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.”
Well we’re all very excited about our new TV commercial – first airing last night – for the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.
It confronts the same issue as every other ad you’ll see for a charity this Christmas.
Namely, how to demonstrate the connection between the donor that you’re hoping to recruit and the people that their donation will go to help. Which is a challenge – mainly because the donor and the recipient are not likely to meet. There’s a necessary distance between them.
But what if that distance were made to disappear, courtesy of the old ‘here’s-me holding-up-the-Tower-of-Pisa’ trick? Every tourist knows it: stand in front of an object – the Tower of Pisa, for instance – and hold out your hand. At a certain distance, it can look like your hand’s actually stopping the building from falling over.
It’s by a similar trick of perspective that this ad works, courtesy of brilliant direction by LA-based, Irish-American Oscar nominee Steph Green (at Rocket productions).
As you’d expect of an ex-assistant to Spike Jonze (the Being John Malkovich director), Steph herself is a veteran of this sort of cinematic playfulness. Having worked with an actual real live bear before (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zvqf3sF0b4), direction of the largely non-professional cast* caused her no problems – in fact she’d already endeared herself to producers Dave Murphy and Emma Ellis and ourselves by shooting a demo of the ad on her i-phone!
Like Steph’s film New Boy – the one that sent her up the red carpet at the Oscars – the SVP commercial builds that all-important emotional with the audience in a sensitive and positive sort of way. Just as importantly, we reckon, it doesn’t do what 90% of charity advertising tends to – which is bang the viewer over the head with misery-inducing scenes of over-dramatized hardship.
As it happens, the work of the SVP was something that Steph already had an interest in. The director spoke eloquently on the subject of social responsibility in a recent interview: “The Oscar nomination brings just what you’d hope,” she said. “It opens doors to lots of meetings, of course. But also seeing how intensely the film could affect people changed my notions of socially conscious filmmaking. It’s easy to become too focused on yourself, on what you want to say, and to focus less on how your films are actually affecting the audience. But it’s a really powerful and important thing to be able to make groups of people think and feel something. There’s a responsibility there whether you want to admit it or not.”
In times like these, the wider community is in dire need of effective advertising
for the SVP. So thanks to clients Kieran Murphy, Liz Roche and Robbie McFarlane for trusting us to do our best to help. And here’s hoping this ad works as hard as it’s meant to.
Laurence Keogh, Paul Barrass, Deborah Brannelly, Ivan Hammond
*Although the commercial features seven cast members, one of them was not actually present on set. Can you guess which one?
Well we’re all very excited about and proud of our new TV commercial — first airing last night — for the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.
It confronts the same issue as every other ad you’ll see for a charity this Christmas.
Namely, how to demonstrate the connection between the donor that you’re hoping to recruit and the people that their donation will go to help. Which is a challenge – mainly because the donor and the recipient are not likely to meet. There’s a necessary distance between them.
But what if that distance were made to disappear, courtesy of the old ‘here’s-me holding-up-the-Tower-of-Pisa’ trick? Every tourist knows it: stand in front of an object – the Tower of Pisa, for instance – and hold out your hand. At a certain distance, it can look like your hand’s actually stopping the building from falling over.
It’s by a similar trick of perspective that this ad works, courtesy of brilliant direction by LA-based, Irish-American Oscar nominee Steph Green (at Rocket Productions).
As you’d expect of an ex-assistant to Spike Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are, Being John Malkovich), Steph herself is a veteran of this sort of cinematic art. Having worked with an actual real live bear before, direction of the largely non-professional cast* caused her no problems – in fact she’d already endeared herself to producers Dave Murphy and Emma Ellis and ourselves by shooting a demo of the ad on her iPhone!
Like Steph’s film New Boy – the one that sent her up the red carpet at the Oscars – the SVP commercial builds that all-important emotional connection with the audience in a sensitive and positive sort of way. Just as importantly, we reckon, it doesn’t do what 90% of charity advertising tends to – which is bang the viewer over the head with misery-inducing scenes of over-dramatized hardship. With little room left, in the post-traumatic stress, for hope.
