Our work gets results and we make organisations stronger along the way.

Smart Start

Goodstart Early Learning

Digital Design & Development, Creative Production, Strategic Communications, Union / Alliance

In March 2017, the Australian Parliament passed changes to childcare funding, helping over one million Australian families with the cost of childcare.

Over the last three years we’ve been working in partnership with Goodstart Early Learning through the Smart Start campaign to advocate for affordable, quality early learning for all Australia’s children. The Smart Start campaign launched with a small seed list of families, a digital hub with resources, videos with experts and training sessions with educators around the country.

Fast-forward three years and the campaign is 26,021 supporters strong, with more than 10,000 supporters taking more than three direct actions to implement change.

We’ve produced countless online actions targeting decision makers and infographics raising awareness of the value of early learning. We’ve engaged families on the ground in Goodstart centres and reached hundreds of thousands of Australians through digital advertising.

The focus of 2017 was to make sure Australian families were aware of the proposed changes to the childcare rebate and benefit. It was also to ensure the Federal Government implemented the measures promised in the previous budget. We targeted senators and MPs and produced countless infographics and case study stories from the Smart Start community to keep supporters engaged.

The outcome? A $2.5 billion childcare funding package to make early learning more affordable for Australian families.

Never Alone

Luke Batty Foundation

Media & PR, Crisis Management, Digital Design & Development, Not-for-profit

Rosie Batty’s ‘Never Alone’ campaign was launched on Luke Batty’s 13th birthday in June 2015 and built an online community of over 80,000 people.

Never Alone was driven through the eyes of victims. The campaign was a supporter community that stood with Rosie to support her in the community and the corridors of power through a variety of awareness raising activity and targeted interventions in the public debate. Integrating media, government relations and online strategy, the campaign took Rosie’s supporters on a journey of increasing engagement in support of her advocacy.

Never Alone has helped deliver significant policy wins including a commitment from all states and territories for respectful relationships education and increased funding for frontline services.

Most recently, Never Alone forced safety problems with the family law system into the mainstream debate. Rosie delivered the ‘Justice for Kids’ petition directly into the hands of the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, asking for a commitment to create a system that puts the safety of children first. Since then, significant progress has been won in the form of wide ranging inquiries and a commitment to end the direct cross-examination of victims by abusers.

Never Alone also integrated fundraising, with the ‘Luke’s Champions’ monthly giving program helping to fund the on-going work of the Foundation.

Never Alone was wound up in February 2018 to allow Rosie time to rest and recover after a grueling four years in the public eye after Luke’s murder.

Fight for the Reef

WWF/AMCS

Digital Design & Development, Creative Production, Strategic Communications, Not-for-profit

In December 2013 Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt approved plans to expand the Abbott Point coal port. In response, two of Australia’s largest environmental organisations WWF and Australian Marine Conservation Society approached Essential with the dream to run a large scale public campaign to stop the expansion and protect the Reef from further industrialisation. Thus, Fight for the Reef was born.

Armed with research that showed 89% of Australians consider protecting the Great Barrier Reef our most important environmental issue, Essential built and deployed an integrated campaign to build a community of Australians committed to protecting the Reef and advocating on its behalf.

Through the three-year campaign Fight for the Reef grew to one of Australia’s largest and most influential supporter-driven movements, with over 260,000 supporters. Campaign activity played a key role in achieving a ban on new dumping of dredge spoil in the Marine National Park Area, stopping the expansion of three coal ports and protecting important parts of the Reef coastline, include Cape York and the Fitzroy Delta, from further destruction.

Key to the campaign’s success has been Essential’s multi-pronged research-tested strategy and narrative, focused on the economic and employment impacts of industrialisation on the Reef. Essential rolled this messaging out across a number of online and offline executions including three TVCs, outdoor advertising, print ads, radio ads, digital display ads, media relations activity and more.

Campaign highlights:

• Built a list of 260,000 supporters from across the globe
• Built a 85,000 strong Facebook following, with content that routinely reached more than 1 million Facebook users
• Free media activity that reached more than 50 million people world-wide and achieved over $20 million in ASR value.

The Rail, Tram & Bus Union

Rail Tram & Bus Union

Media & PR, Crisis Management, Digital Design & Development, Creative Production, Strategic Communications, Union / Alliance

The Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) NSW has engaged Essential to assist with its full suite of communications needs for a number of years.

From research and strategy through to earned media relations, member communications and social media, Essential has worked with the RTBU to successfully deliver a full service offering that has helped the union influence the state’s transport decisions, as well as ensuring its membership is kept well-informed on the latest news impacting them.

