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An open invitation

david — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:17:51 +0000

This is an open invitation to all photographers, directors, production companies, illustrators, animators, merchandisers, printers, researchers, programmers, digital guys or anybody who thinks they have something that will blow us away. We’d love if you could come in to show us what you can do. We’re setting aside half an hour each week to meet with you. (Thursday’s between 9.30 and 10am)*. And you will get a chance to present your work/portfolio/reel/samples to the whole team.

There is one slot per week. You can arrange yours by e-mailing Michael, our creative director at Michael at bloom.ie

We look forward to seeing what you can do.

*Coffee and doughnuts provided.

Please note this is not an open invitation to anyone who may be looking for a job in bloom. This is an invitation to those who want to work with bloom.

If you are looking for a job please send your cv and /or portfolio to info at bloom.ie

We’ve got a new creative director

david — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:33:55 +0000

We are delighted to announce the appointment of our new creative director. His name is Michael Walsh. He’s a Belfastian (just what exactly is the proper name for someone from the northern capital). And he joins us from Leo Burnett’s, Dublin.

We’ve been a fan of Michael’s work for a long time. Ever since we worked with him on the Powerade “Never Give up” campaign back in the summer of 2006. Long time bloom watchers will recall that we worked on this campaign with McCann Erickson. Michael was on the McCann team at the time.

Michael began his career in advertising nearly twenty years ago. Between then and now he has created award winning campaigns for local and international clients alike such as Coca-Cola (Powerade Never Give Up), Heineken (the amazing Memory Hotel campaign), Telecom Eireann/Eircom (Name change campaign), the National Lottery (Fat Cats by the Pool and the skinny Irish guy with a pint of Guinness, remember that one?), Unilever (All is Fair in Love and Ice Ceam) and Kelloggs (Long-Term Effectiveness for Rice Krispie Squares)to name a few.

Michael as been lecturing in the DIT for over ten years, firstly the Professional Diploma in Advertising and most recently the Post Graduate in Advertising and Digital Communication – what a swot!?

He joins Bloom, as he says in a barely understandable northern accent, ‘at an exciting time, Bloom is a wonderfully creative agency across all media platforms, its 360 degree integrated campaign for West Coast Cooler is a perfect example of how creativity born from clear insights can lead to market success and Bloom is an agency that believes it succeeds when it’s clients succeed. I don’t think I’ve ever worked in a more dynamic and creative atmosphere, I’m excited by our future.’

Michael’s door (and mind) is open to everyone and everything, so all you aspiring creatives, talented photographers and up and coming directors can contact him at Michael@bloom.ie

Will You Come With Me

robert — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:42:20 +0000

This is our new TV ad for Engineers Ireland. Everybody featured in it is a real engineer (as opposed to actors playing engineers).

It was produced by Antidote and directed by the great Ken Wardrop. It was shot over 4 days in various locations around Dublin and Wicklow. And we’re very happy with the way it turned out .

The brief was to shift the perception of engineering in Ireland and to inspire the next generation of engineers.

Hello Thursday Club

robert — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:20:46 +0000

Lots of agencies call themselves through-the-line but few deliver on it. We were really excited to be briefed by our client Irish Distillers – Pernod Ricard to deliver a genuinely through-the-line integrated campaign that would include advertising, social media, mobile activation, event marketing and promotion

Enter The Thursday Club a concept created by us that comprises – a series of events aimed squarely at our target audience and reflecting our core values of anticipation and female fabulousness!

The events cater for a unique need (ie planning the weekend) and utilise a breakthrough innovation in mobile vouchering and Facebook integration. We have created a promotion that not only reinforces and celebrates our pole position as the unashamedly female alcohol brand, but also delivers on real relevance for our audience – after all, what girl doesn’t want to get free make up and nail tips plus the opportunity to win a whole new wardrobe for the weekend?

Not only were our West Coast Cooler girls thrilled by their new Thursday fashion, the bars were equally happy to see their seats filled with gangs of girls having a good time – which is a great win for IDL-PR Channel Sales team

We utilised press, radio and online display advertising to promote the Thursday Club as well as retagging our brand TVC. We also leveraged our 25000-strong Facebook fanbase (now 28000 after a week of activity) to spread the word!

