Carr Communications Wins Best Media Relations Campaign at 2010 PR Awards

Pictured receiving their award for Best Media Relations Campaign from Ann-Marie O'Sullivan, Chairman, PRCA and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michéal Martin TD at the 2010 Awards for Excellence in Public Relations are Brother Kevin Crowley, Capuchin Day Centre, Linda Caulfield, Mater Hospital and Eimear Hurley, Carr Communications.

At the 2010 Awards for Excellence in Public Relations, Carr Communications received the award for Best Media Relations Campaign for our work to publicise the Mater Hospital Ball in aid of the Capuchin Day Centre. We are honoured to have been recognised for this campaign which raised much-needed awareness and funds for the Capuchin Day Centre.

The project started in March 2009 when Carr Communications was contacted by the Emergency Department of the Mater Hospital in relation to a fundraising event they were hosting in aid of the Capuchin Day Centre. As a result of the recession and the financial hardship many people were experiencing, demand for the centre’s services had increased dramatically and additional funding was needed to meet this demand. The staff of the Mater Hospital decided to host a fundraising ball to raise funds for this very worthy charity as for many years, they had treated a number of the centre’s service-users. However, in the worsening economic climate, ticket sales were low and the potential to raise money for the centre was looking bleak.

Carr Communications devised an intense, targeted media relations campaign to help raise awareness of the Ball in aid of the Capuchin Day Centre. Knowing it would be difficult to generate media coverage of the Ball itself, we set about identifying other key messages to drive the story, such as the number of people using the services every week and the percentage increase in both short-term (6 month) and long-term (6 year) periods. Our key message focused on the effect of the recession on society’s most vulnerable and the associated demand for the services of the Day Centre. Fund-raising activities such as the Mater Hospital Ball were vital to ensure the demand for services was met.

The response to the story was overwhelming. In addition to the vast coverage we achieved across national and international print and broadcast media, the most important benchmark of our success was the tens of thousands of euro raised for the Capuchin Day Centre through public donations and ticket sales for the Ball, as well as the increased awareness of the work of the centre. The images of people queuing for free meals and food parcels at the Day Centre on Bow Street, captured on TV and newspapers across the country, will forever remind us of just how important it is to raise awareness of these vital services.