Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Appys Launch App of the Month


Today, The Appys announced their new plans for ongoing monthly activity throughout the year. In conjunction with Newstalk Breakfast The Appys will now be running 'App of the Month'.

What this means is that each month they will be appointing a guest judge and asking their App development community to submit their work. Entry will be by the same simple process as The Appys themselves and each monthly winner will be featured on Newstalk Breakfast, www.newstalk.ie, Digital Times and all the Appys and Digital Times Social Media Platforms.

The monthly winners will be also be entered into the main Appys competition and get a specially-engraved App of the Month Trophy.

For more information see here.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Coca-Cola Launches Move to the Beat London



Last week, Mark Ronson and Katy B unveiled a giant 25m wide, 10m tall new piece of urban art right in the center of London in the shadow of the Olympic Stadium. The artwork marks the launch of Coca-Cola's Move to the Beat campaign and their London Olympic sponsorship. It was created by Neil Edward, Hadley Ever and Smug, and is situated in Hackney, East London. The Beat Wall, as the piece of art is known, tells the story of how the sounds of sport and music were fused together by Mark Ronson with lyrics and vocals by Katy B, to create the official Coca-Cola song for the Olympic Games.

The song, Anywhere in the World, will provide the soundtrack for mobile and digital platforms and all Coca-Cola events during the games. The Beat Wall is the visual dramatisation of how Mark Ronson travelled the world searching for the inspiration to create it, while meeting young athletes and recording the sounds of their sport to use in the song. The campaign itself is Coca-Cola’s global campaign, focused on teens, to celebrate the beat of London 2012. The campaign ambition is to bring teens closer to the Olympic Games by encouraging their passion for music, and drawing inspiration from London’s musical heritage.

“As the longest continuous supporter of the Olympic Games Movement, our ambition at Coca-Cola is to bring teens closer to the Games and to sport in general,” said Sanjay Guha, Marketing and Olympic Games Director for North West Europe & Nordics. “The Move to the Beat™ campaign is all about bringing the Olympic Games to life in a way that engages a teen audience, bringing the social side of the Olympic Games to teens everywhere by tapping into their passion for sport and music live online and providing access to fantastic content via Track the Beat.”

The unveiling of the Beat Wall also marked the launch of the Beat Facebook app and the Move to the Beat television commercial. The Track the Beat app engages teens by encouraging them to ‘collect beats’ through Facebook to gain access to exclusive content and prizes. Teens will be able to discover the beats that feature in the Move to the Beat song, download wallpapers and screen savers of imagery from the wall. The Move to the Beat TV ad, which features the song, will be broadcast globally and sees Mark Ronson and Katy B performing alongside some of the international athletes whose sporting sounds have been used to provide the beat of the track.

The athletes whose sounds form the beat of the track and whose images appear on the wall, are:
Darius Knight, 21, table tennis player from Great Britain
David Oliver, 29, 110m hurdler from the United States
Kseniya Vdovina, 24, 400m sprinter from Russia
Dayyan Jaffar, 17, archer from Singapore
Maria Espinoza, 23, taekwondo athlete from Mexico


Saturday, February 18, 2012

'Paid Owned Earned: maximizing marketing returns in a socially connected world'

Yesterday I got an email from Nick Burcher about his new book. Nick describes the book, 'Paid Owned Earned: maximizing marketing returns in a socially connected world', as an "exploration of the different aspects of Paid Owned Earned and how everything links together - with the text split into individual chapters around 'Listening', 'Community Management and Content Hubs', 'Content', 'Optimization', 'Seeding and Distribution', 'Broadcast', 'Performance', 'Responding' and 'Measurement'".

He goes on to say, "[that] Paid, Owned, Earned is about the complexity of media channels confronting brands, agencies and advertisers. With a multitude of case studies and original thinking it provides a clear framework on how best to approach the fragmented media landscape."

I was absolutely delighted to find out that Nick has released a free editorial sampler featuring excerpts about linking paid owned and earned media together as well as an exploration of how TV and social can be linked.

Paid Owned Earned by Nick Burcher


The full book blurb:
“The complexity of media that now sees multiple channels accessed through multiple devices has created major challenges for today's marketing and advertising professionals. Consumer time is split between TVs, laptops, iPads, X-Boxes and smartphones, with traditional media, websites, videos, social networks and apps all competing for attention, meaning it's difficult for brands to decide how best to reach and engage their audiences. Paid, Owned, Earned defines the constituents of each area of 'paid', 'owned' and 'earned' media and shows how they are linked together. It proposes a blueprint for how to think and navigate across this space using a framework made up of key elements such as communities and content, social media optimisation, seeding and viral distribution, broadcast mass media, social performance media and measurement.”

Paid Owned Earned is available for pre-order now with an official on sale date of the 3rd March 2012 from from both online and offline retailers.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Smirnoff Blueberry


If you're a Smirnoff fan like myself, you'll be delighted to here that this week Smirnoff announced the launch of Smirnoff Blueberry. Smirnoff's berry flavoured vodka will be joining Smirnoff's two other flavoured varieties: Green Apple Smirnoff and Lime Smirnoff. As with all Smirnoff's flavoured options, Smirnoff Blueberry is crafted using award-winning triple distilled pure Smirnoff No.21 vodka.

“We’re really excited to be launching Smirnoff Blueberry in Ireland. Set to hit the shelves just in time for Spring, it’s one of our most popular flavours thanks to its refreshing yet subtle blueberry notes. Best served with lemonade over ice, Smirnoff Blueberry is a great tasting long drink,” says, Carol McHugh, Marketing Manager Western Europe, Diageo.

Smirnoff Blueberry is available in all major Irish supermarkets.

