Beyond the Final Score
Does it really matter who won the competition? Or which player scored the most points? Some would argue that it does, but in the world of amateur sports, there is much more to consider when you’re trying to generate a media story. That’s the message our colleague, Sean Lewis, delivered to Provincial Sport Organizations (PSO) at the Sport Nova Scotia Subway Series luncheon this week when discussing effective media relations.
Event attendees were provided with an overview of the media landscape and advice on approaching communications and media relations strategically to achieve their organizational goals and objectives. They were challenged to consider the human connections and personal stories within sport when approaching their next media relations opportunity. Yes, there is a winner of a competition, but there are also many stories among the competitors and volunteers that resonate more with people than results and statistics. Communications are fundamentally about human connections.
Annual State of the Province Address: December 7th, 2011
MT&L has sponsored the Premier’s annual State of the Province address since the event’s inception. Hosted by the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, this year, the event will be held on December 7th, at the Marriott Harbourfront Hotel. More information and registration details can be found at the Halifax Chamber website.
MT&L Congratulates the Greater Halifax Partnership
The Greater Halifax Partnership recently received five national and international awards for excellence as an economic development group. This includes a first place 2011 Marketing Canada Award from the Economic Development Association of Canada (EDAC) for their interactive online annual report Being Greater Halifax, developed by MT&L.
Additionally, the organization was named one of the Top 10 Canadian Economic Development Groups for the 4th year in a row by Site Selection Magazine’s yearly Canada Best to Invest report, and was ranked the top Canadian economic development agency in the Web 2.0 and Business Attraction - Canadian Cities Online Marketing Index 2011.
We’re excited to share our client’s good news and would like to extend our sincere congratulations to the Greater Halifax Partnership.
MT&L Consultants Complete IAP2 Training
Last month, MT&L consultants in Halifax and Saint John completed training through the International Association for Public Participation. The course examined methods to plan and implement public participation projects, focusing on strategies to manage and understand emotion and outrage. The session was instructive in reviewing best practices as well as the team exercises, and useful for our extensive stakeholder and community engagement work.
We’d like to extend our thanks to the course instructor, Stephani Roy McCallum. Find out more about IAP2.
MT&L Wins International Creative Awards
MT&L was recently awarded two 2011 Summit Creative Awards, presented through the Summit International Awards organization. These awards are chosen from thousands of submissions, from over 25 countries each year.
This year, MT&L was awarded bronze for the Sobeys employee communication video, “Sobeys Extreme Makeover”, and silver in the Public Service Announcement category, for “Body Language”, a video created for New Brunswick Victim Services.
We are pleased to accept these awards and celebrate the great work we are proud to develop for our clients.
Leave No Vet Behind
MT&L recently worked with law firm McInnes Cooper, to create a website supporting the more than 4,200 medically released disabled veterans. These veterans have had their long term disability income replacement payments (known as SISIP) reduced by the value of their pain and suffering disability pension.
The result of the claw back is that the most disabled veterans receive very little or nothing from the SISIP plan, which they have paid into their entire career. Over the remainder of his or her lifetime, the claw back costs the most severely disabled veteran hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A class action suit led by McInnes Cooper is underway to ensure that Canadian veterans receive what they deserve from the government. MT&L created www.LeaveNoVetBehind.ca, where Canadians can learn about the issue, the suit, and most importantly, take action.
Launch of CanadianShipsStartHere!
You may have heard about the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS). This is a groundbreaking federal government program that will determine which of four Canadian shipyards will build the next generation of naval vessels. This program will not just impact the navy; depending on the yard chosen to build the majority of these ships, the regional and national economic impact to Canada is huge. MT&L was asked to help develop this campaign to tell the story of Halifax's Shipyard (the best Canadian-owned yard in the running), and how it is best suited to win this bid. We have just launched a website, http://CanadianShipsStartHere.ca, that lets Canadians show their support for our bid.
Our shipbuilders are ready and their expertise is unmatched. Not only have we created this campaign for a client, we support Halifax Shipyard as the best bid for Canada. Please help us spread the word by:
- Visiting http://CanadianShipsStartHere.ca and signing the declaration.
