Our mission: making your work shine

WHO WE ARE

Flame Tree Media is a communications and media consultancy that helps organisations extract maximum return from their communications.

We do this by:

  • Working with companies and causes to unpack their problems, set goals and design a customised roadmap;
  • Helping them set up a DIY Newsroom™ based on a simple, strategic and sustainable framework;
  • Providing specialist consultancy in communications, media and newspapers.

OUR BACKGROUND

After an extensive background as an editorial executive, editor and journalist, Stuart Howie founded Flame Tree Media in 2014. He has always been passionate about communications and coaching teams to reach their best, so setting up an agency was a dream come true.

Stuart is a former editorial director with Fairfax Media where he designed the innovative digital-first model NewsNow. He oversaw more than 800 editorial staff across regional Australia and drove the editorial strategy for 160 titles.

He is a former editor of the Walkley Award-winning Illawarra Mercury. He was also editor of the Ballarat Courier and a former deputy editor of The Canberra Times.

In recent times, he has created and delivered profound newsroom transformation programs in Australia and New Zealand.

The News Rewired program he designed in NZ was globally acclaimed. This big transformation project won the Corporate Innovation category and Best in Show (Asia/Pacific) at the world’s most prestigious news media marketing awards (INMA) in London in 2016.

Stuart’s exceptional credentials extend to project management and coaching teams in high-performance environments.

POINT OF DIFFERENCE

By helping organisations set up a DIY Newsroom™, Flame Tree provides clients with a world-class communications approach. Newsrooms have been pressure-tested over generations and sit at the top of the content food chain.

Underpinning this, is our custom-crafted SMART™ communications framework.

For our media clients, we have developed SMART Print™ - a proven way to make newspapers stronger for longer.

SOLVING CUSTOMERS' PROBLEMS

Even experienced marketing and communication teams find today’s media landscape challenging. There are more ways than ever to engage with audiences, but that makes it hard to be heard above the cacophony of communications.

We understand organisation’s frustrations when they cannot extract the value they envisage from their communication efforts. Like everyone caught up in this information revolution, they want their organisation’s quality work to shine.

Unfortunately, many companies fail to devote the time and energy to craft a strategic plan. They then end up communicating in a haphazard way. Other mistakes they make include:

  • Paying content marketers for services that do not help them connect with the right audiences or for a real return on investment;
  • Paying for communication services when in-house training would be cheaper, more effective and enable them to control their own message for the long term;
  • Winging it when they need a professional approach, risking huge reputational damage;
  • Avoiding the opportunity that well-targeted social media and digital marketing can provide for next-to-nothing; and
  • Relying on an old-school communications model and then wondering why they are falling behind competitors.

WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT US

We have worked with large media and non-media organisations and provided them with new pathways to success.

In feedback, clients have stated they would highly recommend us to friends. They give us top marks for delivering them amazing solutions.

Asked to describe us in three words, one client, Fairfax Media NZ, responded: “Innovative. Efficient. World class”.  

Stuff CEO Sinead Boucher said:  “Flame Tree, and in particular Stuart Howie, has been a vital part of our massive transformation. I would not hesitate to recommend Flame Tree to any organisation needing to deliver transformational change at a strategic and structural level”.

Register for discovery session

Do you want to assess your communications health? Would you like to tap into world’s best practice?

Register your interest for a SMART™ Communicator discovery session.

In these workshops, we assess your communications, drill into your problems (beyond the symptoms) and provide you with immediate solutions and an initial treatment plan.

Memberships