Every single 250ml innocent smoothie contains two full portions of your recommended five a day. Considering how difficult it is to actually consume five portions of fruit and vegetables every single day, this is some feat. Therefore, our brief was to communicate innocent’s health credentials in a way that really engaged with people. The last thing we wanted was to sound like we were ordering people to be healthier, or to sound smug, self-satisfied or preachy. That’s not very innocent, after all. We wanted our audience to choose to spend time playing with the brand, and we took that very literally.
Late one night in a coding frenzy completely unrelated to fruit, one of our digital ninjas, space invaders fan Colm Doyle had an idea: what if the sky was suddenly filled with falling fruit and bottles of innocent smoothies? Catch them in your picnic basket you’d score points. You’d score one point for an apple or a banana, two for a bottle of innocent (See…two a day?). Catch the falling junk food and you’d lose points.
Brendan, Ali and Helen down in Fruit Towers really liked the idea and so here it is. An online campaign, where you can play away to your heart’s content. We’ve also designed and built a facebook application through which you can publish your score and challenge your friends to play.
Unsurprisingly, Colm’s is the highest score so far. See how you fare at the innocent smoothies Facebook page
Well done to the agency team: Colm Doyle (tech. developer, the one with the idea), Andrew Moran (tech. manager), Lucy Ryan (account manager), Elaine Kinsella (flash developer), Greg McLoughlin (words) and Tim Mudie (pictures).
And of course thanks to our clients in Fruit Towers, Dublin.
Are you an experienced digital planner/buyer looking to take the next step in your career? To develop digital strategy for some of the world’s best brands, right here in Ireland? The kind of person whose first thought seeing Foursquare (after becoming mayor of your office) was how you could make it work for a client? Then you might be the person we’re looking for.
Not long ago, Graeme Beere decided to come to the rescue and buy the master franchise for Ireland of the O’Briens sandwich chain.
As part of the rescue plan, TV chef and author Rachel Allen was ingeniously signed up on board to add filling to the O’Briens brand.
Rachel acting as creative consultant agreed to create her own ‘Signature Sandwiches’. As you can image to have someone of Rachel’s calibre come on board not only brings heightened profile but instils renewed confidence in the O’Briens future, for both the public and for the franchisees.
As our creatives got to work they knew that Rachel Allen at O’Brien’s was a unique proposition. Her image is glamorous, warm and approachable and her name is intrinsically linked with premium quality. As such, the creative concept made full use of her personality, as well as her relaxed, calm style on camera.
Promoting Rachel single mindedly as the exciting new venture at O’Brien’s was undoubtedly an opportunity not to be missed.
Using a 30 second TV commercial, along with three separate 10 second executions, we created an air of anticipation around Rachel’s Signature Sandwiches and, at the same time, invoked all of the freshness and quality cues we wanted to impart to viewers. Rachel herself could not have been nicer on the day. Friendly and warm and didn’t mind signing a book or two for me!
Confident our national campaign will help fill some hunger I’ll leave you with Rachel’s own words – ”The food choices we make are more important now than ever, both for ourselves and those around us. If you are on the go and need a sandwich, shouldn’t it be an Irish one made in front of you and at a fair price? I’m delighted to help make that sandwich even tastier.”
This Christmas being what it is, I have been finding joy in the smaller (and cheaper) delights. I’ve been baking.
On Sunday I was up to my elbows in Guinness-steeped currants and dates, making mounds of mince pies for my friends in the office. However, on presentation to my colleagues in our broadcast and creative departments, I didn’t quite get the gratitude I expected.
“Yeurch. I don’t like mince pies,” Michael Cullen told me.
“What do you want then?”
“My granny used to make these little things that were exactly like mince pies but they had coconut and jam in.”
I was pretty sure I knew what he was talking about so I set about doing a bit of research. Sure enough, I found a recipe – Manchester Tarts. They were nothing like mince pies but Mick was right; they did have coconut and jam in.
Being from the North West of England I have come across my fair share of Manchester Tarts and they are historically easy to knock up.
So I made a batch and brought them in alongside my mince pies. Once Kevin Murray got a sniff of them, word got round. And it turns out that Michael Cullen isn’t quite as unique as you’d think – the Manchester Tarts disappeared much more quickly than the mince pies.
And so, in the spirit of festive giving, here is my recipe for Mick’s Alternative Mince Pies. I tend to think it’s nicer to have several small tarts but this recipe will work to make one big tart should that be your preference. And any leftover pastry will freeze.
