The Buildmore Group Pty Ltd

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Company: The Buildmore Group Pty Ltd, Caloundra, QLD Australia
Company Description: Buildmore; founded in 2002 by licensed builder Samantha Sheppard in Sunshine Coast Queensland, Australia fast developed into the region’s most notable housing company. Buildmore produces quality homes, for a niche market of discerning buyers who demand quality at affordable prices.It has proved steadfast and successful during Australia’s economic downturn.
Nomination Category: Media & Marketing Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications Campaign of the Year - For-Profit

Nomination Title: Buildmore Women into Building Housing Showcase

Describe for the judges the objectives, activities, and results of the nominated communications campaign (up to 500 words):

Samantha Sheppard, director of The Buildmore Group, is a celebrated mentor,
frequent guest speaker and patron of anti-abuse charity group Sunny Kids.
Through partnership with employment and education focused organisations, Ms
Sheppard has implemented community involvement as part of her day-to-day life.

Sam is a sought after Key note speaker for dozens events each year; creating
awareness and acceptance of women in nontraditional roles in the construction
industry is a key focus of Ms Sheppard and The Buildmore’s agenda.

Buildmore’s office team of three wanted to get a clear message out to our target
market, but didn’t want to invest marketing funds.

Buildmore recognised that there is indeed a critical mass in the number of women
working within the building industries sufficient to initiate a benchmark
initiative.

Through strong leadership, innovation commitment and a prior well developed high
profile for industry leadership. Buildmore developed plans to instigate the
first “Women into Building Housing Showcase”. More than 60 women participated
in this initiative of National significance to create measurable industry outcomes.
Some of the essential elements to achieving success are listed below;-
• Extensive and thorough planning and evolving the initiative as further
opportunities emerged.
• Recognising our point of difference- National First initiative-
Predominantly women
• Developed a project specific identity- Logo- uniforms- Website-
synopsis- key messages
• Selected positive terminology in all media releases and interviews-
avoided controversy
• Conducted regular committee meetings to gain feedback and input from
Stakeholders
• Mentoring and profiling participants as role models
• Underpinning message- Environmental Sustainability principles and
passive design
• Evolving the Key message to keep it fresh and newsworthy
• Partnering with Key industry Stakeholders; utilising their endorsements
to elevate credibility
• Strategy to locate women across various vocations
• Unprecedented media releases and news articles
• Timing- Good news story for an industry that is still struggling from
impacts of GFC
• Industry involvement- materials, labour, sourced and supplied
• Exceptionally well received by industry and media- 100% positive
feedback- Significant outcome
• Consistent media releases- profile participants, profile innovations-
highlight VIP visits
• Incorporate a National Patron who is high profile, influential and
passionate.
• Showcase home on display for two years as educational destination
• Giving participants ownership of their roles, free reign to innovate and
demonstrate
• Demonstrate publically; environmental accountability and publicise this
important issue
• Photographically document the project from conception through
construction and completion
• Document complete project to produce an educational video to
encourage generational shift in perception through being shown in industry training
centres, universities, seminars, schools settings etc.
• Elevate awareness and acceptance of women carrying out successful
careers within the industries and encourage more women to consider the
industries as a career destination.
• Highlight networking opportunities and promote interdependence
• Approaching the industry association’s leaders and partners for
support, encouragement and guidance.
• National Tour to disseminate the first project outcomes and encourage
more to be developed.
• Provide Industry driven outcomes
• Event management
• Resulted in a large number of organisations requesting Sam Sheppard
to speak on the first project and its outcomes- University of the Sunshine Coast,
The Gov Office for Women x 3, Gov Public Service Commission, CPSISC (National
regulatory body), Telstra, schools etc to give examples of how well women can
perform in non traditional roles when afforded opportunities to excel and to
promote
gender diversity.
• Resulted in unprecedented response from women and girls wanting to
know more about the industries or to share their experiences.
• Resulted in companies seeking women to work for them to embrace
gender diversity.
• Resulted in women seeking work opportunities
• Research and populate dedicated website with educational
environmental information- over 45,000 page hits.

Resulted in:
Substantial and extraordinary National media coverage- From live television media,
to printed media and online- including many government and Stakeholders
websites sites linking back to Buildmore’s dedicated website.
Media coverage was pivotal in elevating awareness to create acceptance. Without
the coverage we still had a fantastic initiative for all the participants, but
no one else would have known about it or benefited from the outcomes. Media attention
was drawn to the distinctive, characteristics and points of difference that this
project offered. The WIB project offered a positive message conveyed with vision,
optimism, confidence, encouragement and leadership.
More than half a million dollars worth of free coverage through television, printed
media, website media, stakeholder websites and Government websites has
catapulted this worthy message to unprecedented and fundamental levels never
before seen in this country. Although we can attempt to control our own
terminology and message, we ultimately have little control over media
interpretation; so to have received 100% positive coverage is a result; we are
exceptionally proud to have performed such a significant role in and accomplished
so many worthwhile objectives.

Many women were empowered by their participation through being acknowledged
for the importance of the roles they fulfil within the industries in addition to
the networking and mentor support they received. Many thousands of other women
were also empowered by knowing that this important message was being dealt
with in the public domain with such positivity, enthusiasm and support.

List the URLs (web addresses) of any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that you would like the judges to see that support your entry. IMPORTANT: List each URL on a separate line, begin each URL with http://, and enclose each URL in square brackets. For example, [http://www.yourcompany.com/pressrelease.html]:

MEDIA
http://www.womenintobuilding.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=6
Awards
http://www.womenintobuilding.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=288&Itemid=291

Provide a brief biography of the person or persons who lead the team that created and carried out the nominated communications campaign (up to 100 words):

Sam Sheppard; licensed builder is director of boutique building company The
Buildmore Group she founded in 2002.

Buildmore initiated the “Buildmore Women into Building Housing Showcase” to
elevate awareness and acceptance of women carving our successful careers in
non traditional roles. The WIB project is a small lot home passively designed to
benchmark environmental sustainable principles.

Sam’s a notable ambassador for women, her influential reputation makes her a
sought after mentor and guest speaker; she has won some coveted awards
including the Urban Development Institute of Australia one off exclusive
“Outstanding achievement by a woman in a mentoring role” Award.