What are the societal concerns with the 2019 Hong Kong budget?
The HKSAR Government announced the Hong Kong Budget 2019 on late February 2019. Looking ahead on 2019, Hong Kong should endeavour to diversity its economy and sustain growth in economic performance. In this whitepaper, we will look into the key takeaways of this year’s budget and what society concerns about this budget.
Louise is an experienced content marketing professional who translates Isentia’s marketing strategy into impactful and effective marketing campaigns across multiple channels. As the Lead Gen Marketing Specialist for Isentia, Louise enjoys creating informative and engaging content for media and communications professionals.
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IIt was just a week ago when I was asked to travel to Canberra to assist the Isentia Canberra team with the 2022-23 Budget. The team was preparing to provide our clients with a range of Parliamentary Services to support them throughout the Budget announcement and plethora of reactions, resulting in the most significant media day of the year.
Isentia has an office right in the middle of the Parliamentary press gallery, above the House of Representatives, alongside the ABC, The Conversation, 9 News, 7 News and SBS had my head reeling. We are in the thick of the Budget conversation at Parliament House and have access to the Budget papers during lock-up. I am not going to lie, I would have loved to have gotten my hands and eyes on what lay inside the mass that is the Budget, but I was just as excited to be a part of Isentia’s first live stream of the conga line to deliver immediate stakeholder perspectives.
Lock-up team Whitney and Crystal ready to unpack the 2022 Budget for clients, pictured with Account Executives Melvic (right) and Nikhar (left)
This is my first time in Canberra and walking into Parliament House. It may sound ridiculous to some, but I felt the magnitude of decisions and words within this space as soon as I arrived. This could be due to the physical size of the building, the maze of corridors (I did get lost), or that Greg Hunt, Minister for Health and Aged Care, passes by you, or Laura Tingle, ABC political journo heavyweight, is standing inside the courtyard cafe – no longer just a revered top news journalist on my TV screen. I am tempted to approach her and ask her thoughts on any Budget revelations, but professionalism nips that one in the bud.
The live stream is my main priority and ensuring we capture stakeholder responses as soon as lock-up ends. With the cool, calm, and collected Melvic (Canberra Account Executive) by my side, I felt we were prepared to capture all the opinions and critical commentary on Frydenberg’s latest Budget. But as Melvic had said to me plenty of times over the past couple of days while in Canberra, “you can’t exactly prepare for Budget night.” Speeches can go on for longer, lock-up can be delayed, and elevators can stop working. It was 7.30pm, and we (Melvic and myself) could not get to the second floor, where the press gallery and the conga line were to be. After semi-frantically looking for a way to get there – the elevator wouldn’t go to floor two, and the staircase was blocked off – our prayers were answered in the presence of a former staffer who took pity and showed us to an elevator that could get us there. The doors opened, and we were awkwardly confronted by a crowd of diners enjoying a catered event, but after casually walking by, we were able to get to the gallery and stream the conga line.
I staked my claim on a small footprint of space to set up Isentia’s nimble streaming equipment among tall, solid guys supporting big TV broadcast cameras. As speakers were changing over, we had to pause for one of them to change their camera battery. The speakers were unfazed by the background buzzing of phones, regular triggering of Parliament House clocks and adrenaline-pumped chatter of people in the corridors. I was particularly moved by the words of Carolyn Smith, Aged Care Director at the United Workers Union and a team of aged care workers who felt a lack of respect for what the Budget provided them. I wondered how journalists could keep it together when they were listening to the stories and concerns of people who really feel impacted by the decisions made here. These are comments and opinions that matter to our clients, and providing this service allows them to better inform their operations and objectives. After the last speaker, Melissa Donnelly, National President of the Community & Public Sector Union, had finished, the live stream was done. But the active alerts team weren’t.
Live stream conga line of Carolyn Smith, Aged Care Director, United Workers Union & Aged Care Workers (Curtis, Marina, Shin,Teresa)
The team, rapid-firing live alerts to clients after lock-up release, are able to provide clients near-immediate knowledge of key topics concerning their organisation. This being my crash course introduction to the chaos of a Budget night, I was not expecting the personal understanding and touch that went into the live active alerting process for clients. I pictured images of machines whirring and topics automatically ticking through Budget content, machines that made a detached decision about what was relevant to clients and made blanket sends without consideration. How our Account Executives, Crystal and Whitney, understood the ins and outs of the needs held by our clients does make a real difference to accuracy and content relevancy.
With the speed and focus they applied to this product offering (active alerts), you would have thought they were machines anyway. But a machine is not going to have their ongoing long-term client relationship and understanding of client development.
