The Pressies 2020: Best Sponsorship or Media Partnership

In celebration of the country’s most impressive PR, experiential and social media campaigns, StopPress chats to all the winners at The Pressies 2020. Fuse and Meridian Energy took home gold for ‘AMPED Giving Kids the Power to Play’ in the Best Sponsorship or Media Partnership category. 

StopPress: We’ve all had a crazy year of complete unpredictability. What has this year taught you about sponsorship and media partnerships?

Gina McKinnon, managing director, Fuse: I think this is probably a time we can legitimately use the word “pivot”. Covid forced us to adapt to a whole new playing field overnight. We created a daily TV show called AMPED that gave kids the power to play within their lockdown bubble, burning off energy and allowing parents a chance to recover some of theirs. The project was a team effort between Meridian Energy, FUSE/OMD, BCFD, MediaWorks and KidsCan and we produced 17 x 30-minute high energy celebrity-packed episodes, a show website and dedicated Fan Zone, all under strict Level 4 restrictions.

We conceived a whole new TV show and were on-air within five days. Yes, you read that correctly… FIVE DAYS! We learnt that we can produce high quality content in a short time frame if there is buy in from all parties. It has also shown us that if you have a great honest working relationship with your clients, agencies and media partners and are prepared to try new things anything is possible.

StopPress: What did this project mean to your business and how did your agency partnership help you deliver?

Michael Healy, chief marketing officer, Meridian Energy

There was a real leap of faith needed… doing something unheard of, during a time not experienced before, made possible by the fact that from the Board to the Exec to Marketing and beyond, we all shared a desire to do good. With a need to be highly responsive and working to ambitious timelines, it was all hands on deck. Being a company spread across many sites around New Zealand, engaging the whole team was a top priority. 

With the added challenge of level 4 lockdown restrictions we had to be creative. Working with our agencies we had regular briefing and feedback sessions, all by video conference, where we asked staff and our agencies for input on show content, who they would like to see, what was working for their families during lockdown and ran AMPED related competitions. The results speak for themselves. 

For more winner interviews from The Pressies 2020, click here.

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