GolinHarris in Singapore was recently approached by Valuair to reassess the airline’s positioning in an increasingly crowded market. It was a challenging task for GH as it required substantial effort on their part to develop strategic PR plans for Valuair to boost their public profile.

Since they took to the skies in May 2004, Valuair’s positioning as a "mid-frills" airline has always been a source of confusion for the public as well as industry analysts. Given the emergence of Jetstar Asia and Tiger Airways--airlines which model themselves on true low- cost carriers like Southwest Airlines in the US--there has been an increased urgency to look at Valuair’s public persona and positioning in the wake of media speculation that only two (out of the three budget airlines in Singapore) will survive against a backdrop of high fuel prices and cutthroat price competition.

GH’s immediate task was to map out a unique positioning for the airline, leveraging the perks that come with the product: wider seats, 20kg baggage allowance as well as complimentary in-flight meals.

"Rather than be lumped in with the other budget carriers, we felt Valuair has the product and service differentiation to occupy a bona fide position between the LCCs and full-service airlines," said Baxter Jolly, managing director of GH in Singapore. "In essence, we were creating a new positioning for the airline which was unfamiliar territory for the analyst or media commentators initially."

GH then assisted the airline in revamping its media collaterals to reflect the new positioning and messages. These included new press kits, fact sheets and management biographies.

The team was also involved in the media management of Valuair’s first-year celebration bash, a grand affair that saw Valuair booking the GV Grand cinema hall for the movie screening of "Batman Begins" on 24 June 2005 and a reception party for guests from the travel trade and media.

"This exercise was an eye opener for the GH account team," said Mr. Jolly. "It’s not every day that you get to create a new strategic positioning for an airline. This effort called for an intimate knowledge of the industry and a healthy dose of ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking."

After conducting a worldwide study on women’s perception of "beauty," Dove chose the Taipei office of GolinHarris to help announce the results of the study and devise a "Real Beauty" campaign to broaden the boundaries of beauty.

GolinHarris organized a media gathering to announce the results of the white paper. Five experts and opinion leaders, including two writers, a professional stylist, a professor on gender studies, and a psychologist, led a panel discussion for Real Beauty.

The white paper results generated significant media discussion on the topic of beauty.

GH then set out with Dove to broaden this definition. GH planned a "Beauty is Boundless" consumer event in June. Five well-known and attractive female celebrities, each having a characteristic not traditionally associated with beauty (single eyelid, short hair, older age, overweight, and small chest) addressed the audience, proving that despite these characteristics, one can still be beautiful.

More than 600 women joined the celebrities, each wearing a white mask that represented a "perfect face." As the audience found out, no one’s face fit into the mask, thus proving there was no real "standard" for beauty. Symbolically, the women threw the masks away, and shattered the boundaries of beauty.

Further spreading the word that there are no boundaries to beauty, a total of 88 media attended the two events, generating 197 media clippings in 40 days. In expression of their satisfaction, Unilever has hired GH to conduct media relations for its Dove and Mod’s Hair product lines.

The unparalleled reputation of GolinHarris for public affairs expertise reached new heights in Hong Kong when the firm was named strategic advisor for the election campaign of chief executive candidate Donald Tsang.

For a six-week period, GH consultants Fanny Wong, a former political analyst for the South China Morning Post, and Katherine Wang, corporate affairs director, were seconded to Mr. Tsang’s office to provide strategic counsel for the lifelong civil servant, who was considered the leading candidate in the three-way race.

Mr. Tsang was named chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region after receiving an overwhelming amount of nominations from the 800-member election committee. As for GH, both the firm and Fanny Wong appeared numerous times in Hong Kong’s major dailies, further bolstering the firm’s reputation as a political think tank.

For Mother’s Day 2005, the Taipei office of GolinHarris worked with Yahoo! Kimo Auctions to teach non-working mothers how to use the Auctions platform to run their own businesses.

Prior to the project, GH initiated contact with the Taipei City Government, Department of Social Welfare, to cooperate with Y!K Auctions. This was the first time Y!K Auctions had conducted a program in cooperation with the Taipei City Government.

Focusing on the logistics of establishing an online business, this program gave these mothers a new lease on a career, restoring self-confidence in the women as they returned to the workforce.

The target of 2,000 people joining the classes was greatly surpassed, as over 3,200 mothers attended over 100 courses throughout the island. Following the courses, 88 percent of the mothers started their own online businesses.

A total of 35 media agencies and 50 journalists covered the events, generating over 23 in-depth clippings, worth an estimated advertising value of NT$5,089,536 (US$149,692), 31 times the campaign budget.

No sooner had the Hong Kong office begun a retainer relationship with Coffee Concepts, the joint venture between Starbucks and local food and catering giant Maxim’s, than it had to spring into action to bring the largest press conference for Coffee Concepts in three years to life. The press conference—which would announce a new equity deal granting Starbucks a larger share of the joint venture and Maxim’s/ Coffee Concepts the right to operate Starbucks in southern China for a longer period of time—was held in front of the panoramic windows of the Starbucks café at the 88-story IFC Two office building and featured top executives from Starbucks, Maxim’s and Coffee Concepts.

GH oversaw the development of all documents for the event and worked closely with the client on rundown and execution, providing floor support as well as bilingual MCs. Ultimately the press conference generated approximately 25 stories in major local and regional media. More importantly, it demonstrated to the client GH’s ability to handle large-scale events and to provide high-level media relations.