsletter, The Senior website and NSW local health district

intranets.

6.3 GPD website

The website was continuously updated once the 2015 GPD campaign commenced. Our objective was

to ensure that the website continued to make participation in GPD as easy as possible, and to keep

the website as fresh, relevant and engaging as possible. By updating the visual layout of many pages,

providing new resources for users, maintaining a consistent flow of fresh information and news

stories, and implementing SEO strategies, the website successfully increased online engagement

with GPD and attracted more users. Updating the resources available on the website also assisted us

to increase engagement rates of NSW schools using the site, as will be discussed below.

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6.4 Outreach to NSW schools

To ensure the strong participation of NSW schools continued in an upward trend, in 2015 we

undertook the following:

Hard mail-out to more than 1700 primary schools across NSW

Updates to the ‘Schools’ page on the website, including the addition of new resources

designed by a local artist. Resources available to schools on the website included event

planning tips specifically for schools, classroom activity sheets, a variety of GPD lesson plans

and template media releases

Maintaining our relationship with the Department of Education to ensure the continued

publication of GPD-related news items in the Schoolbiz newsletter to notify, engage and

remind school principals about GPD

These strategies resulted in dramatic increases to the engagement of schools this year, with nearly

double the number of schools registering GPD events compared to the previous year and a 79%

increase in visitors to the ‘Schools’ page of the website. One in five nominations for the 2015 GOTY

awards came from within school communities. It is clear that there remains strong potential to keep

expanding this relationship with NSW schools as key stakeholders in GPD.

6.5 Community grant program

To amplify the results we achieved in 2014, in 2015 we expanded the community grants program. In

2015 the budget for grants was increased from $15,000 to $20,000, allowing us to increase the

number of grants available.

In 2015 we received a high quality pool of grant applications from diverse segments of the

community, across schools, local social groups and highly engaged advocacy groups, including

community groups from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) and ATSI background. In all, 33

groups were successful in securing funds of $80 - $750. The feedback from our grant winners this

year gave us further insight into the intergenerational connections that can be provoked by GPD

events. We were particularly excited to see that all grant winners who completed a feedback form

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planned to hold a repeat GPD event in 2016 and that more than half of our responding grant

winners engaged in partnerships with other community groups and local businesses in their area to

improve the reach and success of their event, thereby establishing relationships into the future. We

also noted that almost 40% of respondents reported having gained media attention for their GPD

event, highlighting the value of the community grants program in spreading GPD messaging.

The following quotes were taken from grant winners’ feedback forms:

“This event was very successful and has led to the establishment of a grandparents

group, which will be meeting once a month. The group will be an informal group which

will discuss local community members.”

“We had an overwhelmingly positive response to our day. We had 34 children attend

(for a township of 40 residents), and everybody brought grandparents or special

people…The response from the community was wonderful and everyone enjoyed seeing

so many people come in to the town…The town is under considerable stress with the

water situation and this provided the perfect opportunity for all generation [sic] to get

together and enjoy our school, town and community.”

“The highlight for participants was spending time with other grandparents who are in

similar situations to themselves.”

“Having Grandparents Day as a vehicle to raise awareness and the profile of

grandparents, as well as a time of family, fun and togetherness, is so beneficial and

looked forward to each year.”

6.6 GPD Facebook competition

In 2015 COTA NSW successfully integrated social media outcomes into the broader GPD

communications strategy. Given that past years have shown Facebook to be substantially more

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successful in engaging our target audience than other platforms, we undertook through targeted

Facebook advertising and the running of a GPD Facebook competition.

In keeping with the ‘Moments that Matter’ theme, OPRH developed a competition that asked

participants to share a favourite memory of a moment with their grandparents on the Facebook

page. Providing an iPad as a prize gave further incentive for participants to enter the competition.

The intrinsic appeal of the competition, the appeal of the iPad prize, coupled with highly effective

Facebook advertising, translated into a massive increase in awareness of GPD on social media.

6.7 Key results

160 events registered on the GPD website, a 20% increase from 2014

Feedback from event holders from both 2014 and 2015 showed that GPD events were

important mobilising points for community action in a number of different areas, even

leading to the founding of grandparent carer support groups, annual events and acting as a

starting point for community re-engagement.

Top-tier prime-time television coverage of the GOTY awards and winners, including on SBS

national news, Channel 7 and WIN Wollongong.

The Minister for Ageing, the Hon. John Ajaka and COTA NSW CEO Ian Day interviewed live on

ABC Riverina and 2GB Breakfast respectively, discussing GPD and grandparents carers.

130 media placements across television, print, radio and online (excluding ANRs) an increase

of 12% from 2014

The GPD media campaign had an audience reach of 1,991,338 with a potential reach of

2,081,638 with the inclusion of ANR downloads

35,150 visitors to the GPD website, an increase of more than 50% from 2014

80,625 page views for the GPD website, a 35% increase from 2014

Subscriptions to the GPD email newsletter via the website tripled over 2015

Greater engagement with NSW schools, with nearly twice as many schools registering GPD

events on the website. 103 schools registered GPD events on the website in 2015, with

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school events making up 64% of all registered events for the year. Further to this, we

received 13,300 unique visitors to the ‘Schools’ page of the website, a 79% increase from

2014.

The GPD Facebook competition received 610 entries, more than double the number of

entries in 2014. In the month the competition ran, the Facebook page reached almost

885,000 people.

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Section 8: Conclusion

From 2011, as coordination of GPD passed from the Government to COTA NSW, GPD has enjoyed

increasing levels of success and witnessed sustained increases in community awareness and

engagement. Additionally, under COTA NSW’s management, the GPD brand has gained increasing

recognition from the community, provoked resilient grassroots community engagement and secured

sustained interest from the media.

From its initial configuration as a single day event drawing an audience in the hundreds to Taronga

Zoo to celebrate grandparents in NSW, GPD has expanded to a well-recognised and community

supported campaign that reached over 29 million Australians in 2014 alone. The establishment of

the GOTY awards - combined with a targeted media strategy - has garnered top-tier coverage across

prime-time television, print, radio and digital media every year since COTA NSW has coordinated the

project, allowing the Minister to showcase the NSW Government’s support for grandparents in NSW

GPD and to successfully highlight the Minister’s commitment to the ageing portfolio.

In parallel to this, the GPD community outreach strategy has successfully fostered a dedicated

grassroots base of community members who year after year engage with GPD by hosting their own

GPD events, applying for event grants, making nominations for the GOTY awards and taking part in

the GPD Facebook competition. By 2015, community engagement with these activities continued to

increase, signalling the enormous potential that the GPD campaign has as a mobilising point for

community action, intergenerational connections and as a starting point for community re-

engagement.