Scaling Awareness & Storytelling for a Leading Sydney Girls School: An Always-On PR
Shannon Muscolino
PR & Communications Account Director
Ardent
At Ardent, we are always willing to challenge the status quo. Our PR efforts for Loreto Normanhurst are proof of this, with the 2023 campaign delivering dynamic storytelling opportunities and real brand impact for our client.
Media impressions increased from 4.05 million to 7.9 million, up by
%
AVE rose from $187k to $742k, an increase of
%
Cost ($) per thousand impressions in 2023 was
The Business
As a leading independent girls’ school in the heart of Sydney’s north, Loreto Normanhurst first approached Ardent’s PR team in 2021 to help drive media opportunities in support of several alumnae chasing gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
Leveraging the school’s over 125 years of tradition in educating girls, award-winning model of learning, extensive extra-curricular program and a strong sense of faith and community, Ardent has successfully scaled Loreto Normanhurst’s PR activity from one small campaign to a dynamic always-on approach delivering thought-leadership and case study opportunities across various media outlets.
Loreto Normanhurst has partnered with Ardent for 3 years, and in that time, we have been able to significantly scale performance and meet objectives through a robust PR strategy and ongoing focus on storytelling that matters.
The Challenge
Following the initial success of our 2021 Tokyo Olympics campaign that saw Ardent secure several local, metro, and national media opportunities, Ardent approached the school with further proactive media interest and the opportunity to continue in-market messaging.
Our challenge was to showcase the benefit of an always-on approach to PR and provide strategic guidance on how we could continue to embed a meaningful PR partnership.
Our foundational work included challenging Loreto Normanhurst to think bigger when it came to profiling educational thought leadership, and positive stories from within the current cohort and across the school’s incredible network of alumane.
In their first year of our always-on partnership, we reached an audience of 4.05 million across 52 placements with the majority in local and trade publications. A great result but we challenged ourselves to do more, with our emphasis in 2023 to seed out higher-value media placements in top-tier publications.
Our Process
Entering 2023 and tasked to secure interest and positive features from top-tier publications, Ardent’s PR team worked in tandem with Loreto Normanhurst to build a strategy of editorial opportunities underpinned by newsjacking, building media relationships, and impactful storytelling.
Underpinning the success of the strategy was a clear and defined understanding of areas of storytelling focus, including the growth of Sydney-based boarding, the rise in ChatGPT and implications for educators, increasing STEM participation for girls, deep learning and curriculum-based immersion opportunities.
Our PR team was then able to align these areas of focus into timely and media-relevant opportunities. For example, sourcing a timely parent and student case study and statistics around Loreto Normanhurst’s growing community of Sydney-based boarders in time for National Boarding Week in May, and securing a print and digital feature in the Sydney Morning Herald and syndicated across all eastern seaboard metro mastheads.
The always-on approach ensured our PR activity was agile, forward-planned and seeking the next big PR story opportunity. We conducted regular WIP meetings to facilitate a seamless flow of information and potential story angles including an insight into Loreto’s status as the champion behind the formation of schoolgirl rowing in NSW.
We thrust into this opportunity, conducting briefing sessions with the father-daughter duo behind the first team of right, Micheal and Katrina Rowan, pre-filming and subsequent seeding of the story to key media targets. Honing in on the sports niche, we were able to secure a specialist feature across ABC’s multi-platform sports offering including ABC News Breakfast and ABC Grandstand.
The Results
From humble beginnings as a small 3-month campaign for Loreto Normanhurst alumnae Olympics achievements to an ongoing always-on PR presence, Ardent has truly challenged, delivered, and evolved Loreto Normanhurst’s PR presence.
In 2023, we achieved over 7.9 million impressions, an increase of 97% year on year. We also generated an ad-value equivalency (AVE) of $742k, an increase of 296% YoY, across 65 placements.
These metrics indicate that although the increase in placements secured was moderate, the incredible growth in impression and AVE indicate the achievement of significantly higher value placements – our key metric for 2023.
We were able to secure several media placements across the Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, 7NEWS, ABC News Breakfast and 2GB, as well as several local and trade press features.