We're one of Ireland’s leading full service communications agencies. Our philosophy is simply, the Truth Well Told. We believe in finding the truth about a category, a brand or a consumer and amplifying it bravely and creatively.

Dream Big.

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Yvonne.Otoole

Personally I don’t think I ever ‘solved’ a Rubik’s Cube – even though I am totally a child of the 80’s!
But I also never thought of using it to create a brilliantly unusual piece of artwork the way Pete Fecteau has done here.
Entitled ‘Dream Big’ Pete used 4,242 original Rubik’s Cubes to create a mosaic of Dr Martin Luther King.
The construction process took him approx 40 hours to complete and he came in the top 50 out of over 1,700 entrants world in ArtPrize 2011…which is quite an achievement.
He’s a designer from Michigan and it was while volunteering with registration duties for the ArtPrize (the world’s largest art competition) that he woke up one morning with the idea of using the Rubik’s Cube to create something.
Dare I say it he may have….wait for it….’had a dream’…?
Check it out below…

The power of great packaging.

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Orlaith.Blaney

One of the exciting things about the world of communication is that there is always an opportunity to improve how you look – whether it is your on-shelf presence, your packaging design, your ads or your blog.
We love ‘Steve’s Leaves’ from the UK – reason being there are few exciting things happening, packaging wise, in the fruit and vegetable aisles in our supermarkets.

Another positive development is the brilliant work Niall Corcoran at Creative Inc has done for Donnelly Fresh Foods. Says Mel O’Rourke, Creative Director of Creative Inc.: “Typefaces which encapsulated old-school craftsmanship, stripey multi-coloured awnings and brown paper bags all contributed to our vision of how the new Donnelly Fresh Foods brand should look, feel and behave.”
Have a look:

The guy next door.

Posted on October 28, 2011 by John.McMahon

Our client, Next Door off licences, asked us to produce a radio ad informing listeners about a number of special offers they had in each of their 60 outlets. They also wanted the ad to be Halloween themed. And, naturally enough, they wanted us to make it interesting or entertaining enough to not make listeners feel like setting fire to themselves every time they heard it (as, to be fair, many radio ads do).

I didn’t have a huge amount of time so I deployed a number of tried and tested techniques to get the juices flowing. First I tried a standard chin-stroke. Then I went for a slow-motion ear pinch. Then I opted to massage my skull with my knuckles while staring through the window of a Kelkin muesli packet. It was only after self-administering the cranial equivalent of a Chinese burn that I came up with something I felt audacious enough to call “an idea”. Why not develop a character named… oh, I dunno… The Guy From Next Door?

On the one hand, The Guy From Next Door can be a brand emissary in the traditional sense, who gets the name out there in a simple way while delivering all the relevant product information – just like the Meerkat, the infuriatingly smug Churchill or that bloke off the telly wot does the UPC ads. On the other hand, he can also deliver engagement by allowing us to parody those radio ads we all hate, in which two people innocently having a conversation are interrupted by someone who just happens to be in possession of that nugget of consumer information that will turn their lives around in 30 seconds without the need for surgery.

Look: I could spend all day describing it but by the end of it you’d be as bearded as I am and none the wiser. If, after hearing it, people (a) know that Next Door is the country’s biggest chain of off licences, (b) know there some great Halloween deals on offer and (c) have been provided with a modicum of entertainment, then it works. Have a listen and judge for yourself…

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Irish True.

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Shay.Madden

This month saw the launch of an exciting new global campaign for our client Tullamore Dew. Created and conceived by US creatives Jeff Weiss and Paul Opperman with a little help from ourselves, the print features striking images and charismatic characters that evoke the true spirit of the Irish. The print images were beautifully shot by Moshe Brakha.

The tv was shot locally in Dublin in Bongo Ryan’s pub, directed by the well known film maker Jake Scott.

On Your Bikes Ladies

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Yvonne.Otoole

Thinking about ads for slimming/low cal products and came to the conclusion …aren’t they all pretty much the same?
A pretty girl, in a nice pretty (red?) dress and some happy music..
But, how do you engage young women in a very simple product that is good for you and at the same time make it great fun.
Something that makes an impact, is memorable and PR’able.
This is not an advertisement, it is a powerful piece of brand engagement.
And it’s cheeky (…actually Gerard Butler came to mind for some reason?)
We love it.
See what you think?

Bord Bia continues to attract the women of Ireland.

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Shay.Madden

It looks as if interest in the presenter of our Bord Bia commercials continues unbounded. Not only is Lachlann a fantastic actor, a damn good presenter for Bord Bia, a really good cook (he’s cooked professionally you know) … but he’s also … well how can we put this … quite a big hit with the ladies out there. This audio clip comes from the Ray D’Arcy radio show last week. Have a listen….

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McCann Erickson Dublin add 4 new clients.

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Administrator

McCann Erickson Dublin has added 4 new clients to the agency in the last six weeks. The new business wins include Hidden Hearing and The Association of Compliance in Ireland and two pieces of government business; safefood and The Health and Safety Authority. McCann were already on the roster for safefood agencies and competed for a mini-tender and were awarded a project for 2011/2012.

These new wins reflect our agency focus and commitment to supporting businesses to find pragmatic solutions to business challenges. We thoroughly enjoyed working with Dolores Madden at Hidden Hearing, particularly as this is a business that is already growing and has further high growth potential. We have exciting plans for Hidden Hearing in 2012 and to be honest, we can’t wait to get going.