- Telling your friends, family and colleagues across Canada to do the same - in an email, on Facebook and on Twitter.
Marathon by the Sea Sporting Brand New Logo
The countdown is officially on for the 2011 Ben’s Smart Marathon by the Sea in Saint John – Tuesday June 14 marked two months until race day, and an event was held at the finish line in Rockwood Park to note the occasion.
Title sponsor Ben’s Smart Bread was announced and the marathon’s new MT&L-designed visual identity made its debut.
MT&L is proud to support the 2011 Ben’s Smart Marathon by the Sea.
Read more here: http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/search/article/1415076
National awards gala in Saint John nets Atlantic Canadian winners
MT&L Public Relations Limited congratulates its clients, the New Brunswick Real Estate Association and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation - Atlantic Region, on their recent award wins with the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS). Each of these Atlantic Canadian organizations was honoured with an award marking excellence in public relations and communications, having been selected among a significant number of high quality entries from across Canada.
The New Brunswick Real Estate Association (NBREA) received a gold award of excellence in external communications - government relations - for its property tax election strategy and campaign entitled Let's Give Them Something to Talk About. The campaign was designed to ensure property taxes became a primary election issue during the 2010 New Brunswick Provincial election.
A bronze award of excellence in external communications - advocacy and social marketing - was presented to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF) for their Tour for the Cure campaign submission entitled Driving the Message Home. The centrepiece of this campaign was a big pink bus that travelled throughout Atlantic Canada for the purpose of promoting breast health through regular screening and early breast cancer detection.
Saint John, NB, was the host city for this year's CPRS national conference, from June 5-7, and the awards presentation took place last night at the Saint John Trade and Convention Centre.
Shear Wind Goes Online
Pictou East MLA Clarrie MacKinnon (right) congratulates President & CEO of Shear Wind Inc. Mike Magnus (left) on Shear Wind's success
On May 9, 2011 close to 200 community members, government leaders and project partners gathered at the top of Brown’s Mountain in Pictou County NS to celebrate Shear Wind’s Glen Dhu Wind Farm Opening. As Nova Scotia’s largest wind farm, Glen Dhu will help the province meet its 2015 renewable energy targets. The 62.1MW of wind energy produced is expected to represent 35 per cent of Nova Scotia Power’s 2010 Renewable Energy Standard (RES) target and is anticipated to produce energy to power 18,000 homes. MT&L is proud to have been Shear Wind’s partner for the past four years, working on community, stakeholder and media relations in support of Shear Wind’s success.
2011 Atlantic Gemstones Awards
The City of Saint John, Northern Pulp and NewPage Port Hawksebury together with MT&L Public Relations received top honours at the 2011 Atlantic Gemstones Awards ceremony which celebrate excellence in public relations.
At the awards ceremony held in Halifax, Friday, May 13, the City of Saint John received a Jasper Award of Excellence in the print category for Insight Magazine - a magazine for Saint John citizens and businesses sharing information on City services, policies and initiatives.
Northern Pulp Nova Scotia received a Jasper Award of Excellence in the electronic and social media category for the company’s corporate website which launched in 2010 to communicate with external stakeholders and employees. The website, designed to be a first step in telling Northern Pulp’s story, proved to be a valuable tool with over 40,000 page views in its first 10 months.
In the Amethyst Award Category, which celebrates excellence in strategic communications, NewPage Port Hawkesbury received an award of merit in the external communications category for its ground-breaking work to achieve regulatory approval on a $208 million biomass project. The team developed a strategy to help communicate clearly and directly with stakeholders, clarify any public misperceptions, and create an environment where informed dialogue could occur.
Congratulations to the clients and MT&L teams who worked on these programs.
Why New Brunswick?
There are a lot of wonderful reasons to choose to live in New Brunswick and these reasons are the foundations to building an even better New Brunswick. One of the ways we can start to build a great future for New Brunswick is by talking about why we love our province, and all the things that set it apart from the rest. We should be sharing these reasons and building on each other’s enthusiasm for living here, shouldn’t we?
