March 31st, 2010 Posted in Advertising, Customer care, Marketing, Media Tips, Newspapers, Politics, Video Interviews No Comments
Senator Feargal Quinn came into us for a bit of a chat about his new show, ‘Retail Therapy’. We asked him about the media he consumes, his childhood, his ideal marketing campaign, his on-going projects in the Seanad, and just why he gets so cross when he’s told “this offer only applies to new customers”.
Check out our interview with the King of Customer Care, delight in his genial manner, and we defy you not to enjoy his wonderful choice of tie!
March 30th, 2010 Posted in Charity, Great Ideas No Comments
The Make-A-Wish Foundation are currently in the throes of organising World Wish Day 29/04/10, a whole day dedicated to wishes coming true. The Foundation has, for thirty years now, granted the wishes of hundreds of children living with a life threatening illness between the ages 3 and 18. They do incredible work, and they would like you to help them to do much more.
Very simply, Make-A-Wish are asking for wishes. They are hoping that celebrated Irish people will share their childhood wishes with them and the world as publicity in the run up to World Wish Day.
How can you help?
If you have a client or a friend who is well-known and who would be willing to take part in World Wish Day, have them email sinead@makeawish.ie before April 9th offering their help. Donations to the charity can also be made online at www.makeawish.ie
The Foundation also invites you to take a moment of nostalgic remembrance and answer this question: “When I was a child my one wish was to….” Post your childhood fancies and fantasies below.
March 30th, 2010 Posted in Advertising, Great Ideas, Marketing, Online, Public Relations, Viral No Comments
Damien Mulley, internet mogul and all-round nice guy, has extended an unusual invitation to the Mediacontact team. We have been invited to attend the filming of a Live ad. This idea in itself is an odd one, but a cloak of mystery has descended over the entire event since we RSVPed to his kind invitation yesterday.
Not only have we yet to be told the company for which the ad is being made, but we also have no idea as to the venue. We have been informed only that it will take place at half past seven in the city centre tomorrow evening. Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.
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March 29th, 2010 Posted in Arts, Mediacontact.ie News No Comments
All over Europe, people are getting ready to battle for their cities honour, talented artists from Dublin, London, Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Barcelona and many more cities are joining forces. Secret Wars is a series of 90-minute live art battles; victory is achieved not with the sword but the mightier marker pen.
Like Fight Club, there are a few simple rules in these word-of-mouth events. Artists may only use black markers on a whitewashed wall and no previous sketches can be used. The winner is decided by a panel of judges and a crowd vote.
Before Dublin’s recent battle with Copenhagen in the Bernard Shaw I caught up with the manager of the Dublin Secret Wars team, Andrew Kelly, who told me a little bit about the history of the competition and what to expect on the night.
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March 29th, 2010 Posted in Newspapers, Online, Social Media No Comments
More and more people are relying on Twitter as their source of new and interesting links. It makes sense, it’s using a social graph to curate your news. And depending on who you follow, it can be a very useful filter. A new site, The Twitter Times, takes that idea and puts it in an easy-to-digest newspaper-style form.
Basically, The Twitter Times looks at all the people you follow on Twitter, finds their tweets with links in them, and creates a custom newspaper for you based on those links. But it’s not just a straight stream of stories based on how recent they are, instead the service looks at how many people have linked to the article, both in your social circle and outside of it.
The Twitter Times is broken up into two columns, a “What’s Hot” section and a “Top News History” section. As you might imagine, the main “What’s Hot” column features more time sensitive stuff, while Top News History is the bigger stories that people keep linking to.
If you see an article you want to read on The Twitter Times, you can simply click the “show all text” button and the article will expand in line on the page. You can also obviously click on the headline to read the full story on its original site. There is also a retweet button for every article, as well as a collapsed list of who tweeted it.
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March 29th, 2010 Posted in Case Study, Economy, Online No Comments
Looking through our RSS feed this morning we stumbled across this infographic from VisualEconomics about the amount of money that was wasted in America on website ventures during the dot com era. It shows 14 of the biggest dot com business fails. It is crazy to see the money pored into dot com businesses and how quickly it was blown! (it kind of makes you realise just why the world economy is in such a state).
One of the the biggest fails was GO.com with $790 million in funding burned in 3 years. Funnily enough, it was actually a Disney owned webportal and even worked to pioneer online chat rooms to no avail. Another was WebVan.com which managed to burn $800 million in 1 and a half years on a business that was set to revolutionise grocery shopping, customers were reported to be very happy with the service, but they just couldn’t find enough of them!
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March 25th, 2010 Posted in Film, Great Ideas, Online No Comments
We wanted to tell you what Spike Jonze’s new web film I’m Here is all about, we really did, and not just because it reportedly has robots in it — though that was certainly a major factor in the decision. But after we crossed the virtual street to the virtual box office, we were informed that there were no seats left in the virtual theater. Imagine that. So instead of providing our impressions here, we’ll just give you the facts. I’m Here is sponsored by Absolut Vodka; I’m Here is a 30-minute love story about humanoids living in Los Angeles. I’m Here can be viewed alongside Facebook friends; I’m Here can only be seen by 5,000 viewers a day. I’m Here promises a “striking online cinema experience,” and we were struck by just how lifelike waiting for tickets could be. And if you, too, can’t get “in” to see it, I’m Here can satiate you slightly with a one-minute trailer after the break.
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March 25th, 2010 Posted in Advertising, Apple, Great Ideas, Marketing, Mobile, Public Relations, Sales No Comments
My daily stroll up the canal to work this morning started off like any other. A light, misty drizzle had made the prospect of getting out of bed onerous. I got off the bus at my usual stop, I walked my usual route, and I spotted my usual familiar commuters (hello, grey suit man with sticky-up hair, in case you’re reading).
Upon reaching Portobello bridge and the halfway mark of my constitutional, I was offered something free by a sodden-but-smiling worker with Vodafone stamped across her back. It was a red apple, and guess what it was asking me to do? ‘Experience the iPhone on Vodafone – Pick up a fresh one today in any Vodafone store.’
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