Millennium Corp
Millennium Corporation is a private investment firm focused on growing successful technology, telecommunications, and utilities businesses throughout the Pacific Rim.
With a presence across 18 markets and equity arrangements that include substantive and minority shareholders across privately owned, multinational corporations and financial institutions, Millennium Corp’s networks are unparalleled.
In April 2022, Vodafone New Zealand purchased a remaining 50% of Digital Mobile from Millennium, taking full ownership of its retail network for the first time. This was a significant divestment for Millennium and represented the “end of an era” for the company, which become synonymous with the brand in the industry.
Millennium engaged Porter Novelli New Zealand to support it through the transaction from a communications perspective to ensure strength of messaging, external positioning and alignment, while mitigating risk.
Impact
Scott Technology
Off the back of one of the most challenging years in its history, NZX-listed Scott Technology, engaged Porter Novelli to help bring its refreshed strategy and transformation journey to life through its Annual Results.
While the company’s financial performance was solid, Scott needed help to shift the narrative beyond results to share its vision, strategic direction, and commitment to innovation and to position the company as a New Zealand global success story.
Porter Novelli’s strategy was to wrap storytelling around Scott’s existing communications channels as well as use the new CEO as a vehicle to drive deeper, strategic conversations about its business with media.
Porter Novelli also used its current affairs and investor comms expertise to ensure that the CEO was well prepared for any potentially sticky media and shareholder topics and questions, as they might relate to Scott.
Impact
Pedigree, a Mars company
For young kids, one of the biggest challenges when learning to read is the anxiety that comes from stumbling over words or making mistakes in front of people. Grounded in multiple studies from the University of Lincoln, Pedigree’s Dogphonics books have been crafted to help pave the way for greater reading confidence by encouraging budding bookworms to read to their dogs.
The Pedigree Dogphonics books consists of five books that are carefully crafted stories by authors Levi Slavin and Rob Graves, for reading ages six through to nine.
Porter Novelli’s strategy to launch the books was to ensure that this didn’t just look like a marketing exercise, but a genuine attempt to support young children’s reading abilities. To do this we enlisted the support of a third-party endorsement from a recognised expert in child psychology – Dr Emma Woodward – to front the launch and add legitimacy to the science of storytelling.
Impact
Southern Cross
Southern Cross Healthcare conducts biannual research on the state of Aotearoa’s physical, emotional, and social health and wellbeing, capturing insights that reflect people’s different life stages.
Porter Novelli was briefed to support the launch of the 2022 Healthy Futures report, with a focus on media relations and profiling Chief Medical Officer, Dr Stephen Childs across mainstream media.
Porter Novelli conducted a deep dive into the research, pulling out key data points, and developing unique angles that captured attention in a market saturated by mental health and wellness stories.
We also support Southern Cross with content creation for LinkedIn to help amplify messages and news coverage driven by employees.
Impact
Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation
In 2021, the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, a Crown entity charged with managing the NZ Super Fund, engaged GRC Partners to identify key stakeholder expectations relevant to that organisation’s social license to operate.
Today, investors are increasingly looking beyond the bottom line. More and more, they expect the businesses in which they invest, and the fund managers they engage, to act ethically and in a genuinely sustainable fashion.
As a Crown entity, and with a mandate to adopt best practice portfolio management and avoid prejudice to New Zealand's reputation as a responsible member of the world community, the Guardians has always factored environmental, social and governance considerations into its investment decisions.
We worked with the Guardians to draw up a list of respondents. We prepared a questionnaire designed to elicit clear opinions on the Guardians’ performance as an investment manager and as a responsible investor, carried out the interviews, and wrote up an analysis of findings.
A sound understanding of how it was viewed by players in politics, business, finance, academia and government provided valuable context for the Guardians’ review of its responsible investment strategy.
Impact
OfficeMax New Zealand
OfficeMax has an ambitious 2025 sustainability strategy to address the top contributors to its Greenhouse Gas Emissions – and help play its part in speeding up New Zealand’s transition to a low carbon future.
As the business prepared to launch its 2021 Sustainability Report, Porter Novelli was briefed to help tell their story. But how do you stand out from the crowd and get cut through in media, while telling your story authentically (and without greenwashing)?
With Kiwis shopping online more than ever before due to COVID-19 lockdowns, Porter Novelli used OfficeMax’s investment in a new waste-reducing box-cutting machine as the perfect lead for news media. Was this the answer to people’s delivery waste problems?
Our strategy involved creating a bespoke opportunity for TVNZ’s Seven Sharp behind the scenes at OfficeMax’s distribution centre as well capturing our own newsworthy content and b-roll to share.
Impact
L'Oréal New Zealand
For over the past 24 years, the L’Oréal Corporate Foundation and UNESCO have been committed to increasing the number of women working in scientific research.
Today, only 33 per cent of researchers are women, with less than 25 per cent making up the most senior leadership positions. L’Oréal and UNESCO founded the For Women in Science programme in 1998 to promote the important role that women play in science.
Porter Novelli has supported L’Oréal to announce the New Zealand recipient of its annual fellowship for early career female scientists since 2020.
This year’s winner, Dr Essie Rodgers, is using the $25,000 prize to further her research into conservation, and the impacts of quality of waterways on mental health and wellbeing.
Porter Novelli worked closely with Dr Essie to understand her unique story and develop a bespoke storytelling programme to build L’Oréal New Zealand’s reputation as a sustainable and ethical business, that champions the role of women in science.
Impact