Media & Marketing with Emmet Oliver: The inside track on advertising and marketing.
One of Europe's largest confectionary companies, Kraft, has decided to centralise its European creative advertising account with a Dublin agency, Ogilvy.
The contract's value has not been disclosed, but the Dublin agency said it was one of the largest accounts secured in recent years. Among the brands now joining the Ogilvy roster will be Toblerone and Suchard. The link-up builds on previous work done by Ogilvy for Kraft in eastern Europe.
Ogilvy is one of the four largest creative agencies in Dublin and the Ogilvy group (including Wilson Hartnell Public Relations) has an annual turnover of €25 million. The advertising agency already holds accounts for Xtra-vision, Ford, Glaxo SmithKline and Heinz.
The agency believes the long-term trend of creative advertising business leaving Ireland can be arrested. With so many creative contracts shifting to London or New York, the Kraft Confectionary deal reverses a worrying trend for the industry here.
An Ogilvy team led by Gervaise Slowey will be handling the account.
Women's sport rules
Who says women's sport is not capable of generating strong TV audiences?
According to Dublin agency AFA O'Meara 208,000 adults watched the Women's Gaelic Football final between Dublin and Galway on Sunday. This was TG4's largest ever GAA sports viewership figure. The figures translate into 26 per cent of all adults watching TV on that Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, in the US some 62.5 million American viewers watched Sunday's presidential debate between George Bush and John Kerry. Four of the TV networks aired the live debate, but none was allowed to sell adverts during the programme. The four stations claim to have lost an estimated €20 million in revenue for the hour and half that the debate was aired.
'Economist' move
The Economist magazine is bringing out a special 16 page Irish survey on Friday October 15th, which it hopes will provide a major boost to the title's Irish readership.
The survey will focus on Ireland's growth and development over the last 16 years since the last Economist survey in 1988. Currently, the magazine sells 8,000 copies a week in Ireland. About 5,000 are subscription-based, with 3,000 sold on news stands. The magazine has set itself an ambitious target of lifting sales 20,000 copies on the back of the special survey. However, this ambition is very much in line with the magazine's experience in other countries where they have produced detailed surveys.
NTL may launch PVR
Could NTL soon launch a rival to Sky Plus, the personal video recorder system marketed aggressively in the Irish market by BSkyB?
This week it was revealed that personal video recorders (PVRs) will be offered to NTL Digital subscribers in the UK from early next year. NTL are calling the service "ntl:on demand" and it will allow viewers to watch programmes "almost live" the same way BSkyB Digital subscribers are now watching TV.
The NTL service will be rolled out region by region, but no plans for Ireland have yet been announced. The PVR allows viewers to record endless programmes, without any tape, onto a machine. The advertising industry remains wary of the devices because, programmed in a certain way, viewers can skip through all adverts . However the impact on the ad business has so far been limited, at least based on the British experience.
New RTE sponsor
Siemens Ireland is the new sponsors of The Business, RTÉ Radio 1's business show, which airs every Saturday between 11.30 a.m. and 12 p.m. The sponsorship will run for 36 weeks.
Glen Dimplex Ireland meanwhile, are sponsoring RTÉ Radio 1's weather bulletins and sea area forecasts, Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.. Commenting on the two sponsorships, Eithne Hand, Head of RTÉ Radio 1, said they augured well for the future.