Merry Christmas all.
For the pastry:
225g butter
50g caster sugar
2 eggs
350g plain flour
For the pastry, beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl until just mixed. Break in a whole egg and a yolk.
Beat together for just under 1 min – it will look a bit like scrambled egg.
Now work in the flour with a wooden spoon, a third at a time, then finish gathering it together with your hands.
Gently work the dough into a ball, wrap in cling film, and chill for 45 mins.
For the filling:
3 eggs
225ml pint double cream
50g caster sugar
90g desiccated coconut
75g jam
∏ teaspoon vanilla extract
Pre-heat the oven to 180C
Warm the cream with the vanilla extract to just below boiling.
Mix the eggs, sugar and coconut together, then pour the cream onto the sugar mix and stir.
Put to one side.
Grease a flan case/baking tray with butter. Roll out your pastry on a floured surface. If making small tarts cut out rounds in the pastry and line each hole in the baking sheet, if making one tart line the flan case with the pastry.
Put a small blob of jam into each case and pour the coconut mixture on top.
Bake in the oven until golden brown (around 15 mins for individual tartlets and 25mins for large tart.)
The most important question facing any student sitting their Leaving Cert. next year is; what next? It’s probably the single biggest and first major decision that anyone of that age has had to make. The range of options could seem dizzying. Our client, UCD, is acutely aware of this. As Ireland’s premier third level institution, UCD are always looking at new ways to talk to its audiences. In this age of splintered and disparate media consumption the main challenge is how to truly engage with your average 16-18 year old. We need to talk with them in a dialect finely tuned to their critical ears.
The challenge was set: reaching our audience in the most relevant channels, in the most credible way.
With this brief in mind, UCD took the step this year of inviting their students tell their own story of UCD. In September 2009, twenty diverse UCD students were recruited to the UCD Video Squad. They were chosen from a group of over 100 applicants. We supplied them with camcorders and conducted production workshops with them. We asked them to create and produce short videos about their experience at UCD and we briefed them on covering both academic and non academic pursuits.
This content is live, and will be continually updated on UCD Life.
This bespoke website was designed by McConnellsintegrated where a mixture of Video Squad videos and other UCD videos will let its audience see what UCD is really like. Content produced by the people who know it best – its students.
We could talk about the videos, how they were produced and who the stars of our squad are but you’re better off having a look for yourself. Better yet, send the link onto someone you know doing the Leaving Cert. next year.
Big thanks to Colm Doyle, Jennifer Hord, Saibh Hooper, Andrew Moran and of course our clients Eilis O’Brien and Claire Percy in UCD.
We are closed for Christmas holidays from 1pm Wednesday 23rd December 2009 until 9am Monday 4th January 2010. If you need to make contact with the agency during that period, please call Stuart on 086-2577510. We would like to take this opportunity to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
The past few months have been good ones for Ireland’s largest commercial broadcaster: TV3. The performance of their hit shows “The Apprentice” and “The X-Factor” have, for the first time, allowed them to really mix up with arch rivals RTE. Both shows have captured the imagination of the nation (Ed.: was the rhyme intentional?). Whether or not they’re cringe inducing (Jedward, Michelle Heaton) or brilliant (Leona’s comeback for the finale) or both (erm, Jedward again?), the public’s appetite for their programming was unwavering. After a slow start, viewing to The Apprentice grew steadily from week two right up until Aoife’s departure in week ten, where an average 541,000 viewers tuned into the show. This translates as 13.1 TVRs.
Ratings increased as we got to know the contestants and as the various narratives unfolded, however after some of the more entertaining contestants fell by the wayside viewing levels actually dropped. This is counterintuitive given that we were nearing the closing stages. The final X-Factor was watched by an average 472,000 people but that at one point during the show a peak audience of 568,000 tuned in. Over on “The Apprentice: You’re Fired” Brendan O’Connor didn’t in his own words “take the b*****d” but he did come agonizingly close to outperforming Pat Kenny and Frontline. It is hard to imagine (or is it?) that on the 9th November Brendan O’Connor was just 20,000 viewers behind the veteran broadcaster.
In revenue terms, X-Factor was star performer for TV3. Given that TV3 aired live shows on both Saturday and Sunday, the station’s advertising inventory showed a significant uplift over the period. The results show on the 22nd November (where we finally saw the back of Jedward) was the most watched show of the series when an average 818,000 tuned in, presumably to ensure they were leaving. In fact, as the results were being announced over 1 million of us were glued to the screen – a phenomenal performance and a record for TV3.