As it happens, the work of the SVP was something that Steph already had an interest in. The director spoke eloquently on the subject of social responsibility in a recent interview: “The Oscar nomination brings just what you’d hope,” she said. “It opens doors to lots of meetings, of course. But also seeing how intensely the film could affect people changed my notions of socially conscious filmmaking. It’s easy to become too focused on yourself, on what you want to say, and to focus less on how your films are actually affecting the audience. But it’s a really powerful and important thing to be able to make groups of people think and feel something. There’s a responsibility there whether you want to admit it or not.”
In times like these, the wider community is in dire need of effective communications for the SVP. To remind us as consumers that we can make a difference in the lives of people around us. So thanks to clients Kieran Murphy, Liz Roche and Robbie McFarlane for trusting us to do our best to help. And here’s hoping this ad works as hard as it’s meant to.
with thanks to Paul Barrass, Deborah Brannelly and Ivan Hammond
And a special thanks to the good people at ESB Customer Supply, whose support helped SVP to get this appeal on the air at a time when it’s most needed.
In the quarter finals of Italia 90 another goal of infamy broke the Irish nation’s hearts.
Albeit a legitimate one.
In 39th minute of our match against Italy in Rome Salvatore Schillaci aka Toto scored the only goal of the match that knocked us out of the 1990 World Cup.
It was the end of a dream for the whole of Ireland.
10 years later Mcconnells was producing a series of ads for Smithwicks beer. The commercials were apart of a campaign that were to be shot in The Gravediggers pub in Glaswegian.
One script was based on the faithful Italia 90 goal.
During discussions prior to shooting between the creative team (Gerry Kennedy, Margaret Healion & Dave Murphy) & the director KJ Walsh the script was amended to include the real life Toto
The client agreed. The agent was contacted. A fee was agreed and toto flew in from Sicily to film the commercial.
The commercial was first broadcast in June 2000 & proved to be a great success with the public. It also went on to win many creative awards.
Ironically after scoring the famous goal in 1990 many people called their dogs Toto.
I wonder when walking in the park somewhere soon will we hear dogs owners calling out -come here ‘Thierry’
Thierry Henry’s “goal” was enough to make grown men cry and grown women try to add Thierry Henry to their list of people to kill in Mafia Wars on facebook, where within 10 minutes you could get some insight into the building rage about the “Hand of Frog”. [More about the Facebook effect next week - ed]
In the quarter finals of Italia 90 another goal of infamy broke the Irish nation’s hearts. Albeit a legitimate one.
In 39th minute of our match against Italy in Rome Salvatore Schillaci aka Toto scored the only goal of the match that knocked us out of the 1990 World Cup.
It was the end of a dream for the whole of Ireland.
10 years later McConnells was producing a series of ads for Smithwick’s ale. The commercials were part of a campaign that were to be shot in The Gravedigger’s pub in Glasnevin.
One script was based on the faithful Italia 90 goal. During discussions prior to shooting between the creative team (Gerry Kennedy, Margaret Healion & Dave Murphy) & the director KJ Walsh, the script was amended to include the real life Toto.
The client agreed. The agent was contacted. A fee was agreed and Toto flew in from Sicily to film the commercial.
The award-winning commercial was first broadcast in June 2000 & proved to be a great success with the public.
Ironically after scoring the famous goal in 1990 many people called their dogs Toto.
This time, the ISPCA may want to take dogs called Theirry into protective custody. Have a look:
When ESB Customer Supply turned to one of Ireland’s best-loved comedians, Des Bishop, to help promote energy efficiency by showing how making little changes can add up to big savings, no one was sure what to expect. Now the results are in and Des has got a D. Not on the leaving cert but his Building Energy Rating cert on his house.
Check out the latest video, above, and follow the story as it continues on desbishopunplugged.ie.
Thierry Henry’s “goal” was enough to make grown men cry and grown women try to add Thierry Henry to their list of people to kill in Mafia Wars on facebook, where within 10 minutes you could get some insight into the building rage about the “Hand of Frog”. [More about the Facebook effect next week - ed]