3. Last night’s poll
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
A day to celebrate
being Australian
Unites/Brings us
together as
Australians
A day for family
and friends
It's a public
holiday
Recognises our
diversity and
values
Celebrates the
founding of our
nation
Invasion/Survival
Day
Other
Reasons we think it's important to celebrate Australia Day
6. How are we going?
• 93% of Australians consider Australia Day to be our
most important national celebration
• 78% of Australians celebrated Australia Day in some
way in 2013
• About a quarter of all Australians attended an
organised event.
7. How are we going?
• The majority of Australians have consistently
positive attitudes towards Australia Day.
• Attitudes appear to be driven by two factors:
– A need for belonging and being part of a
community
– A need for entertainment
8. How are we going?
• People are participating strongly in Australia Day but
don’t always feel an emotional connection to the
day, or feel that there is any strong ‘tradition’
attached to it
12. Key Messages
Tagline
Celebrate what’s great
Primary key message
On Australia Day we come together as a nation to
celebrate Australia and being Australian
13. Key Messages
Sub messages
• Let’s celebrate all the great things about Australia: for example our sense of community, our
determined spirit, our support for each other when times are tough, our fair go attitude, our
diversity, and our democracy.
• Australia Day is a day to reflect on our national journey: acknowledge our past, reflect on our
present and look together to our future.
• Australia Day is a day for all Australians.
• On Australia Day, let’s recommit to making Australia an even better place.
• Australia Day is more than a public holiday
• Family, fun and free
Hi everyone, I really hope that you’ve been enjoying the conference so far, and that there’s been some useful information that you can take back with you when you go home. It’s so great we’ve all been able to come together to network and also to talk about Australia Day and what we all do. It’s been so interesting to hear about all the different ways you all work on and celebrate our national day, and also to hear all your stories- thanks for bringing along your mementoes and sharing your highlights as well, there’s definitely been some crackers!<POSSIBILITY TO ENTER IN A VIDEO ONE FROM BUCKY HERE> We have such a great breadth of knowledge and diversity of experience in this room. Diversity. It’s a good word to describe Australia Day. Because we all come together as a nation to participate in our national day, but we all bring with us our own personal feelings and ideas about why we celebrate. After all, there are 23 million different ways to celebrate Australia Day… Speaking of the reasons we celebrate, you’ll remember that last night we did a poll at the dinner.... and now the results are in! <PUT IN THE POLL RESULTS>
Compare Polls So what about the rest of Australia- how do our results compare to the general population? Well let’s consider some research we conducted a couple of years ago to get a comparison.
Add<enter info> Quite interesting really, but it does dig a little under the surface of what people think Australia Day is for, why we celebrate on 26 January. And it’s interesting to consider that within the context of what we promote about Australia Day. So firstly. Let’s go back and look over our goals. in some analysis here!!
What we do At the National Australia Day Council, and for the whole Australia Day National Network, we consider our key focus: to inspire national pride and spirit to enrich the life of the nation. What does this mean in practice? We focus on three key outcome areas- participation, meaning, and recognition. Participation Unite all Australians through celebration. MeaningPromote the meaning of Australia Day. RecognitionAcknowledge active citizenship and achievement. Recognition is something that we all do– at a local level with citizen of the year programs and also active citizenship programs for schools...and at the National Level with the Australian of the Year Awards, which you were all here for the launch of nominations this morning. So I want to put this to the side for moment. So I’d like to move on to participation- how are we going in that space?
How are we going?We have conducted research that shows us that: 93% of Australians consider Australia Day to be our most important national celebration95% of respondents have consistently positive attitudes towards Australia Day. We also know that (participation):78% of Australians celebrated Australia Day in some way in 2013Which is a HUGE number. That means that almost 18 million Australians were out there on 26 January. I’d equate that to how many people fit into the MCG or something, but it would actually be getting quite ridiculous. So moving forward- Interestingly, young people were far more likely to celebrate (94%) and it was also higher for those aged 25-34 (86%) so it was the older age groups who were less likely to plan to participate. About a quarter of all Australians attended an organised event. . . like the ones you all organise. So people are definitely participating, and in record numbers, which is amazing. But why is that? Why do they feel like they should participate?