Did you know?
• Blueberries were once called ‘star berries’ because of the star-shaped
formation on their skin left from the flower that formed the fruit
• Blueberries are one of the only natural foods that are truly blue in color
• At least 50 different species of blueberries have been identified
• Blueberries won't ripen once they are picked
• Fresh blueberries are available for nearly eight months of the year

Monday, February 13, 2012

1,000 Tickets To Czech Republic Friendly In Aviva For €10 Each

‘Three loves football’

Today, 13th February, Three and the FAI (Football Association of Ireland) announced something extremely, extremely cool. Together the two have created the ‘Three loves football’ special ticket offer. The ‘Three loves football’ is a celebration of Ireland’s qualification for EURO 2012.

But what is it?

Tomorrow, 14th of February at 3pm, Three will release 1,000 tickets for Ireland's friendly against the Czech Republic in Aviva Stadium on February 29th for just €10.

Seriously, €10!

Get over to the Three football Facebook page, tomorrow afternoon for full details of how the 1,000 tickets will be distributed on a “first-come, first-served” basis.

This isn't Three's only Irish Football activity. In recent months, Three has launched a number of initiatives such as their “Dare to Dream” affinity scheme offering Football Association of Ireland-affiliated clubs across the country the chance to earn cash when their members switch to Three which helps support the development of grass roots football. Last August Three also launched their ‘Go green with pride, pull on the jersey’ campaign. This saw Three give fans the chance to trade-in their old Republic of Ireland football jerseys and get €20 off the brand new Ireland home jersey.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Sky Rainforest Rescue 'Amazon' Exhibition


This week, Sky (in association with WWF and the Gallery of Photography) announced the Irish premiere of ‘AMAZON’. AMAZON is an exhibition in aid of the Sky Rainforest Rescue which features the work of two award-winning photographers - Sebastião Salgado and Per-Anders Pettersson.

The exhibition aims to highlight the plight of the Amazonian rainforest and its peoples. Through the two beautiful and distinct photography collections of xxx and xxx, the exhibition showcases the work of Sky Rainforest Rescue, the three year partnership between Sky and WWF. Sky Rainforest Rescue itself is aiming to help save one billion trees in the state of Acre, North-West Brazil.

The exhibition, which had a critically acclaimed six-week run at Somerset House, London in November 2011, is curated by Bakul Patki and will be accompanied by a programme of talks and events. For further information and updates see www.galleryofphotography.ie.


Exhibition Dates: 1 – 31 March 2012
Location: Gallery of Photography, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11am - 6pm and Sunday 1pm - 6pm
Admission: Free

Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Interest Graph

A great piece here from Gary Vaynerchuk discussing the explosion of Pinterest, something Gary predicted at the start of the year. While Facebook may be king of the Social Graph, Gary sets out his belief on how Pinterest, and indeed Tumblr, are both offering users interest driven experiences. Well worth a watch...

Friday, February 3, 2012

Lyons Tea

Hopefully you enjoyed the three previous posts I've written on Lyons Tea and the ads in their ‘Master Blender’ campaign series. First up was 'Footie Talk', followed by 'All Talk' and then 'Rich Talk'. Now I'm delighted to share the fourth and fifth instalments in the series: 'Girl Talk' and 'Wild Horses'.

The most popular of the first three ads was 'All Talk'. It featured two loveable characters in an office, having a tea break and talking about their experiences in the gym. I'm sure you'll be delighted to hear that 'Wild Horses' sees the return of these characters. Just watch...




Thursday, February 2, 2012

48 Go Conquer

Ireland has a new mobile service provider on the scene in the form of 48. The company, which piggybacks on the O2 network, offers a seriously discounted offering, uniquely, to the 18 to 22 year old market only. Based on an 'all you can eat' style offering, 48 seems to have a really good proposition.

For €10 a month you get all your calls and texts to any mobile network. There is also an introductory offer of unlimited data (reasonable usage policy of 500mb) for two weeks for €2. Essentially that's everything all in for €14 per month. Fairly tasty if you ask me, and certainly something I would have loved when I was a poor 18 to 22 year old student.

Of course we didn't have smartphones or text messages back then but that's another story… ;)

48 have just launched a new tv ad that was created by Brando.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Electric Ireland ‘Office Energy Expert’

Electric Ireland helps businesses make savings of up to 20%

Yesterday Electric Ireland launched an innovative first to market tool designed to help business customers save money. The tool allows businesses to implement a managed approach to eliminating electricity waste. In a few simple steps, the Office Energy Expert, can reduce electricity costs and consumption. The SEAI commented that by using the tool, a company could reasonably achieve a 20% reduction in their energy bills by 'good housekeeping measures' alone.

The Office Energy Expert tool will take a detailed look at office energy use and make energy efficiency accessible, simple and affordable. From there the tool highlights the opportunities available to easily and simply include energy efficiency and sustainability in the day-to-day routine of both managers and employees. The tool is perfect for all business types both large and small, and works across industries. To try the Office Energy Expert click here.

Liam Molloy, General Manager, Electric Ireland said; “Electric Ireland is working hard to empower our customers to make choices to suit their energy consumption and energy efficiency needs in these challenging times. A tool like the Office Energy Expert is free and easy to use. Companies do not need to incur large costs to make a real difference to their energy costs, with savings of up to 20% wholly achievable by using this tool.”

Patricia Callan, Director, the Small Firms Association (SFA) welcomes the new application which will assist small businesses to improve efficiency: “The Office Energy Expert is a welcome tool for Irish businesses as being mindful of the need to monitor and use energy more efficiently can only be good news and I suspect it will gain plenty of support among small to medium sized business when they see what it can mean for them in terms of savings.”

If you would like to know more about Electric Ireland or their range of products visit www.electricireland.ie.