Here’s the latest spot in our ‘3 your mind’ campaign. In this commercial ‘3 Broadband’ gives a couple the magic ability to open things as they wish. As 3 now offers broadband at an incredibly low price, the world of the internet is now more open than ever before.
The commercial was shot by Arni Thor Jonsson through H2 Films over two long cold nights in Dublin city centre.
Above: Ignoring the cold - Aislinn O’Connor (3 Campaign Manager), Sarah Maher (Account Director), Onagh Carolan (Agency Producer) and Jack Armstrong (H2 Productions).
It was ‘interesting’ to say the least. Every crackpot in the city seems to come out between the hours of midnight and 3am. A great time to have a chat with a total mentalist, if you’re interested in that type of thing…
Above: A ’strang-er’ decides to pay the set a visit at 1am.
If you have ever looked at an ad and wondered ‘how did they do that?’ - then wonder no more. Even the simplest of ads take a lot of hard work, detailed planning and major co-ordination. Everyone behind the scenes are essential and play a vital role in order to get the job done to the highest standards.
Just take our new campaign for Low Low butter, which is currently running on TV and in cinema. Speers Films took on the demanding task of producing the ad, along with the aid of brilliant director David Hartley.
The ad was shot in various locations around Dublin, over two days.
I went along with my own camera to film the ‘making of’ - to show how everything comes together. This partly involved ducking under huge lights, tripping over long cables, trying not to get in the way of the actors and ignoring quizzical looks from the crew. Capturing all those mad and stressful moments right before the director shouts ‘ACTION!’. Technically, it’s the Assistant Director who shouts that - see for yourself!
Bloom is Ireland’s single biggest garden event, and with so much going on, it wasn’t a big stretch for us to come up with our ‘Ireland’s biggest garden festival’ campaign. The campaign, which spans press, radio, transport and digital, brings to life in a very visual way, the size and scope of this great five day event in the Phoenix Park.
We would like to think that this print warrants a second or even a third look, there are so many little details that we’ve manage to include (spot the nudists).
The 3D type and extensive comping was done by Walter MacLachlan of iCraft. Check it out below, the event takes place over the June bank holiday weekend and since kids go free, it could be a good day out for the whole family. I’m especially interested in the Beer Garden with its Magical Perennial Beer Trees.
We were asked to produce stings for the Ray D’Arcy Show on Today FM and outdoor posters to promote HB Iceberger, Ireland’s No. 1 ice-cream for Unilever. We had heard myths of an Iceberger loving Yeti. Our job was to find this elusive Yeti, sorry, to find this elusive ‘Iceberger-loving’ Yeti. Easy! After days of examing old grainy photos, we found a few clues leading us to his agent. His agent set up a meeting, so we flew to somewhere very cold.
On meeting the Yeti, we found out his love for Icebergers started a long time ago after being sent to Irish college for the summer. He wouldn’t go into anymore details. He’s very private! Luckily he has a home studio in his Ice Cave, so we spent the day eating Icebergers and recording his reactions. Considering he’s very shy, he did extremely well. Thanks to everyone involved, hope you enjoy.
Above: Our Yeti sprawled across 6 Sheets and Bus T-Side formats.
Above: Andrea, David and Ross bump into the Yeti in the local Spar.
SuperValu are now the proud sponsors of the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship and we were tasked with producing stings for this prestigious sponsorship. After hours of research, a lot of doodles and countless cups of tea we realized the answer was staring us in the face the whole time. Here we have two organizations cut from the same cloth, they are both built from the grass roots up and they both serve every community in Ireland. There is this huge parallel between these two proud Irish organisations. EUREKA! Parallel was our answer.
The stings involve a very simple construct of a GAA action paralleled with an in-store SuperValu action. Each sting captures a moment of pride and passion that the GAA has, paralleled with the same pride and passion that SuperValu staff have.
A big thank you to Luke Franklin and Fiona Kinsella of Jumper Productions who made this all happen and look amazing. Also we’d like to say a big thanks to Margaret, Maighread, Lisa and John for their patience on a very long day. And as for the McCann’s team, well we had a great time from start to finish.
Here is the first product ad under the new ‘3 your mind’ campaign theme. With 3 you can do things that you just never thought possible.
In this instance the lady in the apartment has magically taken on the properties of the product ‘3Pay’. Now she can talk to anyone on any network for free at weekends. She can even talk directly to the characters in a dodgy soap opera!
We also launched with special outdoor formats including an Aircoach wrap and a special 240 sheet in Dun Laoghaire Dart station to bring the idea to life in larger high profile formats. Also take a look at our Luas domination which broke the standard formats of the tram!
240 Sheet in Dun Laoghaire.
3Pay Luas domination.
Our national press campaign also demonstrated the core campaign idea of doing things you never thought possible, and you can also listen to our radio ads below.
Our new campaign to relaunch LowLow in Ireland has just gone live this week. Low Low is about having it all, great taste and 81% less saturated fat. In our communications idea, we were looking for opportunities to demonstrate this have it all attitude in other areas of women’s lives. Moments when women feel especially good about themselves, where without any hint of effort, they are doing something special for themselves both physically and emotionally.
A girl’s night out was the perfect example of this balance. Not only do women enjoy the physical exertion of dancing the night away with their friends (not that that’s the reason they do it) - there is also this emotional highlight, in the post dancing, tea and toast moment where the night is discussed.