Attitudes appear to be driven by two factors: A need for belonging and being part of a community, which is achieved by celebrating Australia Day and being proud of taking part in its events. A pure need for entertainment often achieved by attending the plethora of events organized during Australia Day. Australia Day is also seen as opportunity for people to feel or become part of the country and an opportunity to bring people together. Australia Day therefore is seen as a uniting day: a day to recognise values, cultures and diversity. We’re doing wellSo, this means we’re doing incredibly well, especially when it comes to participation. And if participation is high, that means people are enjoying the types of events available, which is fantastic. And this comes down to the amazing work you do as event organisers at both the state and the local level. We also know that while people are celebrating and participating in Australia Day at soaring numbers, we’re reaching a tipping point. Why? Because we’ve been so successful that we’ve reached a massive high that’s pretty hard to top… which let’s face it, is a pretty amazing problem to have. It also means though, that we need to start looking at the people who are not yet engaged, and look at the reasons why. Because if we can’t make a shift in attitude for those people, we won’t be able to grow any more. So what about this lot of people? You can probably cut these people into two groups. One group fits into a category that are disengaged generally. They’re not interested in any public holidays, community events, or any form of participation. So they’re going to be hard to shift. . . and lucky this is a very small group. But what about the other group? Well these people are often very proud of our country, and are proud to be Australians. But they are not connecting with Australia Day.
Our research shows that These people do not feel an emotional connection to the day. . . that they see Australia Day as just an excuse for a get together rather than as ‘a celebration’ or ‘a reflection of’ national pride. That the day has little meaning for them outside of being a public holiday. If we want Australia Day to continue to grow, we need to focus on engaging all Australians in Australia Day Focus on things like:Help people to articulate the what and why they celebrate Australia Day I know that all of us can do this quite easily, but if you ask a member of the public, you often get a response like “because Australia is the best country in the world!” or “because we have the best climate, and the best beaches!” It would be great to get people to dig a little deeper and think more about what really makes them proud to be Australian. Ensure that Australia Day is inclusive, family friendly, multicultural. . . a true reflection of the Australian Community We all know that Australia is one of the most multicultural and diverse countries in the world, with so many cultures and traditional to celebrate. It’s important that all Australians feel like no matter where they’ve come from or what’s important to them, Australia Day is their day to celebrate. Which brings me to the next point Reassure people that it’s totally ok to participate in Australia Day in way that is meaningful for them and is appropriate in their community (while encouraging active participation) What works for one suburb in Adelaide on Australia Day isn’t going to be as effective in a rural area in Tasmania, as we learned from the case studies yesterday. With so many people coming from different backgrounds, we need to acknowledge that we may all celebrate Australia Day differently, and that that is ok. Not only can we ensure that it’s ok for people when they’re celebrating in their backyard, we can try and inject this into our events too by looking around at the target audience: who lives in our area? What do they like? How can we get them involved? Link Australia Day to what it means to be Australian.Because that’s something we all have in common, and something that most people can talk about. I know it sounds obvious, but connecting being Australian and all that means is not something everyone does- and yet that’s our whole audience. So how do we do this?
At the NADC, we put efforts into Sparking and encouraging discussion and debate around Australia Day and what it means to be Australian. We do through many through many ways, such as:By ensuring strong and interesting coverage across mass mediaworking with our media partner ABC to develop content in Januaryby pitching content to media organisations (resulting in coverage across media such as on The Project and the Today Show)We also do this by choosing high profile speakers for Australia Day events, such as former Australians of the YearWe also spark discussion through social media At the NADC, We do this through our National Advertising Campaign, which is placed for free through media in January, but generally receives in excess of $2million worth of placement How does this relate to what you all do? Well if we pare this back, what we’re really doing is being strategic in how we communicate and promote Australia Day. And this is completely consistent with what you do at the local level. And we can all use the same tools to do this well. Starting with:
This is our brand. On everything we do, you will see this logo, and see our tagline CELEBRATE WHAT’S GREAT. You really just need to look around the room here today to see this in action. I know many of you also include this on what you are doing, and I would encourage that everyone does this. Not only does it means that we all have a consistency across our materials, but it provides another level of unity across all organised Australia Day events across the country. But of course, as we all know, this logo alone isn’t going to cover off the points I’ve just talked about. That of course is why we have our key messages for Australia Day, which go a long way to communicating all the points I’ve raised.