After the last active alert was sent, you could still feel the adrenaline. The pace and unpredictable circumstances that this team worked under were staggering, but we made it in the end. After a justified amount of snacking, we packed up the Isentia Parliament office and found our way to the car park, where everyone there that night was in a state of buzzed debriefing as they crouched into their Ubers home. I doubt anyone there got more than 5 hours of sleep that night, but it was amazing to be a part of how Isentia offers a unique service to clients. We look forward to giving the same level of tailored content to clients during the election coverage.
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Blog
Isentia bringing the 2022-23 Budget to Clients
Our Marketing Executive gets a crash course in Budget night at Isentia. We provide tailored media intelligence offerings. Discover the Isentia difference!
The end of the financial year is drawing closer, budgets have been forecast and approved – how will you target your spending in FY20?
A new financial year provides a great opportunity to review your results and reflect on your approach with some concrete performance data that can both prove value delivered and help you make the case for more.
While performance is a critical measure, it’s also a great time to address any internal processes and procedures that may be working against you or impacting other departments and staff. From operating systems and day-to-day workflow to crisis plans and business ready-ness protocols, the opportunity to communicate better throughout your business as well as outside of it can be extremely valuable.
So, when it comes time to evaluate what worked well and what didn’t in FY19 and plan for a successful FY20, here’s some first steps to help you get started:
Set your intentions
Set an intention to celebrate the wins and identify the opportunities to pivot where necessary. Even if you had a great FY19, you want it to grow and have even more success in FY20. If you have a business strategy already for the new financial years, are there areas that you could focus on to have greater impact on the bottom line?
Make a list of questions
Being intentional about your process sparks creativity and prevents the business from overlooking important pieces of information.
What are your overall achievements?
How did they impact business growth?
What were the key learnings from FY19?
What were the biggest disappointments?
Did you implement a strategy to pivot or constructively address the disappointments?
What products/services will be launched in FY20?
Did your messaging cut through, and if so, was the audience right?
How did your audience feel about your products, services and people – and what insights can you tell other departments like R&D, sales or the C-Suite that could help course correct some of the sentiment?
Did you have unexpected expenditures due to a PR crisis, and can you better prepare if this something else happens in FY20?
How sustainable are you as a business and are there long-term strategies you could start now that would put you in better shape?
Do you need to revisit some of your relationships with key conte Identify your metricsnt publishers, journalists and influences?
Are there areas that could benefit from expenditure over others?
What do you need to pull together to demonstrate what was achieved, and what could be achieved if your new FY20 plan is supported by leadership?
Identify your metrics
What will you use to measure your professional performance? Alongside your business statements and PnL, other measures like online traffic, media reach, customer sentiment and , sales figures, new subscribers and event attendees.
Carefully review your metrics and ascertain what contributed to your growth, as well as best practices for further growth. Assess the reasons for churn and identify areas for improvement. Are there any other tools and resources you can add to your metrics dashboard?
Review your FY19 goals
Identify which goals are worth keeping, which are to be eliminated and where energy will be most effective. This list of goals should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely) and include short- and long-term timeframes. Goals or priorities for the coming year may be different from the previous year, whether it be hitting a certain new audience, building a certain leader’s profile, a successful new product launch or just staying ‘out’ of certain conversations and stories, these goals are key for your business’ success.
Time for innovation
It can be said that growth invariably comes from innovation. With so much pressure to perform well and report on performance, a different approach to communications tactics and tools can promote greater levels of innovation and encourage a more collaborative environment that welcomes new ideas while ensuring the business keeps up with modern changes. It doesn’t have to be world changing, it could be looking at new audiences, automation, the use of video or updating onboarding programs with all staff media training. The goal here is to think differently, challenge ideas and stay competitive.
Use technology to your advantage
Understand what is being said about your business, how your audiences respond to or feel, and how you fare against your competitors. Our Mediaportal platform provides a full range of reporting and analytics allowing you to identify the most relevant audiences, the hot topics that need attention and what issues may be impacting your business, as well as additional insights born from your media coverage. This information is useful in planning your future tactics, leverage existing pools of success and continue to stand apart from the competition. Along with these always-on metrics in Mediaportal, our insights reports can provide the quantitative analysis needed to reflect on the year past with a comprehensive overview of share of voice, audiences and reach as well as month-on-month trends, media influence and positioning against competitors. Such reports provide a greater snapshot of your efforts and will assist with setting your benchmarks, goals and budgets for the year ahead.
By gaining a better understanding of what has been achieved and the potential areas for improvement, you will be able to establish an appropriate budget based on your objectives and provide a successful FY20 for your business.
Want to learn more about how to measure the effectiveness of your business and how to plan for your FY20? Let our team show you how,get in touch today.
