Specialised storytelling skills getting spectacular results for Alzheimers Auckland

What excites us as Inkers is telling stories. Whether that’s telling tales of our weekend shenanigans on a Monday morning, or writing compelling stories for our clients, when we are storytelling, we are in our element.

However, the true icing on the cake for us is when the tale is disseminated in such a way that lots of eyes see our hard work – in magazines, on TV, in newspapers, and on social media platforms.

Recently Alzheimers Auckland, one of our not-for-profit clients, hosted their annual fundraising initiative, Walk for Dementia. This is a cause close to our hearts, as we truly believe in the effort that Alzheimers Auckland puts into bettering the lives of people with dementia and their supporters.

We kicked off our PR campaign by having a chat to Sir William (Bill) Birch, who became a patron for Alzheimers Auckland earlier this year, and would lead the walk, in honour of his late wife Rosa. Rosa had Alzheimer’s Disease, and Bill told us the story of their journey together with dementia, and how much Alzheimers Auckland had helped. 

We then created a heart-warming press release about Bill, and why it was so important to him to be involved with Alzheimers Auckland. We chose New Zealand Women’s Weekly as the best outlet to share this story with, which has a circulation of 53,000, and a substantial PR dollar value.

The editor was only too happy to feature Bill, and a reporter interviewed him and wrote a beautiful story about Rosa and Bill, and Bill’s dedication to the fundraiser. It was such a thrill when we saw it printed – the photos were lovely, and the story encouraged people to attend the walk, which is exactly what we wanted.

We also secured publicity in local newspapers, Happyzine, social media platforms, Voxy, and on online event websites. We were really pleased with the results our publicity campaign achieved – even the dreary, drizzly weather on the day of the walk couldn’t dampen our spirits!

This fabulous campaign was straight off the back of our successful publicity campaign achieved for the Alzheimers Auckland’s Annual Symposium, an educational fundraising event.

It was our goal to encourage people to attend the event, so we focussed on the riveting professionals who were booked in to speak about their field of expertise. We constructed press releases and pitched to various media outlets that we believed would be the most beneficial. They were snapped up by the media and gained nationwide coverage. We reckon achieving 10 quality articles, as well as publicity on event websites was a fantastic result – especially while we were beginning to implement the Walk for Dementia campaign as well!

We now have the Alzheimers Auckland Quiz Night to look forward to (on October 20), as well our continued work to recruit runners to fundraise for Alzheimers Auckland while taking part in the Auckland Marathon on October 30. We can’t wait to keep producing great results for this amazing organisation – we will keep you updated!