We have also added The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) account and safefood to our client list. The safefood contract is for 2 years for the provision of advertising services in respect of an integrated all-island food safety awareness campaign. This is the first project for McCann since we were appointed to the safefood roster earlier this year.
Martin Murray, Chief Executive, The Association of Compliance Officers in Ireland also appointed us to promote compliance education and training. The work for ACOI will include digital activity by our strategic partner, Zoo Digital. These are great local wins for us

Success for CervicalCheck with almost 1 million smears to date.

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Andrea.Galligan

The latest annual report for CervicalCheck shows phenomenal results have been achieved for McCann Erickson work over the last 2 years.

Results during the second year include providing 308,130 free smear tests to 279,877 women. And since the programme launched to date, almost 950,000 smear tests have been processed and more than 710,000 women have had at least one free CervicalCheck smear test.

The National Cancer Screening Service were a superb client of McCann’s. We loved this account, the client and the fantastic effectiveness of the campaign. This is the power of an idea advertising a simple message and it is great to see these results.

Due to the consolidation of the advertising for NCSS with the HSE, we no longer work with this client but we’re delighted with these results.

GODFATHER OF IRISH PLANNING, Sean Whitaker joins McCann Erickson Dublin

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Orlaith.Blaney

Seán Whitaker, one of the most experienced Strategic Planners in the Irish market joins McCann Erickson as Head of Planning. Seán was the first person in Ireland to adopt and formalise the discipline of advertising planning while he was working at Saatchi & Saatchi Dublin in the 80’s so perhaps he could be called the “Godfather of Irish Planning”. He went on to be Planning Director at DDFH&B and latterly was a planning consultant at Irish International BBDO where he was one of the key strategic minds behind the resurgence of the Guinness brand. He also held the position of Global Planning Director with JWT/DDFH&B on the Bailey’s brand from 1998 to 2003 where he gained considerable international experience particularly in the British, US and Spanish markets.

Whitaker has been closely involved in all the Guinness advertising produced by Irish International BBDO over the last eight years, including the current “Area 22” and “Life in the Dark” campaigns. His strategic experience in the alcohol category cannot be matched in the Irish market but he has also worked on Bank of Ireland, Aer Lingus, Unilever, Nestle, TV3, Irish Life, P&G and many other famous brand driven companies over the course of his career. By his own admission he is a creative planner and is hugely motivated and passionate about great ideas and the role of planning in helping creative teams to produce powerful, effective and compelling work.

We are absolutely thrilled to have a talent of Seán’s calibre join the McCann team. His track record and huge reputation are well deserved and we’re excited to get an opportunity to work with him.

Why is a Good Insight Like a Refrigerator?

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Orlaith.Blaney

We all need reminding every now and then about the difference between simple facts and observation and a proper insights that we can actually do something with. This article was sent to me yesterday by one of my all time favourite bosses in adland, Peter Davies, who ran McCann in Dubai for a while and who is now at McCann in Morocco. During one of my most joyous periods at McCann Dublin, he was delightfully, my boss. He taught me far too much to recount on a short blog. Anyhow, we both hold the masterful Jeremy Bullmore in very high regard and Jeremy wrote this article in 2004 for WPP

It is a simple reminder to all of us that marketing is a simple business and beware of some consultants and strategists that reel out 150 slide decks with funnels and fancy builds on powerpoint that are often incomprehensible and leave you losing the will to live and not much of a clue on what to actually do next. The bit that resonates most with me is this : ‘’the low-potency insight sits there sullenly on its powerpoint slide, moving absolutely nobody to enlightenment, let alone action’’ – have you been at that kind of meeting recently? In future, stick your hand up and say what you think. Do you promise? And finally, to answer the question: Why is a good insight like a refrigerator? – Because the moment you look into it, a light comes on.

Work

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Administrator

McCannifesto

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Administrator

We believe in integrity.

In what we do, and how we do it.

We believe that if there is truth at the core of our ideas, they can’t fail to connect and deliver.

Our role is to find the truth behind a brand and amplify it bravely, creatively.

‘All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.’ – Galileo

The truth is THE SOURCE of a brand’s potential.

It can come from the product, the brand, the consumer or even culture.

Truth should not be confused with fact.

Truth is more in feelings than in fact.

Truth is in the eye of the beholder, it’s what people believe in.

Beliefs are truths.

There are no proofs in religion yet believers hold it to be true.

Facts are overwhelming,

insights are mere observations,

but uncovering the truth is transformational.

Truth can change the category, the conversation, the world.

Truth sets creativity free.

Everything we do is ‘TRUTH WELL TOLD.’

S’up?

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Ray.Swan

It’s like, Three came to us and they’re all like, “we’ve got this like, amazing Prepay offer where you can like get all you can eat data ok and like, free any network texts and like, free three to three calls,” so like, we came up with this like, advertising campaign with Jedward like doing their thing and calling and texting and twittering each other even though they’re like, in the same room and stuff ‘cos like, John and Edward are like an extreme example of like, our audience ok, so like they can never be too connected, and that’s like why prepay from 3 is like sooooo perfect for them. We hope you like, like it.

Robots of Brixton

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Emma.Sharkey

Someone shared this short film with me at the weekend and I think it’s pretty cool. The creation of architect student Kibwe Tavares, there is some serious talent on display here. Check it out.

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http://factoryfifteen.prosite.com/7936/152394/home/robots-of-brixton

Economy…

Posted on July 25, 2011 by NualaAnne.Murphy

Economy. What do we all think of when we hear the word ‘economy’? Doom and gloom, downturn, recession, the bad Irish economy, money or lack thereof. BMI’s recent advertising in the airport arrivals department showed a different but interesting view of what economy means to them. I thought it was a funny use of words considering how things are at the moment. Somehow I’m not sure if the view of Irish people is that this is the best economy we have ever had!! Personally I can’t comment on BMI!!