Broadcasting in both Mandarin and Cantonese on 91.5FM, the station will celebrate the upcoming Moon Festival and will be managed by the China Radio Network.  The Broadcast has started and runs for a full month, ending on the date of the festival - Sunday October 4.

The mid-Autumn festival, also known as the Moon Festival is the second most important event in the Chinese calendar after Chinese New Year.

Traditionally, the Autumn Moon festival brings Chinese families together to admire the bright moon and to eat mooncakes, the traditional food of the occasion. Chinese communities in Sydney will enjoy several high profile events in the lead up to the Autumn Moon festival - Kogarah Council hosts the annual Jadeworld Carnival on September 12, and a major celebration in Cabramatta on the 27^th of September in Cabramatta is expected to attract 70,000 people.

Ethnic media sales reps Spots & Space invite advertisers to take advantage of this unique radio event, to influence Chinese consumers, and to build goodwill during the upcoming month of celebrations.  General Manager Daniel Laforest says: We have put together very attractive advertising packages that include the production of a professional Chinese language radio advertisement.   

Advertising enquiries can be directed to Sarah Lander, Sales Manager at Spots & Space Pty Ltd.

•        Muslims are encouraged to dress in their best clothes, preferably new, to attend the Eid prayers
•        Migrants from the Middle East eat lamb, as the traditional meat for the Eid family gathering
•        Children may be given gifts and sweets
•        After the prayers and the feasting - Muslims will ring friends and family, both local and overseas

According to the 2006 Census, there are 340,393 Muslims in Australia (ABS) and 82% of these live in Sydney or Melbourne.  86% speak a language other than English at home, with Arabic being the most common, followed by Turkish.

The Muslim community is also significantly younger than the Australian average with a 58.6% aged 29 years and under.

As with other major cultural events, Eid Al Fitr does present opportunities for advertisers to connect to a unique audience and the community is well-served by specialist media.  In Sydney alone, there are two dedicated Muslim radio stations as well as numerous stations broadcasting in Arabic, Turkish, Bahasa and other relevant languages.

BreastScreen NSW is a population-based breast screening program that aims to reduce illness and death caused by breast cancer through the early detection of the disease.  Research has found that regular breast screening for women aged 50 to 69 can reduce the number of deaths caused by the disease by up to 30%.  BreastScreen NSW have developed extremely well researched campaigns for different ethnic communities. Intelligence reviews the 2003 campaign for the Italian community.

A Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) Task Force was formulated early on to encourage greater participation by women from migrant communities.  Data available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that there were 14,337 women in the target age group (50-69) whose country of birth was Italy.  The NESB Task Force determined that recruitment of Italian-speaking women would be a first priority.

FORMATIVE RESEARCH: Before undertaking a campaign in Italian, a reference group of Italian women was set up to determine the key factors of the campaign: message formulation, content and communications channels. 

Some of the themes and findings arising from the research were:

1.    GPs, friends and family members were influential in decision-making about health issues.

2.    High-profile spokespeople may not be convincing.

3.    Channel Selection: It was found that a large proportion of the target market listen to Rete Italia, the main radio station in the Italian Community. 

SBS Radio and La Fiamma, the NSW’s Italian newspaper were also selected. 

As BreastScreen NSW had invested a lot in research and the creative material development, it was decided to extend the campaign to all community stations in NSW where there was Italian programming.  Including the community broadcasters enabled BreastScreen NSW to truly partner the Italian media outlets with a State-wide campaign.

SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT: The campaign revolved around Rosanna, the central character for four radio scripts produced as role-plays between Rosanna, her family, friends and local GP, and her decision to have a screening mammogram.  Five complementary newspaper advertisements were produced.  

PRODUCTION: An Italian Theatre Director was used to oversee the production.  Italian voice-over professionals were used.  The professional production process ensured the advertisements sounded credible.

PRE-CAMPAIGN PUBLICITY: A feature article including a supporting photo of the reference group was published in La Fiamma.  This first story served to raise interest in the subsequent campaign.

EXTENDED USE OF THE MEDIA: Editorials were produced in Italian to accompany the paid advertising.  These reflected the issues that arose from the reference group and also served as talkback topics for radio. Some of the issues identified were:

•       Embarrassment of undressing for the appointment
•       Myths associated with breast cancer
•       Fear of pain and fear of the diagnosis.

Tegan Usback of BreastScreen NSW has praised the media, in particular La Fiamma for their willingness to run editorial support and ensure the maximum impact of the advertising.   Overall, BreastScreen NSW was able to achieve significant bonus exposure for the campaign because of the excellent creative, the social goals of the campaign and the willingness of the media to get the best possible outcome.

