Diageo’s global organisation is the world’s leading premium drinks business. Here in Ireland, the Guinness marketing team needed to grow its market. The communications concept of ‘It’s Alive Inside’ was developed to bring to life the possibilities, magic and dynamism that occur within the surge of the pint of Guinness, and this provided the springboard for a new advertising campaign. Two TV commercials were produced in 2007, ‘Music Machine’ and ‘Dot’, to bring this concept to life dramatically. The launch of the new campaign has been a key factor behind Guinness delivering its best sales and share performance in over 5 years in Ireland.

Lyle Bailie International, based in Belfast, was originally the first McCann-Erickson office in Ireland, before being bought out by its directors in 2004. The firm has for several years been creating advertising to tackle the problem of low seatbelt compliance, a contributory factor to road deaths. More recently, the Get It On and Selfish campaigns, devised under the guidance of Julie-Anne Bailie, Executive Creative Director, focused on the moral argument for seatbelts. As a result, seatbelt compliance rose to their highest ever levels in Ireland, north and south, and post-campaign deaths and injuries without seatbelts fell sharply, a validation for research-led advertising.

McDonalds have been operating in Ireland since 1977, and the company today employs several thousand people in its network of restaurants across the country. The Eurosaver Menu is very popular with teenagers, and a key contributor to overall sales, so McDonalds set out to further strengthen its affinity with the teenager market by being entertaining and relevant to them. An advertising campaign was developed using Johhny Logan, with whom this segment has an affinity. Running across TV, Radio and Outdoor, it also featured a major push online, resulting in exceptional levels of interaction. During 2007 Eurosaver had driven sales way in excess of budget.

Meteor Mobile Communications is a wholly-owned subsidiary of eircom Group plc. To tackle a perception among bill pay customers that Meteor had inferior coverage, the “Journey” campaign was devised, showing a reminiscent journey throughout Ireland and Europe, with the Meteor network facilitating the journey and the social connections gained along the way, with the tagline “Wherever you are so are we”. An advertising campaign was launched using TV, outdoor, direct mail and online, aimed at working at a functional and an emotional level to convey coverage credentials. Tracking figures have shown a marked shift in the perception of the target segment.