It’s been a big year for Story54, Bauer Media’s content marketing division. Launched in market 10 months ago, the insight-driven team has scooped three awards to date, including ‘Content Company of the Year’ at the Mumbrella Entertainment Marketing Awards for its work with clients including Holden, Google, Fiat, Tiffany & Co. and Weight Watchers.
The launch of Story54, under the direction of Story54 general manager Jane Waterhouse and commercial director Paul Gardiner, saw the integration of the commercial content and creative services teams with research, strategy and trade marketing divisions to form a stellar new storytelling team that’s led by insights, champions change for women and boasts a brand-safe environment for clients.
As the driving force behind Bauer Media’s strategic collection of annual initiatives designed to support women – which kicked off with Female Futures, a co-venture research piece in conjunction with the UK’s Future Laboratory – Story54 has driven significant change for Australian women.
Bauer Media Story54
Most notably with the ‘No Gender Selective Tax’ campaign which raised awareness and activism around the GST on sanitary items, resulting in the federal government’s agreeance to remove the “tampon tax”. Bauer Media’s corporate commitment to the cause, which included an online petition, impactful cross-platform advertorials, an influencer-led social campaign and letters to government ministers from CEO Paul Dykzeul, and the revolutionary end result showed the strength and influence of Bauer Media’s brands as a collective.
As well as driving social change and joining the corporate pledge to write 10 million words in support of the Female Futures movement, Story54 has consistently delivered commercial content that gets people talking. Be it Celeste Barber’s parody car campaign for Holden, the Woman’s Day Weight Watchers weight loss challenge, Harper’s BAZAAR’s ‘Own the Night’ video series for Estée Lauder, profiling the night-time rituals of Pip Edwards, Nadia Fairfax and Deborah Symond O’Neil, or cross-network activity for the Google Pixel 2, Story54 has proved its power to move both people and product.
So, what’s next for 2019?
More impactful and effective commercial campaigns, more award-winning stories, more advocating on behalf of Australian women, and more answers for whatever client challenges are thrown their way.
“We’re obsessed with our customers,” says Waterhouse.
“We want to continue to deliver the best solution, in the best format, to get the best reactions and results. Everything we do will continue to be underpinned by research and insights – not just into our audience, but Australian women and women in general.
“Our future forecasting strategy pieces, like Future Females and the significant semiotics study have been hugely insightful and beneficial to clients and we want to strengthen our position as a leader in this area.
Bauer Media Story54
“We’ll continue to develop new products and industry-first ideas, and we’ll continue with our activist agenda to serve as a champion of women, giving clients an opportunity to align with us and advocate change.”
A big part of Story54’s forward planning lies in making clients more successful and integrating their stories into their engaged audience. With a short, but strong history of increasing brand relevance, improving purchase consideration and delivering exceptionally high engagement, Story54’s insight-driven storytelling has proved itself effective and worthy of awards.
“What we’ve achieved, in under 12 months, is remarkable,” says Waterhouse.
“Bringing together what was effectively five different teams has created a huge shift in strategic thinking and ideation. It’s created a culture that fosters innovation, which our clients reap the rewards of. We’ve had a great year and we’re excited to dive into 2019 with the same passion and purpose.”
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