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.

Hidden Hearing

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Onagh.Carolan

Look out for our new TV commercials for Hidden Hearing, which went on air on St. Stephen’s Day. The job of this commercial is to show people who may be suffering hearing loss how they are sometimes seen by the other people in their lives. With the campaign line ‘People notice hearing loss, not hearing aids’, we reveal how using a discreet hearing aid will help remove the barriers that separate them from others.

We shot the 40 second commercial in December with Speers Film. Lenny Abramson (award winning feature film director of ‘Garage, ‘Adam & Paul’ etc) directed and the six cast members were found after a lengthy casting process. We think the cast offer authentic, subtle and very effective performances which hopefully create a memorable call to action. The high production values and confident approach speaks volumes of Hidden Hearing’s brand leadership position.

For the love of Cheese

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Ross.Hardiman

charleville_dross Our challenge was to bring the town of Charleville’s passion and pride for their cheese to life. So we created a place where everything they do is ‘For the love of cheese’.  The McCann’s team (Ross Hardiman, David Bowen, Graham Nolan, Andrea Galligan, Onagh Carolan) would like to thank everyone involved in making this whole project fun from start to finish. Special thanks to the directors Zak & Dan of Sonny London for helping us piece together this wonderful puzzle. Another big thanks to Phil Chapman, April Redmond, Susan Geaney and Jen Hall from Kerry Foods for making it all possible and finally a ‘tip of the cap’ to the unbelievable talent of the Fallover family for the construction of Ireland’s first subterranean cheese making machine.   Hope you enjoy!

And here’s how we did it.

It’s Panto time!

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Ross.Hardiman

This year we had the absolute pleasure of making a 20” TV Spot for the Cheerios® Christmas Panto. (“Oh no you didn’t, Oh yes we did”) Let’s face it Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the Panto. Forget the shop windows and the fancy lights the only way to really get you in the festive mood is the Cheerios® Christmas Panto.

With the help of the unbelievably talented Piranha Bar gentlemen, we made this 20” 3D animation of a Panto set in Cheerio® land. The wonderful Brian Dowling and Sammy Sausages (A.K.A Alan Hughes) lent their voices to help capture the fun and energy of it all. So a big ‘tanks a thousand’ to everyone involved. Now get yourselves down to Dublin’s Tivoli Theatre or the Cork Opera House and let the Panto fun and frolics takeover.

3 Mobile ads make Sunday Business Post Top Ads 2010

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Orlaith.Blaney

We’re always chuffed when our work gets the recognition of the media. This years Sunday Business Post round-up included our work for 3 Mobile. A big thank you to Elaine Carey and Sinéad Spillane at 3, for making great ideas like this really possible.

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3 nets a Shark!

Posted on September 21, 2010 by Shay.Madden

Great news on Saturday night. We picked up a Bronze Shark at the annual Shark Awards for our ‘Soap Opera’ TV commercial for 3. Here’s Dave & Ross (one of the creative teams in the agency) collecting the award onstage down in Kinsale. They also won a Brass Neck Award as neither of them actually did the commercial! Although in fairness Ross is the actual voiceover – the husky devil.

Record breaking X-Factor

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Sylvia.Cawley

Saturday night’s opening X-Factor saw massive viewership figures, the highest ever – with 730,000 people tuning into the show. This made TV3 the most watched channel for 15-44 year olds in Ireland for that time period. In Universal McCann, we always pride ourselves on the strength of our client’s programme access. The ‘Coca-Cola with Food’ campaign had prime position in the first centre break with ‘first-in-break’ access.

Certainly one of the highlights of the Saturday’s show was Shirlena Johnson with ‘Mercy’. This year’s X-Factor is set to be bigger and better than ever… tune in this Saturday at 19.30 and 20.45 for the Xtra-Factor!

3am…

Posted on July 20, 2010 by Shay.Madden

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.

How do they do it?

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Ciara.Gallogly

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!

The perfect match

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Ross.Hardiman

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.

Do things you never thought possible with 3Pay

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Andrea.Galligan

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.

3Pay Press.

3 your mind.

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Shay.Madden

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.

The bells… the bells…

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Administrator

McCanns had a great night last night at the ICAD awards. We picked up three Bells in total. Congratulations to Jonny Cullan & Rory Hamilton who picked up a Silver in the ambient section for a lovely idea they did last year for Smiles Dental Clinic.

The same duo also picked up a bronze for their brilliant Heineken Cup ‘Field of Dreams’ commercial from 2009.

And congrats too to Ray Swan and Emma Sharkey who picked up a bronze in the special effects section for their powerful CervicalCheck ‘Changes’ commercial.

Irish Business in need of Retail Therapy

Posted on April 1, 2010 by Orlaith.Blaney

Well done to RTÉ and Animo on their new Retail Therapy TV programme with Fergal Quinn of both Superquinn and Senator fame. Fergal tells us ‘’Don’t open a shop, unless you like to smile’’ in this latest reality TV programme on Tuesday nights. Fergal also knows very well the critical importance of branding and marketing in business. What we like most is his simple, back to basics marketing approach.

He has taken a no-hope shop in Finglas and given it a new lease of life, a florist in the Liberties, where the shop didn’t even have the name above the door and a newsagent and deli business in Cobh called BMC that had really lost its way. The entry of the German grocery discounters into Cobh made the owner of this shop, Denis Murphy panic so much, he piled his windows with cheap nappies. What he didn’t realise was that the discounters weren’t his competition in the first place.

If you have missed this, three episodes are available to view on another nifty initiative, RTÉ Player. It is the most popular programme on RTÉ this week after Prime Time. I am not a bit surprised.

Here is the link: http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1069281

Generation Web

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Matt.Whitby

The recent 4-part investigation by the BBC called ‘The Virtual Revolution’ which was aired recently, has raised some questions on how the world wide web is changing our society, how we value our friendships and even how our brains process information. Two species of user have emerged based on the length of time they take to process information on web pages, the ‘Foxes’ and the ‘Hedgehogs’.

The ‘Hedgehogs’ are displaying a new way of thinking by association, leaping wildly from one subject to another in the space of a click – So which are you? An online experiment is looking to find out how we are changing, and if it’s for the better. Why not be a part and find out which type of user you are by visiting bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution

The clip below explains the test and how the younger generation are embracing the web in a way many find devolutionary.

Fancy another beer?

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Shay.Madden

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.