Sydney, Australia

March 2010

Online Newsrooms and

Australia’s Best Brands

Methodology – Research Objectives

• The study looked at the online newsrooms (media centres and equivalent) of twenty top Australian

brand name companies.

• It examined the extent to which these organisations are using the Web and online content to more

effectively communicate company news and announcements to journalists, bloggers and

customers/stakeholders.

• The research study looked at the use of the following online newsroom features:

– Access: Is there a homepage link to the Newsroom?

– Images: Are images available for download?

– Search tools: Is it possible to search the newsroom content (specifically)?

– Video download: Is video content available for download?

– Sharing (Social Tags and RSS): Is the capability to easily share news content available?

• This study is the second part in a two part research project. Part one focused on social media use

by Australian brands.

• The study examined the top 20 brands as listed in Interbrand’s Australia’s Best Brands Report,

March 2009.

• The study ranks the top 20 Australian companies by brand value, which is a derivative of the way

business and financial assets are valued covering three elements: Financial Forecasting; Role of

Branding; Brand Strength.

• Financial assessments are based on published annual reports and analyst reports from

investment banks. Marketing assessments are based on a wide array of primary and secondary

sources. Ultimately, each brand was assessed for inclusion on its own merits.

• Holding companies are excluded from the Interbrand report. Wholly owned or local subsidiaries of

global brands are also excluded.

• Interbrand has published national brand value rankings more than ten countries around the world.

• There is no formal relationship between Burson-Marsteller and Interbrand. Interbrand were not

involved in the development of this study but are aware of its existence.

Methodology – Source Companies

Access - Direct newsroom link on homepage

More than half of the Australian brands

surveyed provide a direct link to their

newsroom from their corporate homepage.

News content is arguably the most dynamic

and compelling content that a corporation

has to offer. It provides stakeholders with a

sense of direction of the company and

demonstrates momentum and success.

The remainder of the survey looks at the

online newsroom capabilities and content of

twenty top Australian brands.

60%

Newsroom Features Overview The majority of Australian brands surveyed

are not providing rich media content as a

means of enriching company news.

Supporting materials such as executive

photography, logos and video content are

not generally available via newsrooms.

Australian businesses are missing an

opportunity to improve the quality of their

coverage and media relationships.

The online newsrooms studied are not

user friendly. Very few offer search and

sharing functions.

Online newsrooms are typically static

repositories of text based news releases.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Image Search Video Sharing

Newsroom Features – Image Downloads

‘A picture is worth a thousand words…’

The Internet is driving a trend towards

visual communication and story-telling.

Journalists and bloggers are increasingly

looking for engaging content to help

bring stories to life.

Australian companies are missing out on

the opportunity to engage journalists,

bloggers and other stakeholders using

imagery and video.

Imagery and video is an increasingly

important consideration for organisations

that need to convey their story in the

highly competitive and shortened news

cycle.

Yes15%

No85%

Image Downloads

Yes10%

No90%

Video

Newsroom Features – Search and Sharing

Yes20%

No80%

Ability to Share Newsroom Content

Yes5%

No95%

Ability to Search Newsroom

A very small number of the Australian

brands surveyed provide the ability for

newsroom users to easily locate and

share content.

Only one out of the 20 companies

surveyed offer the ability to search

newsroom content (specifically).

RSS and sharing tags are provided by

20% of the companies surveyed.

Australian Best Practice - Telstra

Newsroom search

Sharing capabilities

Supporting content including

executive bios, factsheets,

news coverage, etc.

Video content and image

downloads

Global Best Practice – Toyota

Newsroom search

Sharing capabilities

Social media integration

Video content and image

downloads

Supporting content

including executive bios,

factsheets, news coverage,

etc.

Conclusions and Takeaways1. Effective online newsrooms provide journalists and bloggers with the tools and content they need to tell stories in an

entertaining and engaging way. Internet users are three times more likely to click on video content yet very few

Australian brands are leveraging video to communicate news stories. Online newsrooms in corporate Australia are

generally ineffectual.

2. Journalists are increasingly turning to the Internet as a primary source of information and story ideas. Providing

easy access to news content and rich media assets can provide an organisation with a ‘competitive’ edge in their

PR efforts.

3. Effective online newsrooms can ‘automate’ many media relations processes (i.e. provision of photography and

supporting information) freeing up Corporate Communications professionals to focus on strategic and proactive

programs.

4. Traffic to corporate websites is in decline. News content provides an opportunity for brands to create a more

engaging, compelling and interactive presence via their online newsrooms.

5. Newsroom capabilities can be easily enhanced at low cost using existing social networks, such as Flickr for photo

archiving and sharing and Twitter for ‘broadcasting’ news.

6. Corporate blogging has not been widely adopted by Australian brands and newsroom content and capabilities are

poor. None of the Australian brands surveyed are competing with global best practice.

Contacts

Daniel Young, Director

Burson-Marsteller Australia

+61 (0) 2 9928 1589

+61 (0) 404 626 584

daniel.young@bm.com

Carly Yanco, Associate

Burson-Marsteller Australia

+61 (0) 2 9928 1531

+61 (0) 413 648 396

carly.yanco@bm.com