We thought so. MT&L partnered with FUSION Saint John to create WhyNB.com - a website that asks former, current or aspiring New Brunswickers why they’ve chosen to live, work and play in New Brunswick.
WhyNB was created to be a space for people to share this confidence, positivity and pride with each other, and build on this momentum to build a better New Brunswick. The site is based on the idea of “Building Foundations”, the theme of the 7th annual Faces of FUSION networking dinner, which was held on May 6 in Saint John, with special guest Premier David Alward.
Insights into LinkedIn
Recently, LinkedIn announced that they have reached 100 million members worldwide – with a new person joining every second. This makes LinkedIn the fastest growing professional social network on earth.
We are excited to announce that next month, in support of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, we are sponsoring an event with Jonathan Lister, Managing Director of LinkedIn Canada and Latin America. Jonathan will be discussing the success and relevance of LinkedIn, along with how social media can be leveraged to market personal brand. For more information about the event, or to purchase tickets, please visit: http://LinkedInHalifax.com.
CPRS National Conference: The Power of PR
This year’s annual national conference of the Canadian Public Relations Society takes place June 5-7 in Saint John, NB, and our partner, NATIONAL, is again a key sponsor. We’re equally excited that our colleagues Kevin McCann and Leo Artalejo will be featured workshop speakers.
Long Live Common Sense: Building a Digital Strategy
Kevin McCann
Vice-President
MT&L Public Relations
It’s about social media. No, wait; it’s about a killer website. No, no…it’s about mobile. Well, we know it’s all of those things, but how do you bring it all together into a cohesive, persuasive, engaging digital strategy? How do you go from PR message to real engagement? What’s the social piece? Does email fit in? What about mobile? Should I tweet? What about FourSquare? In this session, Kevin McCann — an online advocacy specialist recently returned to live in Atlantic Canada from over a decade in Washington, D.C. — will share his experiences and reverse-engineer successful digital campaigns. He’ll use case studies to explore the tactics of great campaigns (both within and outside his experience), looking at the entire digital footprint and how it can knit together different web tactics to tell a compelling story, galvanize supporters and meet objectives.
Make your Audience the Hero: How to use stories to inspire and motivate the people who matter most
Leo Artalejo
Senior Counsel
MT&L Public Relations Ltd.
Every one of us is living and telling our own stories. Media tools today let us tweet and text and type and call so that we’re broadcasting our story as we live it, and letting other people live it right along with us. This session will focus on the value of storytelling, and the skills and techniques required to tell your organization’s stories clearly and engagingly to your intended audiences, no matter what communications platform you use.
Learn more about the 2011 CPRS National Conference
Play to Give UPDATE
Thank you for supporting our feature charities and non-profits by playing to give! We've done the math and sent out the donations on your behalf to Pathways Spryfield, PALS New Brunswick, QEII Foundation, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and Beaverbrook Art Gallery. We made sure to say these donations were thanks to the hundreds of our clients, partners and friends who played to give.
People kept playing the game (a lot!) past our December 25th donation deadline, so we extended the deadline to include donations from everyone who played. From now on, you can play the game, but to donate to any of the great organizations, please contact them directly.
Thanks for playing. We hope you had as much fun as we did.
Grab your hat and play to give
MT&L is privileged to work with some wonderful businesses, charities and non-profit organizations that are helping build stronger communities throughout the Maritimes.
To complete our holiday donation for 2010, we sought help from our clients and community partners and friends. We’ve selected five organizations to share our donation. Every time someone plays this game, they get to choose one of the groups to receive a share. We’ll keep playing and tallying until December 25th - so help us give to our community!
Man, we love this place
Nova Scotia is absolutely the best place to live in the world. It’s magical, amazing, and beautiful: even transcendently so. We can’t imagine living anywhere else.
It’s not perfect - nowhere is. But it’s really, really, really freaking awesome. We want to talk about our province in superlatives. We want to stop complaining. We want to be strong, and positive, and loud - we want to shout it from the loudest internet:
This is why we love it here. And this. And this.
Tell us why you love it here. In fact, tell the world: http://novascotiaftw.com