The brief

Global Women engaged Wright Communications to raise its profile and that of its Chief Executive Officer through media coverage. The Global Women brand was known in some circles but not widely understood, and its new CEO was a relatively new voice for gender and ethnic diversity in leadership.

The Wright approach

Wright Communications developed a relationship with the Global Women team based on trust and a deep understanding of its mission and objectives. Going further than our initial remit, Wright Communications now supports Global Women in many facets of its day-to-day activities.

In the past two years, we have supported Global Women to extend its media presence, create content for its revised membership collateral, played a key role in creation of brand and membership videos, and have contributed regularly to strategy planning, campaign development, issues management, website copywriting, social media strategy, and event promotion for both Global Women and its affiliate, Champions for Change.

Highlights include co-producing the Kiwi dads campaign to promote equal access to parental leave, and providing tangible support to manage media partnerships around Global Women’s One Day for Change, International Women’s Day and Inclusion Research events, resulting in extensive, widely read coverage in New Zealand’s major media outlets, STUFF and NZME.

Wright Communications also pitched and facilitated media interviews related to key news stories in 2018 and 2019, including issues around the NZX diversity data release, International Women’s Day in March and the Suffrage Day 125 celebrations in September. Media pitching around these calendar events resulted significant coverage across major print, online, radio and TV outlets.

In 2018 and 2019, Wright Communications stepped in to fill the role of communications manager during the incumbent’s absences.

Global Women engaged Wright Communications to manage its social media pages for almost a month in 2018; during this time, Wright Communications tested strategies to increase followers and engagement on Global Women’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages. More than just focusing on numbers, Wright Communications provided Global Women with a roadmap for social media growth and engagement at the conclusion of the project, and exceeded targets for Twitter and LinkedIn.

In 2019, Wright Communications co-produced the Kiwi Dads campaign with Global Women, including choosing the Kiwi dads subjects, conducting interviews, writing materials and managing all media coverage. The campaign was featured on all major media sites in New Zealand has already spurred policy change to improve access to parental leave for fathers at some of our largest corporate entities.

An integral part of Global Women’s success is its relationships with its members and partners. Its more than 300 members are powerful women who lead various organisations around New Zealand. Wright Communications has contributed to revision of the Global Women membership experience, from crafting its criteria to creating wording for the member web pages. Wright Communications even stepped in to interview these high-profile women for a video about membership, which has featured at various events and online.

Champions for Change are a group of 54 CEOs and Chairs of New Zealand’s leading companies who represent more than 100,000 employees. Wright Communications has been integral to Global Women’s communications with this group, writing core pieces of communications, messaging, talking points and reports that can be used by group members in their own activities.

Understanding the “voice” of Champions for Change and Global Women has allowed us to provide efficient, creative services when needed. Our work has also contributed to the vital relationship between the core Global Women team and their partners and members and to the advancement of their combined aims.