TIMING OF THE CAMPAIGN: The campaign was run as a split campaign over four weeks in May ‘03 and again in September ‘03, allowing for some evaluation of phase one and fine tuning before the start of phase two.

EVALUATION: Monitoring and evaluation costs were built into the campaign budget.  BreastScreen NSW undertook a research questionnaire with the media that asked for feedback on the quality of the creative as well as any feedback that the media had received from audiences.   The two-phase structure permitted some modification of the campaign before phase two, based on this survey.

Fbi, SYN, Edge, Switch, Fresh ….. They could be the names of soft drinks, fashion labels or nightclubs.  They are the new wave of community radio stations inspiring a new generation of media to get active in community media.

Radio is undergoing a seismic shift, similar to that of the late 1970’s.   Then, change was precipitated by youth disenchantment with the dominant Rock-FM format and the emergence of Punk music.  There was an explosion of independent new stations, including 3RRR in Melbourne, 2JJ (which became JJJ) in Sydney and 4ZZZ in Brisbane.   Together with 3D (Adelaide), 2SER (Sydney) and 6RTRFM (Perth), these strong stations have evolved from wild child to icon, in their 20+ years of existence.

(L to R: Jason Allen (SYN TV Executive Producer), Jack Post, Alex Ford and Adrian McMahon (SYN FM Programming Manager and former Producer of the Jack & Fordy Show)

The cycle is repeating now, driven partly by the worldwide dance music phenomenon, and partly by the desire of younger audiences to take charge of the airwaves one again.  To create original content and to write the playlist.

Community radio is the ideal home for young, would-be-broadcasters.  Like the internet - another young medium - community radio encourages personal access, independence and communities of interest.  Unlike the internet, these new stations have powerful FM transmitters offering broadcast coverage of the entire metropolitan area.  In the case of Sydney’s Fbi, the signal is clearly heard from the Blue Mountains to Wollongong.

While relatively new, these stations are by no means rough.  Professional production standards, excellent programming, fully interactive websites, talkback/chat, outside broadcasts and events are all vital ways in which the stations interact with audiences and the broader community.

Hobart’s newcomer Edge Radio took out Radio Station Of The Year award at the Community Broadcasting Association’s national conference in December 2003. 

In Melbourne, Jack Post and Alex Ford (Jack and Fordy) are the famously young hosts of the Friday show for SYN TV.  The pair recently won Community TVs Antenna Award for best male presenters. SYN TV’s innovative show is broadcast 4-5pm daily in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, and simulcast on SYN FM in Melbourne.  The cross-platform broadcast on TV and Radio is the only one of its kind in Australia and Jack Post and Alex Ford (Jack and Fordy) seem certain to follow Channel 31s most famous son - Rove McManus, to success.

The talent and innovation coming from the new wave of community youth broadcasters will be a major influence on the radio industry in the next few years.

September 2004

According to the 2001 Census, there are more than 200,000 Arabic speakers in Australia – 70% live in Sydney. Arabic-speaking migrants number approximately two-thirds Christian and one-third Muslim, with the Muslim Arabic speakers generally being more recently arrived in Australia. The Muslim community is also the faster-growing segment of the community.

The central religious festival for the Muslim community is Ramadan. The lead up to the festival is not dissimilar to Christian Lent, a time of fasting and self-purification. Muslims fast between dawn and dusk for a full month.

The holiday that ends the fast is called Eid ul Fitr – the Festival of the Breaking of the Fast. A second Eid is celebrated two months later. Devout older Muslims make the pilgrimage (the Hajj) to Mecca at this time. It is customary to give money to the poor at Eid. Children may also receive gifts, sweets or money.

In 2004 Ramadan starts October 15 and ends mid November. As the Islamic calendar is only 354 days long, Ramadan moves forward 11 days every year, in relation to the Gregorian (Western) calendar. In 2005, Ramadan will start on October 4 and be held progressively earlier in the year for the next few years.

Chinese New Year is celebrated by Chinese communities all over the world. Strong ties among family groups, whether in Malaysia, China, Canada or Australia make the Chinese high-value subscribers for telecommunications services.

Spending on retail of all kinds soars at New Year. Young children are given toys, older children and teenagers receive “lucky” money. As with the Vietnamese, the New Year signifies a fresh start - this could provide a welcome boost to the retail sector while mainstream Australia is recovering from Christmas expenses.

The Chinese and Vietnamese also join in celebration of the Autumn, Harvest or Mooncake festival, held annually in late September or early October.

The Italian community celebrate with family gatherings. Other than religious festivals, family milestone events such as christenings, engagements and weddings are important.

