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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There aren’t many things that can compete with the Heineken Cup for sheer drama and excitement. Except perhaps the drama of getting your pints of precious Heineken from A to B - in a packed pub of people, watching the game - without spilling a drop. That comes pretty close.
Here are the first two of five commercials we’ve just created which focus on this and other similar dramas that happen in the pub while watching the Heineken Cup. We’ll show you the other three as soon as they go on air.
‘Up & Under’.
‘Intercept’.
A big thank you goes to Brian O’Malley and Paul Holmes of Red Rage Productions who directed and produced them. And to our Heineken clients Aileen Donoghue and Aisling O’Brien for their invaluable contributions throughout. We hope you like them.
We’ve also just produced an outdoor campaign which focuses on the drama and excitement of the tournament itself. They were shot by Kevin Griffin and were retouched by Taylor James.
Now all we want is a Leinster v Munster Heineken Cup final in Paris in May. Fingers crossed.
The “Man Inside The Jacket” campaign has been running for the last number of weeks featuring the autobiography of Ireland’s top potato, Mr. Tayto. The concept was created by McCann Erickson and the book itself was written by double Z and designed by Four5One led by Marketing Director Rita Kirwan and has made it into bookstores around the country, as well as the Irish Times bestseller list.
The above-the-line campaign consists of outdoor, cinema and TV that promotes both the book and the Tayto brand. The outdoor work captures the spirit of the brands playful personality, while the TV and cinema uses the rich baritones of Hal Douglas to great effect in creating a spoof Hollywood trailer about the biography.
We are big fans of the book and campaign and are really proud of the ads. Well done Rita. What next on the horizon for Mr. Tayto? A movie perhaps? You just never know.
Check out our new stings for 3’s sponsorship of Xpose. These stylish spots were inspired by pin ups of the 1950’s and the favourite pastime of women everywhere… gossiping!
We think they’re fun and fresh, and create a strong link between the show and the fact that with 99.5% population coverage, you can gossip anywhere with 3.
The illustrations were done by Syd Brak of Folio, and the graphics and animation were done by our neighbours Piranha Bar.
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.
Well done to RTÉ and Animo on their new 
