As part of efforts to redefine the future of advertising, 20 start-up companies have been shortlisted from more than 100 entries to participate in The Irish Times FUSION programme.
The shortlisted firms have access to office space and facilities at The Irish Times building during the six-week process and will work with the newspaper group to test their offerings and gather metrics.
While in residence at The Irish Times , the shortlisted start-ups will be working with leading advertising creatives, including Eoghan Nolan of Brand Artillery and Pearse McCaughey of Cawley/Nea, to develop and refine their pitches. Next week the start-ups will begin an accelerated version of the NDRC LaunchPad.
Over the course of Irish Times FUSION, the start-ups will make their pitches to global industry leaders including the Financial Times ; the Boston Globe ; Contagious , the authoritative advertising industry publication; The Cannes Lions, the global advertising industry's most prestigious festival; and WAN-IFRA, the world association of news publishers, which includes some 18,000 publications and 13,000 websites.
The aim of the programme is to help start-ups provide new and unexpected channels for brand messages. "FUSION shows us that our technical and business partnerships can start even at the experimentation stage," said John O'Shea, head of digital at The Irish Times .
Fusion’s call for entries focused on start-ups with no prior interest in advertising as its emphasis is not on creating new advertising solutions per se, but all varieties of new, compelling experiences for end-users.
According to Eamon Fitzpatrick, director of advertising at The Irish Times : "The advertising industry is heading into the unknown. We need the energy of start-ups within our core, because they are unburdened by legacy and history."
The Irish Times FUSION initiative is a follow-up to The Irish Times Digital Challenge, an initial experiment with early-stage digital start-ups that the media organisation ran last year. Since then other media outlets including the BBC and the New York Times have begun to work with start-ups.
Updates and video diaries will be posted at irishtimes idealab.com