Beyond the TV and Outdoor there’s a massive campaign including PR, pop up cafes and movie tie ins – to see what’s happening go to www.facebook.com/lowlowireland
This week sees the launch of our new campaign for 3. We’re very excited about it. As a company, 3 have always had something different about them. From giving away free ‘Skype’ on their mobiles to coming up with innovative products such as ‘Best of Both’. In other words they have always sought out ways to allow their customers do things that were not possible with other networks. Our campaign theme is based on this very thought. In these three introductory commercials we see customers, who have just joined 3, first discover new and unexplained magical powers. To see how each new product will give you a different power… watch this space and… 3 your mind.
This year, The Heineken Cup Final and the Champions League Final are happening on the same Saturday (22nd May). Given Heineken are major sponsors of both events they wisely seized the opportunity to create a monumental day in the pub for Irish sports fans. Pubs across the country were taking part and they already had the name: ‘Heineken Star Saturday’. All they needed was an idea to bring it all together. We took the idea that two great sports were coming together as our starting point. From there we were able to work together with all of Heineken’s agencies to develop a consistent theme from online to ontrade and from outdoor to radio. The photographer was Kevin Griffin and the retouching was done by Midas in London.
The task was to bring this beautifully shot Coke TV advert to life in outdoor. This was a great chance to do something different and Coca-Cola were really excited with the idea of producing outdoor specials. With the help of our special builds hero Colin Doyle from Eclipse Lighting, we created 48 sheets where the characters from the TV ad are literally stealing the Coke bottles off the 48 sheet.
We created 3D models of our adorable yet mischievous bugs plus a huge 3D Coke bottle to maximize impact. When these elements were added to the vibrant spring look and feel of the TV ad, we were left with really colourful, eye catching and memorable outdoor ads that literally ‘steal’ your attention (no pun intended). A big thanks to everyone involved.
We packed almost 60 people into the Sky Suite at the Radisson Hotel in Golden Lane yesterday morning. We kicked the session off, with free Durex condoms (thank you SSL) for everyone. Not your usual morning conversation, but the over 50’s are a growing consumer market. More singles, separated and divorced around, who are active on the dating scene.
The Irish Times have 49% of their readers in 50+ category. Don’t think that the over 60+ run around looking for ads about how to hang onto their dentures. This lot are optimistic, travelling lots, taking up new hobbies, with busier social diaries than Glenda Gilson and with 6.6 billion in declared income. They have more time and in certain categories, like Health Insurance and Banking, they long for our attention. They are a target audience we just can’t ignore.
Leo Moore, our Strategic Planning Director took us through a 50 minute ride of fascinating insights that really demonstrate the size and scale of the opportunity. 80% of the wealth in the UK is held by 50+ consumers.
Above: Clare Duignan, RTÉ Radio Centre, Geraldine O’Leary, RTÉ.
Anne Connolly, Director, Ageing Well Network, opened the proceedings and said that “Making Ireland the best place in the world to grow old in” is on the government agenda. For more information on the presentation, contact Leo.Moore@mccann.com
In 2010 it’s good to be over 50. That’s the overwhelming view of this hugely important but largely overlooked consumer market. The Pulse team at McCann Erickson have carried out an in-depth study of the over 50’s exploring their attitudes to a range of subjects including their outlook, social life, experience of technology, financial services, health and family.
Leo Moore will present these insights and their implications for brands at an informal breakfast briefing in the Sky Suite at the Radisson Hotel on Wednesday 24th March from 7.30am - 9.00am. As places are limited, please confirm your acceptance by calling Bairbre Kelly on 01-676 6366 or by email at bairbre.kelly@europe.mccann.com
Lollipop Day is Friday 26th and Saturday 27th of February this year. There are around 400 new cases of Oesophageal Cancer diagnosed in Ireland each year. Prognosis is poor with 90% of patients dying of their cancer. Lollipop day was launched in 2001 to raise awareness and fund research into Oesophageal Cancer.
The campaign has grown bigger than ever this year, with an integrated approach across advertising, P.R. and digital. With this in mind, we gave the campaign an overhaul with a bold new look.
The P.R. launch managed by Drury Communications kicks off this Friday at 1pm in St. Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre. The public are invited to sign the Lollipop Wall and pledge their support to Lollipop Day. There will also be a sing song with a local school choir. We hope you can join us.
Universal McCann negotiated an excellent press campaign with Metro Herald where these key P.R. events were communicated. Padraig Harrington came on board again as our brand ambassador. He was also the voice of our radio advert.
Gaumina also came on board this year as a digital partner. The digital campaign focused on developing a strong presence in social media. This was promoted by building appropriate content on-line and seeding through relevant forums. There was also an investment in online advertising to boost traffic to the Lollipop Day website.
Here are the remaining three TV commercials in the Heineken Cup series. As you can see ‘the skip pass’ is a variation of ‘the intercept’. I particularly like his weak celebration at the end.
‘The scrum’ celebrates that moment of success that all smallish people like myself experience when successfully retrieving a pint from a packed bar.
Finally ‘the knock on’ - it looks simple - but this took four hours to shoot. You’d be surprised how beer refuses to spill the way you want it to! We got there in the end. I hope you like them. To see the previous two commercials, click here.
We have just gone live with 3’s new Business campaign which includes press, radio and digital. We wanted to show the potential cost savings that are available to small and medium businesses when they switch their business phones to 3.
We articulated this notion by presenting tangible examples of this cost saving. This could include a year’s supply of couriers, new computer equipment or something more light-hearted such as a team building event like paint-balling.
We shot the photography in studio with Trevor Hart and had one (very cold) morning location work with Paintballing professionals in Bray. The campaign has also been translated into radio and digital. Take a look here:
Here’s the latest spot in our ‘3 your mind’ campaign. In this commercial ‘3 Broadband’ gives a couple the magic ability to open things as they wish. As 3 now offers broadband at an incredibly low price, the world of the internet is now more open than ever before.
