Creating a YouTube mockumentary about superannuation is just one
way an Australian accounting institute is attempting to broaden the
ways it communicates with its members and the general public.

CPA Australia launched the four-and-a-half minute video ‘Super
Love’ on YouTube in February in an effort to encourage Australians
to pay more attention to their superannuation plans. After two
weeks on the popular video-sharing website, the low-budget clip had
registered around 7,500 hits and generated over 2,000 visits to the
‘Learn to love your super’ section of CPA Australia’s website. The
video’s launch was also picked up in the Australian mainstream
media.

CPA Australia president Alex Malley said the institute chose
superannuation as a theme as there is a sizeable debate in the
nation about the topic.

“What we’ve found is that there is quite a lot of interest and
people are communicating about the video in all sorts of weird and
wonderful places and that’s the part that fascinates me. It’s just
a new forum,” he said.

Malley has also launched an online diary in the form of a blog on
the CPA Australia website, which is regularly updated with personal
observations and opinions.

These measures reflect Malley’s desire to do things differently and
communicate in new ways since taking over the president’s position
in October last year. The foray into new media means the institute
communicates with its members at three levels: through its
magazine, through online messaging and email bulletins, and with
new media such as YouTube and blogging. The move to embrace YouTube
and modern forms of communication is a means of reaching out to
younger members, Malley said. He added that using different forms
of communication showed members that the institute could
communicate with them in a multitude of ways that best suited
them.

“Increasingly, people get e-mails every day of their lives and they
decide before they open it what they are going to read and what
they are not going to read. And so I think what we have to do [is
introduce] a bit of variety and give people choices,” he said