Oprah and her Chicago Flash Mob

Ant & Dec to front Nintendo campaign

Ant and Dec have landed a multi-million pound deal to become the new faces of Nintendo.

The popular presenters will star in a series of adverts and challenge members of the public on the Wii and DS consoles in their own living rooms.

The ads will hit screens next month – and the duo are delighted to be fronting the brand.

Ant says, “My Nintendo kept us entertained for hours in the PJ and Duncan years.”

Each of the stars will net £1 million for the new campaign.

Pembroke, Bloom and Radical deliver Ireland a summer, at last

We just love this campaign ‘Ireland deserves sun‘ from Radical, Bloom and Pembroke Communications. Launched last May the integrated camapign has been responsible for a sharp increase in sales.

The campaign plays on the fact that we have dreadful weather during the summer and very cleverly placed social media at the centre of the campaign.

Facebook  users are encouraged to harness the rain-defying forces of the Child of Prague, prompting them to submit dozens of pictures of the statues in various incarnations, and prompting Sandtex to give out 1,000 of the little fellas as prizes.

Who says you have to have a very sexy product in order to do some award winning marketing. This campaign will definitely take some awards and it looks like it has even delivered us the summer, at last.

Solidarity update

Steven Ruane and the guys at Midpoint Creative in Tralee  Co. Kerry having been putting some creative ideas together for Solidarity.

The brief was probably the simplest they’ve ever had. The creative had to in some way represent a coming together, solidarity and even a mini-revolution.

I think that they have captured this very well with the above.

My favourite is the third from top.

Lets have your feedback. Comment below or email us at:   brandireland@gmail.com

Bonkers about biscuits

United Biscuits next week launches a nationwide campaign for the McVitie’s brand this week to run throughout September and October.

The campaign is centered around a ‘Bonkers about Biscuits’ on-pack promotion, which will involve an eight-week daily giveaway of €5,000. This is being supported by an interactive website as well as a number of high profile TV and radio competitions.

To enter the daily prize draw to win a share of €5,000, consumers enter the relevant code from the back of a promotional pack and vote for their favourite McVitie’s biscuit on www.bonkersaboutbiscuits.com.  Winners will know instantly what prize they have won and will be contacted by email to receive cash prizes. The interactive website will keep track of the votes via a game show themed creative.

Solidarity – Update

Quick update on our solidarity initiative. We have had an overwhelming response from across the marketing and PR  industry, some of the biggest names in the business are coming on board which is fantastic.

Interestingly enough but hardly surprising, several politicians have expressed an interest but I think this is out of self-interest more than anything else. There has also been alot of interest from the media but we are holding back on briefing them until we firm up on our strategy.

Social Media, PR (old school and new), public affairs, copy-writing, strategy and media buying are very well represented so far. One area that we need a dig out with almost immediately is getting a web presence live for the project.  Any takers?

Email us at: brandireland@gmail.com

Bobbies replace the beat with a tweet

The UKs Metropolitan Police are spending thousands on consultants who are training them in the use of social networking sites like Twitter.

Police chiefs are anxious to see what is being said about their force by web savy members of the public.

The sites could also give police an early-warning system in the run-up to events such as this week’s Climate Camp in London, which has erupted in violence in the past.

With many mass demonstrations now being organised on the web, police say they need to make sure they are up to speed on what protesters are posting on the internet.

The Met has appointed 6Consulting, which uses software that harvests messages about the police from social networking sites and blogs.

Solidarity with small businesses during the recession

OK,  it looks like my suggestion yesterday of a frontal assault on this recession through a Marketing/PR get-together was more popular than I expected although some of you have asked me to expand on my thoughts, so here they are.

There are alot of small indigenous brands/companies out there whom given the current economic conditions don’t have the budgets or resources to market their products or are just simply very limited in their  marketing and PR efforts given the small size of their business.

I’d hate to see a small company suffer or perhaps having to force their employess onto the dreaded dole queue simply because the wheels weren’t turning due to the absence of basic marketing know-how.

So, what I had in mind was the coming together (solidarity) of a range of professionals in the areas of Marketing & PR to offer some free expertise to small businesses or a chosen business in an effort ‘revoluntionise’ their brand and create some buzz for their business. This grouping could act as a full service agency for the chosen brand for an agreed period of time in an effort to bring the business or brand to the next level and then hand back the reins.  Obviously to be done in ones own spare time.

In  order to approach this project in a balanced way we need experts from across the sector including: creatives, social media experts, online and offline PR’s, graphic designers, web designers, bloggers, etc etc etc. There is no particular level of experience required for those helping out, in fact what a great way for those less-experienced to gain experience from the more seasoned campaigners.

Yes, we have some excellent initiatives out there like Bizcamp and Small Business Can but I think there is room for this as well, in fact there’s no reason why we couldn’t have some form of cross collaboration across the various initiatives.

Anyway, as I’ve said thats my thoughts for now but if you have any suggestions or would like to move this idea along with me by getting involved then please get in touch at: brandireland@gmail.com

Please feel free to blog about or re-tweet this post, lets make this happen.

Labour Party gets serious about Twitter

The British Labour party have appointed MP Kerry McCarthy as head of their social media efforts in an effort to improve the party’s use of sites such as Twitter and Facebook ahead of the next election.

The Bristol East MP, recently named the most influential MP on Twitter, was appointed by Labour’s general election co-ordinator Douglas Alexander.

She will train MPs and candidates in the best use of the internet.

Irish political parties really need to take note that this interweb thing is here to stay. Yes some of our political representitives have embraced social media but very few are putting it too good use.

Impulse links up with A|wear

Impulse, has hooked up with Irish high street chain, A|wear, to create an exclusive a collection of 20 fashion forward pieces for the new season.

The campaign is being fronted by Ireland’s MTV Presenter Laura Whitmore. Impulse has invested heavily to position themselves with a slightly older audience of late teens/early 20s.

To add an online element to the campaign, Impulse has launched a pop-up style blog Impulse Style blog which will feature stylish 18-24 year olds Impulse fans from around the country.

Another great campaign by the guys @ Thinkhouse PR