ANNUAL REPORT 2014/2015

OSPRI | CORPORATE ACTIVITIES 2014/2015
Marketing and Communications
During the year, we focused
on improving communication
and engagement across
our work, including building
greater awareness of OSPRI
as a new organisation and its
management of the TBfree
and NAIT programmes.
OSPRI
We updated our mission – ‘to
help protect and enhance the
reputation of New Zealand’s
primary industries’ – to underscore
our support role and link our
work to the aspirations of key
stakeholders. Our upcoming work
with stakeholders to define a new
strategy for OSPRI will likely lead to
further enhancements in how
we describe our role.
We also made branding refinements
and updated a significant amount
of content to improve the
professionalism and coherence of
our branding across OSPRI, TBfree
and NAIT. This improved our ability
to link programmes to OSPRI and
helped build better understanding of
OSPRI’s role overall. We saw benefits
of this at National Fieldays, with a
high level of attendance.
We continued a strong media
presence, including extending our
use of social media. Facing a large
number of information requests
each year, we also commenced
development of a wider suite of
factsheets to explain key technical,
policy and operational aspects
of our programmes. We built our
marketing capability internally with
a view to enhancing the targeting
and value of our activity.
NAIT
Consistent with the feedback
of our key stakeholders, we
placed a strong focus on better
communicating the benefits of
NAIT for livestock supply chains.
This included print advertising
across national rural publications,
complemented by radio spots and
advertising on stock trucks.
In print media, our communications
led with benefits described by
farmers themselves, supplemented
by information on NAIT’s
requirements. To ensure our
messages were timely and relevant,
we also tailored them to key
agricultural events and dates.
At Fieldays, our team provided
hands-on training with the NAIT
system, assisting farmers with their
NAIT accounts and answering a
wide range of queries. We also
ran training workshops around
the country, based on step-bystep
instruction guides available
to all farmers. Over 1000 people
attended the workshops, with a
very high satisfaction rating for the
content and trainers.
Based on analysis of NAIT data, we
commenced targeted campaigns
– what we call ‘NAIT Nudge’ – to
improve uptake and compliance
with NAIT. While early days, these
have had positive and very costeffective
results.
TBFREE
Our significant headway in reducing
infected herds and eradicating TB
from vector risk areas provided
a strong platform for our TBfree
communications.
There was high interest during the
year in the review of the NPMP
and the maintenance of adequate
funding over the transition year
(2015/2016) while the review was
being undertaken. We provided
communications support to the
NPMP review, and put significant
effort into regional communications
on why there remained a good
case for councils to continue to
fund for 2015/2016.
Keeping stakeholders and the
public informed about our pest
control activities is a key aspect
of the programme, along with a
large number of communications
and engagements regarding aerial
operations using 1080. We also
ran community information and
demonstrations days to answer
queries and build awareness of how
our pest control operations work.
As part of thinking laterally about
how to reach different audiences,
we created a number of short
videos to explain key parts of
the programme. These included
videos explaining the use of pigs
(including ‘Judas’ pigs we follow
with tracking devices) as sentinels
for TB and our partnership with
DOC and the community group
Project Tongariro to eradicate pests
in the Tongariro region.
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