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.
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.
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?
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
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.
http://factoryfifteen.prosite.com/7936/152394/home/robots-of-brixton
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!!
I checked some of the visual arts delights at the Galway Arts Festival last week-end on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Despite the location (in a large shopping centre on the edge of town) the Hughie O’Donoghue exhibition entitled ‘The Road’ was impressive and included some of his monumental pieces. The show is also the premiere of his new work ‘Road’ a painting in 60 parts. The eye is drawn along what seems like a vast line of canvases, all of which evoke merged memories from snapshots of family portraits, half forgotten book illustrations and historical documents.
What also, surprisinlgy, grabbed my attention in the same location was a collection of contemporary Irish crafts including jewellery, furniture and ceramics. My favourite was a beautiful lunula made from delicate white crepe paper and gold leaf (not sure how this would have survived in the downpour outside).
After a nice cup of tea in my favourite tea shop in Galway (Cupan Tae), I popped into the Galway City Museum and saw a little gem of an exhibition, of the works of Charles Lamb (1893-1964). Lamb actually began his career as a humble house painter in his native Armagh before becoming a fully fledged Royal Hibernian Academician. His landscapes, especially his skies are sublime and his depiction of the toil and labour of the West of Ireland peasants is moving. I really loved his little black chickens in his cottage series – painted as mere suggestions in black and red.
As part of the eclectic 10 days in Dublin arts festival the Trinity Orchestra put on an incredible show in the O’Reilly theatre on Saturday night. The 35 or so musicians and singers presented the entire Discovery album, a digital dance music classic, through the medium of strings and brass to amazing effect.
Keep your eyes peeled for further projects.
To catch a glimpse click here.
http://www.10daysindublin.ie/events.php
We had our latest McCann’s social event last Friday, this one in the form of a treasure hunt / pub-crawl set up by Yvonne O’Toole (full-time agency receptionist / part time cryptic quiz master). Teams were given a colour and asked to come up with a theme. We were then given cryptic clues and sent around some of da northside’s finest establishments. Yes we looked like idiots, and, yes people laughed at us but as the drinks flowed, the embarrassment dwindled. Eventually we didn’t care as we harassed strangers, jumped Luas barriers, raced from pub to pub and committed general skullduggery. The night culminated with the Master of Ceremonies O’Toole dishing out the victory spoils. Although, quite diplomatically, there was a prize for everyone. Here’s the teams:
In the white corner, we have ‘White Trash’.
In the red corner we have ‘The Bloods”.
In the green corner we have ‘Greenpeace’.
In the yellow corner we have ‘The Simpsons’.
And finally in the blue corner we have ‘The Crips’.
