Page 19 - AdNews May-June 2020

bulletins were run. The RFS head- quarters was on air every half hour doing updates.
“We were ensuring that local people could get what they needed to know,” says Crowhurst.
“On Saturday, with the fires everywhere, we were getting feedback from people advising of support bases where people, if they couldn’t get back to their homes, could go.”
At one stage, parts of the Pacific Highway, the main route north and south, were cut off.
“Local facilities were offering assistance or supplies and we were ensuring that information was get- ting out,” says Crowhurst.
“We kept local programming running right through until late Sunday afternoon-evening when at that point the fire levels had come back a little bit.
“In the following weeks, we kept information going. Obviously, from an animal welfare point of view, livestock and koalas are a major part of the North Coast. And we were working with the koala hospital, getting updates information through to them.”
Brand power
Radio also has the power to bring resources together quickly, to make change, to bring focus to an issue or event.
Christian O’Connell at GOLD104.3 in Melbourne used his breakfast show to create a brand, Heroes Gold beer, to raise funds for the Victorian Bushfire Appeal. And it only took 24 hours to get the idea off the ground. Hawkers Beer brewed the drop.
“This is just outstanding the way we can raise an idea, and our radio family can step up and take it even further than we could’ve dreamed,” says O’Connell.
Only two weeks from idea to brewing: six advertising compa- nies provided pro-bono promo- tional support; 650 cases sold in its first three days; 1,300 slabs sold through pre-order; 64 x 50 litre kegs delivered; more than 5,000 pints of Heroes Gold poured; 29 pubs stocking the beer.
O’Connell has been supporting small businesses during the COVID-19 crisis by creating free ads and running them on his breakfast show to his 1 million+ audience.
Disasters
Grant Blackley, CEO of Southern Cross (SCA), remembers the earth- quake of 1989 in Newcastle where he grew up.
“Australia at any point in time will have a natural disaster,” he says. “Even in the cities, we see major storms. There is an ever-present threat of national dis- asters and, given that 36% of the population live outside of the cap- ital cities, across a vast geography, you’re always going to find that there will be something.”
SCA’s simple mission statement is that it is “proudly national, fiercely local”.
“Everything that we do we put through that lens,” he says. “In times of natural disasters, that comes to bear, where we can bring our national infrastructure and influence and we can be fiercely local by what we do.
“In the recent bushfires we pro- vided national fire updates, which actually kept everyone in Australia, seeing that we reached 95% of Australians every week, in the loop no matter where they were, either living or holidaying.
“We were actually doing updates every 15 minutes and
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