You really just need to look around the room here today to see this in action. I know many of you also include this on what you are doing, and I would encourage that everyone does this. Not only does it means that we all have a consistency across our materials, but it provides another level of unity across all organised Australia Day events across the country. But of course, as we all know, this logo alone isn’t going to cover off the points I’ve just talked about. That of course is why we have our key messages for Australia Day, which go a long way to communicating all the points I’ve raised.
Ensure the key messages are usedWe ensure that in every piece of written material we do, we incorporate our key messages. This means acrossSpeechesMedia releasesWebsitesSocial mediaAdvertising Even on your conference pen, you will find them! These messages are invaluable. Whenever you’re looking for some words to inject into a communication material for Australia Day, these can be at your fingertips.
It so important that these are included as well, across speeches, media releases, websites, social media pages, everything. And not only should we all be using these, so should our spokespeople. For instance, we ensure that when Gilly is on the Today show promoting Australia Day in January, or is writing an editorial piece for the paper, or is included in our radio series, he is a key message MACHINE. So if you’re not currently including the brand and messages in your materials and want to start,
We can help you with this On our website, you can download the key messages and the brand guidelines, and you will also find our event organisers toolkit.
There you will find downloadable flyers, award certificates, advertisements, posters, event name tags and all kinds of useful, ready- designed materials that meet the brand guidelines. They’re available in PDF, but also in word format with instructions for how to use the templates so that you can even print from the office if you need. There’s also a whole bunch of other information on our website and on the state specific websites to help you plan and execute your event.... Including of course the national calendar of events.
We would very much like for you to include your event information in the national calendar of events for Australia Day. We’re currently updating our calendar, so that every event organiser will be able to not only upload their event, but also edit it later should they need to make changes, which is going to be a great addition for Australia Day 2014. We’d also love for you to share with us information on new, different or very large-scale events- or if they feature someone prominent or controversial. In January, the media hound us for content and are always looking for something left of centre to cover. We would love to be able to pitch your events to media and promote your events this way, so please let us know by either contacting your State or Territory rep or emailing us at the NADC. National Programs Of course, I should also touch on our national programs. Our national programs are another way to add a level of consistency and solidarity into what we all do for Australia Day. By having an Australia Day Ambassador at your event, or by including a Citizenship Affirmation Ceremony in your event is another way to add meaning into your event and get people to consider why they do celebrate Australia Day. It’s also a good way to sneak a few more key messages in there… I won’t go into too much detail about the national programs, as I know this has been covered off in a few other sessions during this Conference (and I know a lot of you are keen to get going soon too!) If you do have more questions about the National programs though, please do talk to your State Contact for more information and they’ll be happy to assist.
But now, I know there’s been a lot of talking over the last two days, and a lot of it has been at you! I thought that, as we’re all here as a group, now might be a good time to open the floor and hear from you. What are your thoughts about Australia Day? Is there something you’d like to discuss about Australia Day nationally? Or in your area? We’d love to hear from you…
Now that we’ve talked a lot about what we do, I wanted to turn this discussion over to national matters that you would like to discuss. In the lead up to the conference we heard from many of you that you’d like to hear more regarding Reconciliation, which is why Tom Calma spoke yesterday Risk Management Sponsorship But in two days it’s hard to cover off everything and there’s always more work to do. What I’d like to hear from you all is whether there’s an issue you’d like us to discuss now, or a matter (or many!) you’d like for the NADC or the State and Territory Network to take further? Please, the floor is yours! Does anyone have anything they’d like to discuss?