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Blog
How to plan for your FY20 budget and show off your hard-earned media
The end of the financial year is drawing closer, budgets have been forecast and approved – how will you target your spending in FY20?
“We need to address the societal wellbeing of our nation, not just the economic wellbeing” Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand
The 2019 Wellbeing Budget is hailed by many as a landmark of its time for its undeterred focus on the social sector. [1] The intent for this budget, which is set to be handed down May 30 2019, is to go beyond GDP per capita and debt to GDP ratios to analyse the wider effects on people’s wellbeing and the state of the environment in an intergenerational way.[2] Although New Zealand have GDP growth rates that many countries would envy, for many New Zealanders it has been thought this GDP growth (and previous years budgets) have not translated into higher living standards or better opportunities.[3]
New Zealand is the first western country to design and implement its entire budget around wellbeing initiatives and also instruct its ministries to propose policies to enhance wellbeing for the country. This year's Budget winner's are set to be education, health and environmental industries. The top five priorities of the budget are outlined as follows:
1. Creating opportunities for productive businesses, regions, iwi and others to transition to a sustainable and low-emissions economy
2. Supporting a thriving nation in the digital age through innovation, social and economic opportunities
3. Lifting Māori and Pacific incomes, skills and opportunities
4. Reducing child poverty and improving child wellbeing, including addressing family violence
5. Supporting mental wellbeing for all New Zealanders, with a special focus on under 24-year-olds
The wellbeing approach
The nation enjoys being the third freest economy in the world, and as such, ranks first globally for ease of doing business. The Wellbeing Budget will broaden the focus beyond economic and fiscal policy by using the Treasury’s Living Standards Framework to inform the governments’ investment priorities and funding decisions [4] on complicated issues including climate change, inequality and child poverty. Through effective planning and decision making to combat these issues, it will enable the best choices for current and future generations beyond economic growth and successfully embed wellbeing into the public policy.
While it has been rumoured government agencies have been siloed when seeking budget funding, the Ardern government have introduced a new framework to combat this rumour and encourage a collaborative funding process. This process involves ministers submitting joint proposals with their colleagues for funding requests and enables social issues such as Domestic Violence to receive dedicated and well-rounded funding.
Interestingly, since the Wellbeing Budget was first announced 13 December 2018, there have been 600+ mentions across broadcast and print. Unsurprisingly, Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson has been leading the conversations with 43 per cent alongside Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern with her share of voice being 29 per cent. The wellbeing budget is surely getting a lot of airtime with 34 per cent of all mentions being across broadcast channels.
At the heart of the Wellbeing Budget is the Living Standards Framework (LSF) – a new dashboard of indicators to be used to advise successive governments’ how their policy choices affect New Zealanders over time and by using this framework, it will effectively embed wellbeing in New Zealand's public policy. In addition, the Ardern government is being guided by other indicators, including the new Child Poverty Reduction Act which obliges the Minister of Finance to report at each budget how the country is tracking on a set of child wellbeing and poverty measures. The current Minister of Finance Grant Robertson will be the first finance minister to do so.
Beyond GDP
Historically, GDP was never intended as a measure of societal progress and it’s only quite recently that alternative measures of societal progress have been developed and a global “beyond GDP” has emerged.
Internationally, this has led to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the OECD Better Life Index and the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. Having these goals allow countries to track their progress towards aspirational goals including good health, superior education and wellbeing.
For a country that is socially progressive, it has taken a long time for the NZ political system to discuss wellbeing and the roles of values. Other taxpayers’ interests such as tourism, housing, immigration and education are also high on the list and the government has a great opportunity to reframe its budgets around the anticipated effect of the policies they’ve announced.
So, is the wellbeing budget a new way to measure the success as a country or is it just the introduction of another ‘first’ to keep the momentum going as a forward-thinking country?
If you would like to learn more about how you can stay across the wellbeing budget or any other topic, get in touch with us today
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Blog
The 2019 Wellbeing Budget is set to broaden New Zealand’s focus beyond economic and fiscal policy
New Zealand is the first western country to design and implement its entire budget around wellbeing initiatives. We take a look at NZ’s Wellbeing Budget.
Alert the media! Audiences are more informed than ever but can there be too much of a good thing? Experts say that the internet has democratised free speech, but when there is too much content to choose from, we're left overwhelmed, trying to escape a boundless house haunted by trolls, clickbait and conspiracy theorists.
Isentia’s webinar, Misinformation: Stopping the Spread, brought together three expert communicators, journalists, data analysts and fighters of fake news to discuss how PR and comms professionals can best navigate misinformation.
Follow these tips so your audiences find your communications and social media strategy is informed and reliable.