Both shows proved so popular with advertisers that TV3 were in the enviable position of being able to auction off the last few remaining spots on the final shows.
TV3 has stepped it up, and advertisers are noticing.
The only thing to be decided at this point is the Christmas number one. If the Facebook Group “Rage against the X-Factor” (with 775,000 members) gets its way Joe’s win won’t convert to a Christmas No. 1. The group is encouraging members to download Rage Against The Machine’s new track in attempt to prevent X-Factor claiming a fifth consecutive Christmas No.1.
Ironically, Sony own the rights to both artists.
Nevertheless, all eyes are on TV3’s spring schedule launch on January 8th.
L to R: Tom Trainor FMII, The Marketing Institute of Ireland – Michael Carey FMII, Chairman of the board of the Marketing Institute of Ireland – Stuart Fogarty FMII, McConnellsintegrated
The Board of the Marketing Institute of Ireland has announced the names of eleven members who are to be conferred with the highest category of membership, that of Fellow of the Institute. Fellowship is awarded in recognition of a members contribution to marketing and/or to the work of the Institute itself. The new Fellows for 2009 are:
Conor Carmody, Meteor
Stuart Fogarty, McConnellsintegrated
Kate Uí Ghallachóir, DIT
Deirdre Houlihan, FBD Hotel Group
Paul Kelders, Jump!
Pat McDonagh, Supermacs
Pauric McGowan, University of Ulster
Fanchea O’Byrne, J&J
Geraldine O’Neill, Edelman
Kieran Rumley, Batchelors
Tom Trainor, Marketing Institute of Ireland
It has also been announced that Tim McNulty MMII is to receive the 2009 Pat Cahill Award.
Stuart Fogarty is a major figure in the world of advertising in Ireland. He is a shareholder in McConnells integrated, the largest communications group in Ireland (incorporating AFA O’Meara and MCM). Stuart is a Fellow and past President of The Institute of Advertising Practitioners (IAPI), former Council member of The Publicity Club, and a former Chairman of The Advertising Press Club. He was also a founder of Club Internet (floated NASDAQ March 2000) and the founder of internet advertising agency, ICAN. Stuart’s links with the Marketing Institute of Ireland go back many years. His late father Aubrey (deceased 2002) was Chairman of the Institute and President of The Rotary Club and The Publicity Club. He was also the founder of ‘Irish Marketing Journal’ IMJ. Stuart joined the Marketing Institute of Ireland in 1989, and he has served on Council and on the Executive Committee.
Congratulations to Stuart and all the newly minited Fellows.
Our own Michael Creagh, award winning art director, is now an award winning filmmaker too.
His film The Crush scooped Best Irish Short at the recent Foyle Film Festival.
Starring Michael’s son, Oran, it tells the story of 8 year old Ardal Travis who is so besotted with his teacher that he challenges her boyfriend to a duel – to the death. Michael wrote and directed the film which was shot last Spring in and around Skerries with director of photography Jim Creagh and producer Damon Quinn, from the Hole in the Wall Gang.
100 human ice figures were lined up on the steps of the Department of Environment in Dublin on Monday to mark the beginning of the Copenhagen talks. Each figure was carved with the Oxfam Ireland logo.
Metro Coverage of Oxfams Climate Change Street Event
The reason for the stunt is to acknowledge that Oxfam Ireland are looking for 10,000 people to add their names to their “Climate change destroys lives. Let’s face it” campaign. 100 ice figures (one for every 100 people who join the campaign to call for fair and safe global climate deal at the global climate talks that commenced yesterday in Copenhagen) highlight the human impact of climate change and demonstrate that the Irish public expect the Government to play its part in ensuring that a fair and safe global climate deal is agreed in Copenhagen.
Oxfam Ireland Climate Change Street Event
The photo call received great coverage for our client, Oxfam Ireland, in the Irish Examiner, Daily Mirror, Metro and Herald AM.
With thanks to Dillon McKenna, Katherine Sheils and Ciara Buckley
We have until Friday to get 10,000 names signed up to our petition. Only 1000 names to go; if you have not already, please sign up today:
This Christmas being what it is, I have been finding joy in the smaller (and cheaper) delights. I’ve been baking.