Member communications is key in a union, and having a membership as diverse as the RTBU’s presents unique challenges. But by working with Essential, the union has met the challenge of providing its members in its various divisions with dynamic, relevant, timely and popular communications through a range of tailored communications channels.

Having Essential’s team on hand to provide strategic 24/7 communications support and advice means that you’ll often see the RTBU in the free media, strategically pushing for better outcomes for its members and commuters at large.

The Protect Penalty Rates Campaign

The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association

Media & PR, Crisis Management, Digital Design & Development, Creative Production, Strategic Communications, Union / Alliance

To stand up for the livelihoods of some of the country’s lowest paid workers, Essential has worked to support Australia’s largest private sector union, the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) in their campaign to protect penalty rates.

Working together to develop a communications and digital strategy that seeks to educate, inform and mobilise supporters into taking action, the Protect Penalty Rates campaign has created a powerful public movement of 42,000 active supporters and over 4,500 on Facebook who are willing to stand up against cuts to their take home pay.

This powerful supporter base will prove invaluable in campaigning to protect and restore penalty rates in the lead up to the 2019 Federal Election.

Save Our Recycling

Local Government NSW

Media & PR, Digital Design & Development, Creative Production, Strategic Communications, Government

Local councils in NSW pay an annual waste levy to the state government for landfill use, which is absorbed into its revenue. Local Government NSW, the peak body for LGAs in the state, wanted to see that money beneficially reinvested and extract policy commitments in the lead up to the 2019 state election.

Essential audience research found strong support for spending the levy on recycling. We developed the Save Our Recycling campaign to build public support for this proposition. The campaign was driven by residents and waste officers across the state who became grassroots advocates for this policy change. With a campaign website, growing supporter base, a series of campaign ‘moments’ and strategic media relations, we put waste management on the election agenda.

The campaign drew policy commitments from two major parties and applied public pressure through an election petition that attracted over 12,000 signatures. Through strategic media relations highlighting the large amounts of recycling that goes into landfill, the need to invest in onshore recycling facilities became a prominent issue in public debate until well after the election. The Save Our Recycling campaign changed the conversation on recycling, and LGNSW became a prominent public advocate for its members and for residents across NSW.

Renew Our Libraries

NSW Libraries Association and Local Government NSW

Media & PR, Digital Design & Development, Creative Production, Strategic Communications, Government, Union / Alliance

The NSW Public Libraries Association and the state peak body for local governments, Local Government NSW, engaged Essential to develop and execute a campaign advocating for increased investment in public libraries.

The Renew Our Libraries campaign activated local libraries and their communities, changing the conversation about the purpose and function of local libraries. We reframed libraries not only as places to borrow books, but as crucial support systems which residents turn to when they have trouble accessing services or completing administrative tasks like taxes. Libraries were seen to fill a gap in services and provide help to those who need it most.

The campaign won the support of over 100 councils in NSW and secured major state funding commitments from across the political spectrum. As a result of the Renew Our Libraries campaign, the NSW Government is now providing an additional $60 million in funding over a 4 year period for public libraries in NSW.

Everybody’s Home

Media & PR, Digital Design & Development, Creative Production, Strategic Communications, Not-for-profit, Union / Alliance

The Everybody’s Home campaign united a coalition of housing, homelessness and community sector peak bodies in a campaign that redefined the housing affordability debate in Australia. In the lead up to the Victorian and NSW state elections and the 2019 Federal election, Everybody’s Home sought to put homelessness and housing policy at the top of the agenda.

Essential undertook extensive stakeholder and social research to design the campaign, producing tested messaging, a campaign website, supporter collateral, and promotional materials to mobilise everyday Australians and organisations behind a single goal: to fix Australia’s broken housing system. Campaign communications are integrated across media, offline supporter actions and political lobbying activity by partner organisations.

Since its launch in March 2018, Everybody’s Home has amassed over 30,000 supporters and 200 partner organisations from unions, to local government, to Australia’s biggest charities. The campaign’s asks are endorsed by two major political parties and have won better renter’s rights in NSW and Victoria. Everybody’s Home helped unite a fragmented sector and continues to keep the housing crisis, and its solutions, at the centre of public debate.

The Australian Housing Monitor

Per Capita

Research, Digital Design & Development

The Australian Housing Monitor (conducted for Per Capita) is a large, nationally-representative survey covering public experiences and attitudes toward housing related issues. it is a key source of information on what Australians are thinking about an issue generally seen as amongst the most important facing Australia today, allowing many demographic comparisons including contrasting the views of tenants and property investors. View it here.