For all media enquiries about MELBOURNE AT home, please contact:

Marianne O'Donoghue
Marketing Manager (and all Public Relations requests)
(02) 8923 8328

Leanne Setch
Marketing Assistant (and Exhibitor Marketing requests)
(03) 8420 5450 (Tues, Wed & Fri)
(03) 9421 1388

Roberto Pace
Red Agency
(03) 9670 8350

 

 

 

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MEDIA RELEASE

Date: 23 July 2008 

Download in PDF format [90Kb]

 

Couples Cleaning Challenge
Melbourne at Home and Dyson put census findings to the test

The perpetual gender debate sparked once more following University of Queensland* findings that men are doing more housework as women do more paid work, has Melbourne at Home show organisers and Dyson gearing up to pit Melbourne couples against each other next month in a daily domestic relay race at the show.

Challenge winners get to walk away with Dyson’s latest release, the DC24 compact vacuum cleaner valued at $649.
 
The Melbourne at Home ‘Couples Cleaning Challenge’ aims to put the question of who does more work at home?  to the test with couples competing in a series of domestic tasks against the clock to beat each other for best time.

With multiple couples selected at the show to compete in each challenge, the man or woman to beat the clock and other contestants, wins both bragging rights at home and the new versatile lightweight cleaner Dyson will be releasing next month. 

 
 

dmg world media Australian Home Interest Director and Melbourne at Home organiser, Bernadette Neumann, hopes that by putting the theory to a practical demonstration, couples have the chance to resolve the question among themselves and to the crowd. 

“We are working with Dyson to create a fun and interactive challenge at the show that will bring humour to an issue that has been known to create tension in many households.

“After hearing James Dyson quoted as saying “one of my greatest achievements in life is making metrosexual men want to vacuum”, we can understand why Dyson decided to partner up with us on this challenge.” said Ms Neumann.

Melbourne at Home will be held at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre on 27-31 August 2008 and will showcase the latest trends in indoor and outdoor urban design, latest appliances and much more. The Couples Cleaning Challenge will take place each day at the Building Block centre stage at 1pm.

For more information about Melbourne at Home or to pre-book your tickets go to www.melbourneathome.com.au

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For additional information please contact either Sherene Grace at Dyson on Tel: 02 9540 0423/ 0423 074 074 Email: shereng@dyson.com.au ORRoberto Pace at Red Agency on Tel: 03 9670 8350/ 0431 824 148 Email: Roberto.Pace@redagency.com.au

 

Pg2- Note to editors

*University of Queensland’s findings followed analysis of studies conducted by the University from 1986 to 2005, which found a narrowing of the gender gap when it comes to hours worked in paid employment and at home.
More than 2400 people were surveyed, with households divided into "new traditional" partnerships where the man worked full-time and the woman worked part-time, and "dual-earner" couples where both worked full-time.
According to the university’s paper, presented on 9 July 2008 at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, couples who worked full-time were found to spend roughly the same amount of time in paid and unpaid work over the week, 66.88 hours for men and 67.47 hours for women in 2005.

 

Note to editors:

• dmg world media is a leading expo and event organiser.
• Other shows run by dmg world media include HIA home shows and leading architecture and design expo, Designex.
• DC24 Ball, a new lightweight compact vacuum cleaner from Dyson launches into stores on 1 August 2008.
• All Dyson vacuum cleaners have been exclusively accepted into the National Asthma Council Sensitive Choice program. For more information on the program visit www.sensitivechoice.com.au.
• One-third of Dyson employees (500 worldwide) are engineers and scientists working to develop product that work significantly better than those they replace.
• James Dyson spent 10 years and made 5,127 prototypes whilst developing and perfecting a vacuum cleaner that would not lose suction.

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WHAT A YEAR FOR THE AWARD WINNING HIA HOME SHOWS.

2007 was a fantastic year for the HIA Home Shows and we would like to thank you for being part of such a successful portfolio of events.

 

Feedback from the show’s which took place in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide was fantastic from exhibitors, sponsors and visitor alike. Not only did the Shows receive an abundance of visitors, look great and were good fun to be part of, they were also honoured in the exhibition industry’s excellence awards earlier this month.

 

Melbourne’s HIA Home Ideas Show won the much coveted award of Best Consumer Event of more than 10,000 square metres just pipping last year’s winner, the HIA Sydney Home Show, to the post.  

 

Another dmg world media home event was also honoured with an award. The Adelaide marketing team were celebrating for a second year running with the Adelaide Home and Garden Expo collecting the award for best Visitor Promotion Campaign for a Consumer Exhibition.

 

All in all it was a great night for dmg world media winning awards in 5 of the 6 categories in which we were nominated and we would like to express our gratitude to you, our exhibitors and partners for working with us to build such fantastic events. 

 

With such a successful year under our belts we really have something to celebrate over the festive season and we look forward to building on our success and producing great events in 2008. 

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and here’s to a great 2008!!!

Bernadette Neumann and the HIA Home Show Teams