Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

Team:

Polly Atkins

Bachelor of Communications AUT

Micaela Wade

Bachelor of Communications AUT

Matt Allen

Bachelor of Communications AUT

Dafydd Barrar

Bachelor of Communications AUT

Community Group:

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

The APO strive to involve the local community in musical experiences as well as musical education programmes.

Through this involvement the APO reaches 25,0000 people each year. Each year, the APO presents a full season of symphonic work in the Auckland region, supports both the NBR New Zealand Opera and the Royal New Zealand Ballet and collaborates with some of New Zealand’s most innovative artists, including The Topp Twins, Mika, Dave Dobbyn, Shapeshifter and Little Bushman.

Mentor:

Robert Bruce, Sublime NZ

The Challenge:

Our task from the APO was to generate and establish repeat patronage of 18-35 year olds.

The key objectives we associated with ourselves and the APO were to establish a ‘Young Members Club’ (Upper Circle) which would -

• Promote an ‘Upper Circle’ membership pricing scheme
• Establish a page link on their existing website which will develop a medium to communicate events, promotions and specials to the target audience of 23-30 year olds
• Include history, background information and reviews of the APO concerts as well as a discussion forum between members
• A ‘club’ page has been set up on Facebook to enhance awareness and create loyalty with ‘Upper Circle’ members and The APO.
• A twitter account has also been set up for the general use of the APO.
• A sustainability handbook has been put together which includes a step-by-step guide on how to use all of the above tools to their full potential.

The Solution:&

We created an APO young members club called Upper Circle. This membership provides young APO members with discounted rates on all performances by the APO as well as special seating during concerts.

We created a sustainability handbook to ensure that the team at APO would be able to continue to attract younger members once the challange had ended.

To try engage with the younger members we suggested the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. These have been highly successful and the APO are still using these methods to attract new members as well as providing regualr updates and give-aways to current members of the Upper Circle.

The Result: 

Overall, we provided the APO with a sound communications strategy that they have been able to continue to impliment and use. The Upper Circle member group is still functioning and is seen as an important part of the APO's membership and sponsorship sector.

The APO were very happy with our efforts: "Our team has been great on the whole. the best thing about them (and the importance of this cannot be underestimated!) is the fact that they listened! They listened to our business needs, our restrictions and our boundaries- and they came up with ideas that worked within these parameters. They also seemed to get a really good notion that the project must be sustainable for us".

Our Blog link - http://sublime-apo.blogspot.com/

What did your team get out of the yMedia Challenge, and why would you recommend that other people get involved?

By participating in the 2009 yMedia Challenge our team gained the hands-on experience of being able to put together a communications strategy that would then be put in place.

During the course of our study we had been given lots of 'case studies' but the yMedia Challenge allowed us to put that knowledge into practice, whilst providing a great service for the APO.

We would recommend students to get involved as it allows you to experience how things work in the real world whilst having a supportive environment to help you along the way.

Being part of the yMedia Challenge has and will help all of us in our future endeavors.

The knowledge and experience that we gained during the challenge was second to none.