Yesterday, our Digital Strategist, Dena Walker, gave at talk at Measurement.ie, a social media measurement conference developed to educate people about how to get more out of their social media efforts by better understanding how to measure them.

Dena’s talk, “Return on Social Investment” was aimed at getting the industry to re-focus their social strategies to better align them with business objectives, as well as detailing “what” and “how” to measure social initiatives.

“More and more, we are hearing the question, ‘Why should I be doing social?’ from clients. The ability to measure the success or failure of our social efforts is becoming increasingly important, and rightly so”, says Dena.

“Measurement of social media is still in its relative infancy, but things are changing. With greater access to better tools, and better data integration there is a wealth of information out there to be mined, and valuable insights to be gleaned.

“It’s just a question of knowing what it is that you want to achieve from your social media activity and then understanding what you can measure/track in order to help you understand how well you’re doing. But it’s imperative that a business knows why they’re in social media to begin with – not just being there for the sake of it”

Attended by over 200 people and live-streamed, the event was organised by Damien Mulley, sponsored by DoneDeal.ie and hosted at National College of Ireland and was an interactive event that trended globally on Twitter with the hashtag #donedealsocial.

Other speakers on the day included, Matt Morrisson, Head of Social Media Strategy at Starcom MediaVest in London; Stephen Jio from Dell, Laurence Veale at IQ Content, Gina Bowes from Glanbia and Dermot Daly of Tapadoo.

Dena’s slides are available to view on Slideshare, but if you would like to hear about Return on Social Investment directly from the horse’s mouth then simply drop her a line to arrange a meeting.

Simple display advertising

There are two ways of looking at the conventional banner ad format: it’s either fiercely restrictive or brilliantly disciplining. Much like a 48 sheet poster. Used well, it can bring a simple message to life in an eye-catching and persuasive way. Here’s a small but effective banner we created just before Christmas for the artist formerly known as ESB, now Electric Ireland.

Click image to view MPU

What the Blipp?

At Irish International we’re always looking for fresh ways to bring our clients’ brands to life.

That’s why we were the first Irish agency to use Blippar – an image recognition app that can effortlessly transform a print ad (or any still image) into a rich interactive experience.

We approached Aer Lingus, and showed them how they could use this technology to offer their customers a deeper, richer – and faster – journey from consideration to purchase.

They loved it, so we got cracking. And in time for the world’s first augmented reality edition of a newspaper (the Metro Herald) we had created a Blippable print ad – one more world’s first, as no other travel brand had used this before Aer Lingus.

In just three days, the ad received over 1,000 unique Blipps. So that’s a perfectly effective press ad in its own right – which also delivered more click-throughs than we’d get from 650,000 views of an average online banner ad!

Below you can watch a demo that shows how the Blippable Aer Lingus ad worked. You’ll also see the full print ad. To Blipp it, just download Blippar from your app store here, hold your phone over the ad and discover what the Blipp everyone’s been talking about.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The town that RSA built

While public attitudes to drink driving have changed hugely in the last decade or so, a minority still feel that the legislation isn’t needed or goes too far. So when the Road Safety Authority asked us to create a campaign informing people of a further reduction in the limits, we set out to engage those sceptics head on.

Our strategy was to put a number on the lives we’ve already saved by changing how we drive in the last ten years – over 1,100 people. And our creative idea was to make that number meaningful, by celebrating everyday life in a town with that size population.

The 1,024 residents of Kilkee gave us wonderful help and hospitality during the making of this campaign, and since then, the feedback from far and wide has been tremenduous. As the ad says, “thank you.”

And the numbers are real, so please – never ever drink and drive.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Barry’s is one of Ireland’s best loved brands. It’s the tea of the people; the cuppa that’s close to your heart. People curl up on couches with it, solve the problems of the world over it, even take it on holidays with them, like it’s part of the family. So you could say that it’s not really Barry’s Tea at all – it’s everyone’s cup of tea…

Our names campaign pays tribute to that unique personal relationship that Barry’s has with its drinkers. This innovative approach was welcomed with open arms (and cradled cups) by tea lovers across the country, with over 1,000 people entering a Facebook draw to have their name included in the next poster. Another Facebook app allowed people to instantly see their name on a box of Barry’s and make it their Facebook profile picture. Personalisation proved so powerful that even Santa and his reindeer wanted to have a look-in for Christmas! And even though the word ‘Barry’s’ never once appeared on the posters, this is perhaps the most iconic piece of Barry’s print work yet.

There’s something for everyone at Eason’s

For exactly 125 years, Eason’s shops have been catering to the ever-changing interests of people all over Ireland. This new Christmas TV spot is a celebration of a few quirky examples of those people, and their surprising passions – because there’s something for absolutely everyone at Eason’s.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s that time of year again

The Guinness Christmas commercial first aired on December 1st 2004. Since then we like to think it has become an essential part of an Irish Christmas.

It was shoot mostly in driving wind and rain. No real snow was used in the making of this commercial. The locations cover the four corners of the island. We have Patick’s Hill in Cork, we shot those scenes while the Guinness Cork Jazz festival raged in the background. Claddagh in Galway, Belfast City Hall and of course the Custom’s House and the Brewery in Dublin, amongst others.

We hope you enjoy the commercial again this year and, “Don’t forget to turn the lights out”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

University of Limerick – Open Days

Results matter: if anyone knows that it’s our clients at University of Limerick.

In mid-October they asked us to develop this one-off radio spot to promote their annual open days for prospective students.

And the results were A1: an estimated 10,000 people toured the college over two days.

Click to hear radio ad

RSA – Loaded Weapon

A few months back, RSA asked us to get involved with their annual “Keep Drama Off the Roads” student film competition, sponsored by Setanta Insurance.

We helped pick a winner (Richard Lahart’s “Loaded Weapon”), refine the script, and get it made. A great new production company called Tidal Films came on board, and Stevie Russell did a fantastic job as director. The resulting web film quickly passed the 20,000 views mark on YouTube.

RSA ‘Night Out’

While attitudes to drink driving have transformed in the last ten years, attitudes to driving under the influence of drugs have been slower to change. Habitual cannabis users in particular often feel they can handle the effects without difficulty. That’s the mistake this campaign set out to address.

Shot like a fly-on-the-wall observation of a night out, our TV ad shows how cannabis makes simple things that bit harder to do. And simple mistakes behind the wheel can have terrible consequences.

Digital, print and radio executions all take different paths to that same conclusion.

Click to view MPU

Click to hear radio ad