DMA Letter Template

DMA Letter Template

June 2011

Profile

Design Managers Australia

Justin Barrie is the Principal of leading public relations agency,
Design Managers Australia (DMA).

DMA is dedicated to managing organisations’ reputation and enhancing the link between strategic planning and their brand position in the market.

Background

Justin has tertiary qualifications in Communication from the University of Canberra. He turned those to practical use by working as a political researcher as a member of the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery from 1994 – 1997.

In 1997 he moved to the Australian Taxation Office, where he specialised in media relations. He was a key team member through the transition to A New Tax System, running business as usual media relations as well as liaison with the campaign for ANTS.

Whilst at the ATO Justin was also responsible for a range of launches that touched millions of taxpayers and was a member of the Whole of Government Communications Committee for the Olympics and led media relations on the high profile Commissioner of Taxation v Consolidated Press Supreme Court case.

Whilst at Tax, Justin was chosen to further specialise in crisis management – gaining an RMIT certificate in Crisis Management Skills.

He used these skills through a tumultuous time at the ATO and in particular during the “Tax Office Letter Bomber” crisis, where he planned strategies to address a direct threat on ATO and it’s staff.

In mid-2003, Justin founded DMA and continues his organisational design for a range of clients including Federal and State Departments and Agencies, Non-Profit Organisations private industry businesses.

Capabilities

At DMA we believe in positioning an organisation BEFORE there is an issue. For that reason, unlike traditional Public Relations Consultancies, we work hard with clients on corporate strategy and brand positioning as well as promotional plans.

Instead of obsessing with risk management, DMA is all about Opportunity Management.

Our capabilities stretch across the full range of PR skills. We have developed PR and corporate plans for large and small organisations. We understand traditional media and how to maximise brand performance within it, but are also recognised as having strong social and digital media planning strength.

Our issues management skills are second to none. We have and continue to work with Agencies that are at the front line of politics, policy and service delivery. We combine our stakeholder engagement capabilities to build real, citizen influenced strategies that manage the brand and reputation of our clients.

Our skill set includes al of the normal PR services:

Public Relations

• Public relations strategy and implementation

• Stakeholder and community engagement strategy

• Event planning and management for launch/promotions

• Media management services for campaigns and major events

• Writing and editing

• Issues management

At the same time we also offer experience in brand development services.

Design Managers Australia specialises in working with organisations to ensure their brand truly represents their organisation in the market place.

We do this by analysing and supporting brand development on a number of levels:

  • Organisational strategy – business and corporate plans and vision statements
  • Internal processes – people development and organisational design
  • Products and Services – customer focussed and relevant
  • Aesthetic presentation – the graphic interface that supports the brand

And by providing the following extended PR services:

  • brainstorming sessions for Executives, staff or customers
  • corporate planning sessions
  • qualitative evaluation sessions of products and services
  • development of client specific tools to support internal processes
  • multi-disciplinary teams to tackle large scale design projects

At a time when Government Agencies in particular are starting to see the link between consultation and collaboration with consumers and citizens, DMA has been doing that work since 2003.

Our work

Over the past decade we have been proud to support a diverse client group:

  • Review the Home Insulation Program on behalf of the Department of Environment and provide issues management advice on the Program
  • Lead a multi-disciplinary team to develop the high-level design of the new PSS Accumulation Superannuation Scheme for ComSuper
  • Advise CSIRO on the implementation of their website redesign including issues management around the project in a highly volatile external and internal environment
  • Lead the Government Communications Unit within PM&C on its planning day to investigate better ways to do business – helping them to act in a way that they expected of their client Departments with regard to whole-of-Government branding
  • Development of a Digital and Social Media Roadmap for Centrelink and the National Water Commission
  • Leading the public launch of internet start-up Perkler which included consistent national promotion, regular appearances on national current affairs programs and radio
  • Facilitating ACT Baseball’s strategic planning that led to the bid for a National Baseball League licence on behalf of Sport and Recreation Services ACT

Some of our other clients:

Department of Climate Change, ComSuper, the Australian Taxation Office, Australian Federal Police and the Australian Nursing Federation.

All material in this profile remains the intellectual property of Design Managers Australia PTY LTD and

Should not be reproduced without their permission.page 1 of 3