While the internet, including social media, can be a hub of helpful information from DIY projects, recipes and tips to fight misinformation… It's also an open platform for anyone to post and publicise anything. Pulsar CEO and Cofounder Fran D'Orazio encourages comms professionals to promote public opinion that's built on a contextually rich foundation so that the everyday scroller sees more than a title and a tagline.
Content creator @sydneyraz, known for his "things to know before you're in your 30s" content, corrected his misinformation post from 2021, where he said you could store your avocados in water to stop them browning. Reputable news outlets, food experts and the FDA responded to his original post, saying this avo hack could actually put you at risk of salmonella and listeria poisoning. Unless misinformation is called out and unreliable content is debunked, media consumers will struggle to know what is correct and who to trust.
3. Seek out the experts
If your misinformation senses are tingling, don't hesitate to send content and questions to groups with expertise in this area. Initiatives like RMIT Factlab and The Disinformation Project investigate misinformation on media platforms. RMIT Factlab takes misinformation Meta has identified, and then fact checks it. They then write an article, post it on their site, and provide it to Meta, who attaches the URL to the original fake news post - offering the opportunity for people to read the truth first. Throughout this process, Meta, using its algorithms, downgrades fake news, so it's not seen as often. "It is better to work with them [Meta], so some misinformation is downgraded, rather than not having a relationship with them," says Sushi Das, Assistant Director of RMIT Factlab.
4. Share truth
Kate-Hannah of the Disinformation Project recommends equipping people with tools like counterspeech to use in discourse spaces. Think about how stories and fact-checking tools can divert a negative conversation and direct it onto the main issue or reveal more context. Empathy, humour and reminding perpetrators of ill-informed public messaging of the consequences to spreading hate or dangerous speech, are some communication strategies to use.
"Everybody is sort of a publisher now," says Sushi Das. We all deserve to feel like we're in a safe space, but the ungovernable realm of the online world puts safety into question. We are all tapping into our smart devices for news content but the key is having high standards of the publishers and creators whose content you consume. Traditional media is still held to account with regulations to follow and trained journalists on staff - posing a strong force against misinformation. With standards, regulations and trained journalists, their outputs are a strong force against exposure to misinformation. The moment a news story goes online, the context is at risk of being blurred, whether a filter is used or not.
What does context look like in a world still learning to understand the vague guidelines governing online spaces? The devil truly is in the details or the lack of them. Pulsar's recent partnership with Newsguard, "the Internet's trust tool," helps them rate outlets producing news content based on such specific details: their standards of accountability, do they gather info responsibly, and correct their own errors? The results contribute to a credibility score. Data powered by Pulsar show which brands are most susceptible to having misinformation about them distributed online - showing that every sector is vulnerable.
There are multiple ways to frame a conversation or narrative. Kate-Hannah says, "there is a responsibility to tell the truth, but in ways that help people make good decisions." People need to be reading the news, not switching off. When reading or producing news content consider how you want readers to feel, but also what you want them to do with that information. Hannah during the webinar, referred to an instance in New Zealand where exposure in the city of Whangarei to Covid-19 spurred people to get tested even in the intense heat. Hannah holds journalists to account for their negative framing of that event, and offers an alternative, that those lining up to get tested in those conditions are ensuring the safety of their community.
8. Prioritise what issues you’re going to speak to
Fran D'Orazio says there is a big job in predicting what narratives will spin out of control, "if you try and attack all the different fronts that get opened on the web, it's difficult to make an impact." Brands must choose what battles to fight and prioritise who should be answered. Develop a response framework for your brand to use when it’s found to be in the middle of a misinformed online dispute. Answer these questions, who are those agitators that need a response and what should they, along with their followers, take away from your response?
Anticipate the impact of a narrative on particular audiences. If you confront an audience already exposed to a misinformation narrative, they are unlikely to change their mind. If you anticipate them and introduce that audience to a truthful record, you may manage to immunise them once they encounter the myths.
10. Improve your media and news literacy
It may be your first impulse to hit that share button but "stop and think before you share anything. That share button is a trigger." Sushi Das says, "everyone needs to be aware of themselves." Question what you see and how the content makes you feel. Don't just read a headline and share it with your communities; use resources like First Draft and NewsWhip to better verify what you and your audiences are consuming online.
Extensive research into misinformation is showing that people are getting splintered into different realities based on the news they consume and the algorithms that continue the pattern of content. By developing our media literacy and sharing the truth with our communities, experts say we can change people's minds before they engage with falsehoods. It Just goes to show, don't keep an avocado in water…or accept everything you see online as fact.
If you see something that is mis or disinformation, send them to initiatives like, info@thedisinfoproject.org or RMIT Factlab.