Third generation Italian-Australians may favour Australian-style reception venues, however, as the wedding is likely to be paid for by the parents, advertising in Italian media remains important. Studies have shown that seven of 10 Italian speakers consume Italian language media on a weekly basis.

Australian Italians have traditionally favoured investment in property over other choices – some property marketers are aware of this and have built market share by engaging the Italian community on a local basis.

Italian businesses also know to associate products and services with key sporting events. Melbourne’s Grand Prix and big soccer events capture the attention of the Italian community. Travel, telecommunications and cars are ideally-targeted to associate with such sporting events.

The biggest and most-eagerly anticipated celebration for the community is Tet, or New Year, Tet is held at the same time as Chinese New Year.

It is supposed to be bring bad luck to clean during Tet, you don’t want to “sweep away” the good luck of the new year so traditionally, pre-Tet is cleanup time. This also when the Vietnamese community paint their houses! 

September 2004

Major community events revolve around the Greek Orthodox church calendar - Christmas is very important,  as is Easter.  

The Greek Orthodox church use the Œoldı (Julian) calendar to calculate Easter, while other Christian faiths use the Gregorian calendar.  This means that Greek Orthodox Easter is held earlier or later than the rest of secular Australia.  So Easter is normally celebrated twice by the community - a secular day for Easter eggs with mainstream Australia and a religious day for Greek with the traditional exchange of ‘red eggs’, the colour red symbolising the Blood of Christ and the egg symbolising new life.

Greek Festival - Sydney (Photo courtesy of Loud Multicultural)

Unlike many Australians, Greek people prefer not to actively work during Church holidays, using this time for family leisure-related activities such as museums, movies or visits to the zoo etc, except for Good Friday, which is a day of true religious contemplation.

The Greek community is one of Australia’s oldest cultural communities in Australia and is known for maintaining strong links with their culture through language and music.  Older Greek Australians often return to their birth country on extended holidays whilst younger Greek-Australians demonstrate a strong retention of the language, many speaking Greek and spending time working and holidaying in Greece. 

The Greek Festival of Sydney attracts over 150,000 people annually.  The Festival held every March in Darling Harbour showcases Greek expression in the form of artists, dance, lifestyle and heritage.  Celebrating its 22^nd year in 2004, the popular three-week event is strongly supported by the Greek Orthodox Community and various international councils supporting Greeks living overseas.  Similar Greek Festivals run in Melbourne and Adelaide every March, often with international acts from Greece touring each State.

Another annual event, is the Greek Film Festival, which touches over 8,000 1^st and 2^nd generation Greek Australians.  The 2004 event to be held in September and is expected to feature independent and art house screenings of over 15 films with the festival’s exposure in both the Greek and mainstream media.

NSW Lotteries first realised the impact of marketing to culturally diverse communities as early as 1992, when the Year of the Monkey Instant Scratchie was issued.  The Lunar New Year is widely celebrated by the Chinese and Vietnamese communities of Australia.

Instant Scratchies used professional Chinese designers to develop the creative concepts for the ticket.  These designs were then “taken to the streets” for testing.  Chinese and Vietnamese speakers interviewed members of the communities to gain direct feedback. Opinions were sought on how the design of the Monkey, colours and symbols used could be made more attractive. 

Based on the research findings, the Lucky Monkey ticket was developed and promoted using Chinese and Vietnamese radio and press.  The ticket was a huge success - 99.2% of the tickets were sold.

In the 12 years since NSW Lotteries launched the Lunar New Year Scratchies, the campaign has grown in sophistication. 

“One of our country’s greatest assets is the diversity of our community and the wide range of cultural traditions we can draw on. When we share and understand those traditions we are helping to build a stronger, more cohesive society,” said Darren Potter, Product Manager Instant Scatchies

In expanding its multicultural marketing activity NSW Lotteries has also sponsored two popular Chinese radio programs on Feng Shui, throughout the year.  New campaigns have been developed to support other Instant Scratchie games and promotions with press material always provided in Mandarin, Cantonese and Vietnamese to maximise use by the ethnic media.  Print advertisements also feature spot red, traditionally a lucky colour for the Chinese, and the colour associated with the New Year.

However, the Lunar New Year ticket continues to be a key multicultural initiative and a very popular game amongst Scratchie players. The creative design has always been important to the success of the game.  Jessie Wong, Managing Director of Multicultural Marketing and Management, who have helped create many of the New Year tickets says: The Chinese and Vietnamese speaking communities are looking for symbols of luck and are motivated by the excitement of the season to play.  Instant Scratchies’ Lunar New Year tickets have become an annual tradition