Below are some examples of the advertising creative along with screen grabs of the Facebook and mobile activity and a video of one of the events. Thursday will never be the same again.

West Coast Cooler Spread Metro Herald

Thursday Club Facebook App

Thursday Club Facebook App Voucher Generation

Thursday Club Smart Phone App Screens

Thursday Club Status Update Automatically Triggered By Voucher Redemption

NNIce One

robert — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:50:59 +0000

We are feeling pretty bloody brilliant this morning at Bloom Towers. Last night we won two awards at the NNI (National Newspapers of Ireland) Ad of the Year Awards for two campaigns we did for Fujifilm last year. We always say great work requires a great client so we would like to thank Jackie and Alice from Fuji for signing off the 2 campaigns.

The first award was ad of the Month for March 2010 and we won that for our 1,000 words campaign.

The 2nd award was the Regional Campaign of the year and we won that for our Lost Laptop campaign. This campaign involved a different ad running each day throughout a week leading to a call to action on the Friday. The idea was to engage the audience by telling a story throughout the week.

You can see both of the campaigns below

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Did someone order a test drive?

david — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:56:09 +0000

OK so, you don’t get that new car smell or feel the wind in your hair but could this be the future of test drives. Mitsubishi Motors North America, in an effort to rekindle its image as a technologically innovative brand — and generate a bunch of buzz in the process — today announces what it claims is the first online test drive of its kind.

The Mitsubishi Live Drive will enable people to use interactive remote control to literally drive the new 2011 Outlander Sport in a closed course in Southern California. Starting Nov. 1, U.S. residents aged 18 and older with a valid driver’s license can register at microsite outlandersport.com to “test drive” the vehicle through Nov. 10.

The ICAD exhibition cometh

david — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:26:21 +0000

The ICAD exhibition opened last night. And as you can see from the photograph below bloom were there – both on display and in person. This is the exhibition of the award ceremony which was held in April this year. And as you regular readers of the bloom blog will know (hi guys) we won three ICAD bells on the night. A gold, silver and bronze. We were the only advertising agency to win a gold.

The exhibition is being held this year as part of Design Week. It’s taking place in an empty office block on Grand Parade (with thanks to NAMA) and is definitely worth a look. It features some of the best design and advertising work from Ireland over the last two years as well as an exhibition of the work of the graduates of this year’s ICAD Upstarts programme. It runs for a week so hurry, hurry, hurry.

Your correspondent with some of the bloom work on display at this year’s ICAD exhibition

You know Christmas is coming when … (No.1)

david — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:05:56 +0000

This appears on TV and you think to yourself Oh My God is that time of the year already. Time to write to Santa. Although in fairness a big musical number from M&S is now almost as much a part of the festive season as wrapping paper sellers on Henry Street and Fairy Tale of New York on the radio.

This spot features Danii Minogue, Peter Kay and Twiggy and runs for over one minute thirty seconds (although there is a more media budget friendly 40 second version also doing the rounds)

I don’t know about you but the Bee Gees always made me feel like dancing (I’m starting to show my age here)

Going for GOAL…

david — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:19:40 +0000

Here is a campaign we did for GOAL earlier this year. It appeared in the press for the first time last week. GOAL is a charity that works in the developing world. The campaign features Richard and Sinead, real life GOAL volunteers or GOALies as they are called. To my mind these people are real everyday heroes. They sometimes work in the most stressful and challenging circumstances such as the aftermath of the recent Haitian earthquake or the Pakistan floods. As you can see this is a recruitment campaign. So if you fancy a real challenge that makes a real difference then you know where to go. Credit too goes to photographer David Cantwell who took the shots.

Dee in Space

david — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 09:29:53 +0000

This is the new online video for Dee Cunniffe’s new Sci Fi anthology StarShipSofa. (That’s an anthology of some of world’s greatest living Science Fiction writers by the way). As followers of our facebook page will already know Dee is the studio manager here at bloom and something of an emerging mover and shaker in the online science fiction publishing world. Star Ship Sofa recently won the prestigious Hugo Award in Melbourne and as you will see from the video it will be available on all formats on the 10th of October next. Dee made this online video in his spare time.