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

Council on the Ageing Australia

Media & PR, Strategic Communications

Essential has managed public relations for COTA Australia since 2015. As a peak consumer body for older Australians, COTA sought to establish itself as an influential voice in the sector and secure positive national policy outcomes for its members.

Essential collaborates with COTA to provide timely and authoritative responses to emerging media stories to ensure COTA’s unique perspective is always at the centre of the media conversation. COTA is also a member of the National Aged Care Alliance, for which Essential has run the award-winning Age Well election campaign in the lead up to the last 3 Federal elections. In this way, we’ve helped establish COTA as the go-to voice for all issues affecting older Australians and won significant aged care reform for older Australians.

COTA’s prominence in the national debate make it an exceptional advocate. Essential helps develop media strategy for election platforms, annual conferences and Royal Commissions, putting policies affecting older Australians in the spotlight. COTA has closely influenced government policies on consumer protection, aged care, superannuation, taxation and health. Through a strong public relations strategy, COTA secures legal protections for some of Australia’s most vulnerable people.

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.

The Ration Challenge

Act for Peace

Media & PR, Strategic Communications, Not-for-profit

The Act for Peace Ration Challenge is a fundraising initiative where Australians live on the exact same rations as a refugee for a week to raise awareness and funds to support refugees living in camps around the world, as well as Act for Peace’s other humanitarian, sustainable development and advocacy programs. In 2017, Act for Peace commissioned Essential to deliver and implement a communications strategy with the objective of increasing brand awareness and boosting participation in the Ration Challenge by achieving exposure in key target earned media.

Between March and June 2017, Essential implemented a four-phased integrated communications plan, utilising key messages, case studies and pre-existing digital marketing content, to generate media coverage across print, broadcast and online media.

The Ration Challenge received widespread coverage across mainstream broadcast and print media, including coverage on Studio 10, ABC News Breakfast, Triple J and a plethora of other stories online and in local print media. Triple J’s breakfast presenters were even brave enough to complete the weeklong challenge and they shared their experience on air over the course of the week. Total media circulation almost doubled from the previous year.

In addition to traditional proactive media relations, Essential provided Act for Peace with on-call advice for campaign trips abroad, reactive media for political developments and assisted Act for Peace in designing and implementing an ambassador outreach strategy.

Essential’s work contributed to the Challenge’s success which saw more than 14,000 people sign up to take the Ration Challenge, raising $3,253,982, which is enough to feed 11,299 refugees for an entire year.

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.