Company: The Audacious Agency, Australia
Company Description: The Audacious Agency are profile building and awards specialists, helping entrepreneurs and business owners who are sick of being the world's best-kept secret, to boldly stand out from the competition and be sought-after credible leaders. We help changemakers and leaders become googlicious!
Nomination Category: Communications & Marketing Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
 Nomination Title: The Audacious Agency: Profile Building A Disability Champion, Lisa Cox
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 232 words used.
At The Audacious Agency, our mission is clear: we exist to facilitate profound connections between our clients and their audiences, enabling them to emerge as esteemed industry leaders in an increasingly competitive landscape. We believe everyone deserves recognition for their unique journey and achievements. By harnessing our expertise in both publicity and branding, we empower our clients to not only participate in but also triumph in prestigious awards, thereby enhancing their brand's visibility and authority.
As seasoned storytellers and creative minds with decades of experience, we recognise the formidable impact of establishing genuine, credible, and compelling connections with audiences. Employing a strategic approach, we help cultivate our clients' online personas, strategically disseminating valuable and insightful content to establish a more enduring presence.
Our strategy revolves around the "Three R's of Profile Building" – Reputation, Recognition, and Results. Our ultimate objective is to help our clients become synonymous with excellence in online searches within their respective industries, all while inspiring others through their compelling narratives. By shedding any reluctance to self-promote and efficiently manage their time, they can embrace their distinctive stories, nurture enduring connections, attract prospective clients, and foster significant referrals. This is the approach we took for Lisa Cox, and elicited excellent results and has positioned her firmly in the space she wishes to make the most impact. The support document shows the outcomes of the strategy we created for her.
- Describe the development of the campaign or program: the planning process, the goal setting, the creative and media development, the scheduling, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 250 words used.
The campaigns success hinged on a robust three-year strategy meticulously crafted to establish and solidify Lisa's public profile. At its core, the mission was to normalise diversity and inclusion, transcending the perfunctory checkbox mentality in corporate circles, eradicating prevailing prejudices against individuals with disabilities, often concealed in unconscious biases.
The strategy was multifaceted, with education and awareness campaigns serving as pillars to foster genuine acceptance. Lisa's aspiration wasn't to be a mere poster child for inclusion, but to be a resonant voice, disseminating insights that affect substantial change. This strategic blueprint encompassed various public relations initiatives, including contributing content to esteemed business publications and crafting influential opinion pieces.
The initial phase elevated Lisa's personal profile within business and mainstream media realms. We began the journey to amplify Lisa's messages through meticulously crafted written content that generated valuable backlinks. We honed in on high-profile Australian publications, resulting in a robust foundation of thought-provoking articles serving as catalysts to bolster Lisa's social media presence. Organically, her social following swelled from 70,000 to over 90,000 and now sits at over 200k.
In the subsequent two years, the strategy pivoted towards targeting the advertising and marketing sectors, harnessing Lisa's established online presence and burgeoning authority within the field. Every story angle was meticulously planned on a week-by-week basis, with regular meetings to glean Lisa's insights, enabling us to craft compelling thought-leadership pieces. We integrated other critical social proof elements, including awards and strategic content repurposing for enhanced visibility across social media platforms.
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the nominated campaign or program - its genesis,development, planning, commission, and performance to date - OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions, provide them in the appropriate spaces below:
- Describe the genesis of the nominated campaign or program: the reasons it was initiated, the challenges it was created to address, the problems it was developed to solve, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 245 words used.
Lisa Cox's career as an award-winning agency copywriter was stopped in its tracks when she acquired multiple disabilities. With her career trajectory hindered by circumstances out of her control, she saw the advertising and marketing world in a new light. She noticed how people with disabilities were portrayed in advertising (if they were portrayed at all) and realised how stereotypical it all was. Lisa decided to use her decades of industry and lived experience to make marketing more inclusive.
The challenge was that no one knew who she was or what she had to offer. Angry voices often populate the disability advocacy space, demanding change and Lisa didn’t want to be one of those. She wanted to encourage the industry to make changes themselves, through actionable advice and practical strategies. This required positioning her thought leadership with a ‘softly softly’ approach - building relationships with key industry decision-makers so they’d listen to her insights and not see her as just another ‘complaining’ voice.
A strategy based on storytelling was required, with content focused on the business aspect of inclusion (money being left on the table) and articles/talks/presentations on HOW to make the industry more inclusive. Lisa’s message of inclusion envelopes ‘both sides’ - a passionate disability advocate and savvy, strategic creative who knows good ROI is essential for business. This campaign needed to, directly and indirectly, change how society views people with a disability, creating a ripple effect that enhanced public understanding and industry acceptance.
- Outline the activities and concrete results of this campaign or program since the beginning of July 2021. Even if your initiative started before July 2021, limit your response to activities and results since the beginning of July 2021 only (up to 250 words):
Total 251 words used.
Following our initial fashion-focused phase, Stage 2 shifted its focus to a pivotal message: 20% of Australians live with disabilities, a demographic frequently overlooked by marketers, resulting in potential revenue losses in the billions due to the absence of inclusive campaigns. Our efforts involved generating business-oriented content and securing speaking engagements for Lisa within marketing agencies. In Stage 3, our attention honed in on marketing publications and prominent thought leadership columns.
Key Achievements:
Social media growth; Instagram 70,000 in 2020 to 120,000, and LinkedIn 5,000 to over 11,000.
30% increase in speaking engagements year-on-year, 10 opportunities to over 25 in 2023.
Consistent content publication in online advertising and mainstream media outlets - Women's Agenda, Inside Small Business, The Guardian, Inside Retail, Mumbrella, and Media Week, averaging three media wins monthly.
Winning the AWPAC Future is Female Awards, Awards for Excellence in Women's Leadership, and earning the Thought Leadership accolade at the Stevie Women in Business Awards.
TEDx Talk "Why Embracing Diversity in Advertising is Good for Business."
A continuous influx of speaking requests prompted enlisting of a personal assistant to manage growing demand.
Podcast guest appearances, 10 per year to two to three per month.
Three years ago, Lisa Cox was relatively unknown in the advertising and marketing sphere. Today, she’s a prominent voice in inclusion and diversity. Her advocacy efforts resulted in a transformative shift in the 2021/2022 Afterpay Australia Fashion Week (AAFW), making it authentically diverse and inclusive for the first time in history.
- Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched:
July 2021
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