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.

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

Entrants have to bake their own cupcake using any of Dr. Oetker Baking products and submit a photo of their creation. The winner wins a trip to New York valued at €5,000. Even though we can’t enter the competition we can still test our skills.

Here’s something we didn’t not know until we started working with Dr. Oetker. The original Dr. August Oetker, invented and patented the formulation for what is modern baking powder in 1891 and patented it in 1903. So chefs everywhere doff your hats to the founder of our newest client. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Oetker)

We’re really excited about our new campaign for the launch of West Coast Cooler Citra which broke on Monday. Appearing on outdoor, transport and online, the images, taken by Vogue photographer Paco Peregrín, capture the citrusy refreshment of West Coast Cooler Citra and beautifully reflect the brand’s core values of sparkling sophistication. We think the images are captivating and will stop people in their tracks. Be sure to check out West Coast Cooler Citra at a bar or off-license near you…

Damian

Our ‘Hello Night’ campaign has arrived in Grafton Street. We’ve taken over No. 35 Grafton Street to showcase the fabulous dresses used in the “Hello Night’ T.V. campaign. So go along and get dress envy and don’t forget to take a few photos as well.

Hello Ireland!

Our outdoor campaign featuring our three leading ladies and those fabulous dresses has hit the streets of Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Galway. So if you’re out for a few West Coast Coolers this weekend, you’ll be in good company.

Hello Web!

See our fabulous ladies bringing high-glamour to the night ahead, to beaut.ie, whatshewears.ie, entertainment.ie and  a host of groovy websites near you.

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We developed a visual style that symbolises this sense of escape and created a tactical press and online campiagn for 5 city destinations with hotel and city break offers.  For the press ads we opted for two small size ads on the bottom right hand side of adjacent pages to suggest movement.

So now you can “go for it” for less!

Online Ad:

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The final part of a Press Ad:

And now a press ad in all its glory in situ…

The 2 parts of our "go for it!" press campaign

Well, now the Sun is shining (occasionally..), that means it’s time for Ireland Deserves Sun 2010! You can check out the Sandtex Insider’s latest adventures here – let us know what you think.

Crown Paints Ireland had big plans in 2009. Under new ownership following a split from their parent company, Akzo Nobel, this newly-independent company planned on using its new-found freedom to more carefully target its communications towards the Irish market.

The challenge was great. Crown Paints Ireland have several brands under its charge, including the master retail brand, the trade offering, plus several specialist sub brands including Sandtex and Sadolin. The economic climate presented its own set of challenges too. With trade sales significantly down, Crown Paints Ireland had to address the consumer market more closely than ever before.

Planning

Throughout December ’08 and January ’09, Bloom worked closely with the Crown Paints Ireland marketing function to develop a communications strategy for the coming year. Together we devised a range of ideas for this erstwhile conservative company, developing new ways to for them to get more ‘bang’ for the their existing budgets.

The solutions

TV

When under the Akzo Nobel umbrella, Crown Paints Ireland were fairly constrained as to what they could do on TV. Typically, an ad was made internationally, localized and aired in Ireland. While these ads tended to be high-budget affairs, they did not necessarily carry a message that was appropriate to the Irish market, with Crown Paints Ireland having no input into their production.

For 2009, it was decided that we took the budget allocated for buying and localizing the international work, and instead produce our own. We aimed to develop a suite of ads that communicated the human emotions linked to painting a room. This lead us to develop ‘Room Stories’ – a suite of 3 animated ads, each with a distinctly Irish flavour, that helped us showcase our colours in a fun and memorable way.

You can view the ads here.

Online

The existing Crown Paints Ireland site was functional, but uninspiring.  While users could browse colours and view video tutorials, there was little in the way of interactivity or ‘stickiness’.

With this in mind, we created www.crownpaints.ie. The new site contains all the mandatory information (colours, product detail, tips etc.), but its primary function is as a online decorating resource. We wanted a site that offered genuinely useful content – inspirational roomsets, interior design blogs, trend videos – that people can view, save in the personal scrapbooks and share with others.

Key to this is regular engagement. The site is updated at least once a week, with new blog entries, promotions, competitions and seasonal products.

Since launching the new site in September, daily visits to the site and average browse time have nearly trebled, and these stats continue improve week-on-week.

2009 also saw Crown Paints Ireland’s first foray into the social media space, with the Sandtex ‘Ireland Deserves Sun’ campaign. You can read a detailed case study on Ireland Deserves Sun here.

In store

Crown Paints Ireland have 17 stores throughout the Republic and Northern Ireland. Typically, these store focused on the trade customer, with retail consumers being directed to larger resellers (Woodies, B&Q etc.) and independent DIY stores.

The slowdown in construction, however, meant a drop of in trade customers. Therefore, we took this as an opportunity to develop a range of initiatives to encourage our retail customers to consider the Crown Decorating Centers (CDCs) alongside the traditional outlets.

To make the CDCs more appealing, we introduced customer-focussed POS into the stores, while taking out some local press ads extolling the virtues of your local CDC (service, convenience and expertise). Some CDCs were ‘relaunched’ with family-friendly events, inviting parents to bring their children along for a day of facepainting, prizes and (most-importantly) free decorating advice.

We also helped developed a range of consumer-focused promotions for the CDCs, taking advantage of the flexibility our own store estate afforded us. Most successful of all was the ‘Room Box’ – an all-in-one package that contained enough paint, rollers, brushes, masking tape, sheeting and accessories for you to paint a feature wall / box room / medium-sized dining room etc. The aim of Room Box was to take the uncertainty out of painting, and to communicate the fact it’s cheaper than you think to give a room a new lease of life.

The year ahead

2009 really helped us lay the groundwork for 2010. The TV ads are due to air again this year, Ireland Deserves Sun may well be resurrected for the Summer ahead and www.crownpaints.ie continues to provide a cost-effective and ever-growing platform for ongoing communications.