- BLOG BEAG –

It’s a long time coming and very much anticipated but the Internet Advertising Bureau of Ireland is working hard at finalising the inputs for their IAB/PwC Online Adspend Survey, according to the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI). Survey participants include publishers/websites, sales houses and online advertising networks. As soon as there is something meaningful to share, we shall post.

While IAB Ireland is recently established, IAB Europe has been running since 1998. The IAB in the UK is streets ahead of Ireland and there is copious research available here. Hence the sense of expectancy for our market.

IAB Europe exists to support and promote the growth of the European digital and interactive marketing industry.

One hundred and twenty former Hughes & Hughes jobs saved as Eason expands into Irish airports

Eason & Son today (4/3/2010) announced that the company has secured the bookshop license to operate in Terminal 1 at Dublin Airport and at Cork Airport.  The company will take over the operation of the five units at Dublin Airport and the two units at Cork Airport.  Eason’s new license to operate the stores takes effect tomorrow, 5^th March 2010.  These had been previously operated by Hughes & Hughes which went into receivership last week.  Today’s announcement will mean that in the region of 120 jobs which had been under threat following Hughes & Hughes going into receivership will be saved.

Mr Conor Whelan, Managing Director of Eason said ‘The retail environment in Ireland remains extremely challenging and we have a great deal of sympathy for the management and staff at Hughes & Hughes which has been a longstanding and respected competitor.  Nevertheless, we are pleased that Eason is in a position to ensure that another strong Irish book brand will operate in Dublin and Cork Airports.  These are prestigious retail locations and we decided to take up this opportunity, despite the challenging marketplace at present.  The prime locations will ensure that Irish and foreign travellers alike are greeted with a strong, well-established, inherently Irish brand when arriving or departing from Ireland through these airports.’

The licenses to operate at Dublin and Cork Airports are recognised as being the most attractive part of the former Hughes & Hughes business.  Over 20 million passengers passed through Dublin Airport in 2009 with 2.8 million passing through Cork Airport.

Eason & Son is one of Ireland’s most recognised brands and is operating in Ireland for 125 years.  Eason Advertising is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eason & Son.

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We have to thank Gerard O’Neill, Chairman of the Amarach Group for pointing us to two items of particular interest. We’ll cover the first one here – the make up of the modern consumer and what are there demands. The second, the potential of the over 50s market, will be covered in a later post following the Turning Silver into Gold Conference tomorrow in Kilmainham.

IBM’s Institute for Business Value has produced a research  surveying more than 30,000 consumers in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Brazil, India and China to determine how they choose where to shop, what shopping methods they prefer and what they will demand from retailers in the future. While Ireland is not covered specifically it would be foolish to imagine we are so different.

Consumers are getting smarter as they incorporate new technologies into their daily lives and information becomes more readily available. In IBM language, consumers are becoming more “instrumented”, “interconnected” and “intelligent”.

Today’s consumer knows:

• which retailers have the best prices and products
• how they (the consumer) want to interact with both retailers and other consumers
• what matters most to them as they decide where to shop
• which retailers need to improve
• where they want to spend their money.

To the question, what’s most important to you when deciding where to shop and what areas do you feel retailers need to improve upon the most, the answers were, in this order:

The good news is that smarter consumers are not only more demanding, they are also more willing to collaborate. They are ready to contribute to the development of new products and services and will reward those retailers that listen by giving them more of their spend.

If you have the time, the IBM Executive Summary is available for download here and the full version here.

A significant fiscal milestone in the history of the State is about to be met. Although not directly related to the advertising industry, and this is a business blog, it is surely related to the economic advancement of the nation likely for this generation, and the next. It affects investment, jobs and state services. According to The Irish Times (18/2/10) the first wave of “asset” (our quotes) transfers to the State agency NAMA will be taking place imminently. More than €16 billion in loans linked to the country’s top ten developers are being moved to NAMA. This is out of a total of €80 billion to be transferred finally.

Let’s just look at the smallest of those numbers – the ten. To quote the Times again, they are Liam Carroll; Bernard McNamara; Sean Mulryan of Ballymore; financier Derek Quinlan; Paddy McKillen, owner of the Jervis Street Shopping Centre; Treasury Holdings, which is owned by Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett; Cork developer Michael O’Flynn; Joe O’Reilly, the developer behind the Dundrum Shopping Centre in Dublin; Dublin builder Gerry Gannon, co-owner of the K Club golf resort in Co Kildare; and Galway businessman Gerry Barrett, owner of Ashford Castle in Co Mayo and G Hotel in Galway.

The next number, the €16bn – just five characters to capture sixteen thousand million euro.

The question is simply posed. How were ten individuals  allowed to rack up 16,000,000,000 euro of loans without sufficient review, oversight or even context to the rest of the country’s economic activities?

To even begin to appreciate these figures with respect to our small nation’s total finances, some perspective has to be applied  (see the CSO for more).

• The total value of the 2009 primary and post-primary school building programme was only 614m.
• In 2008, the total value of Ireland’s agricultural output was 11.6bn
• In 2008, the total value of ALL food products manufactured AND sold in Ireland was 16.9bn.
• Finally, if you tot up all the wages and salaries for everyone who worked in the entire Irish service sector for one year 2007, it comes to 23bn.

Hard to get away from another word, this time with six characters, hubris.

Ever wondered about Neilsen, CPTs, TVRs, OTSs, conversions, Universes, Peoplemeters? The latest update to national TV broadcaster RTE’s very useful Guide to TV Audience Measurement including 2009 and 2010 detail, is out. Includes a Media A to Z, and importantly, explanation about how and why Cost Per Thousands fluctuate (a function of Impact and Revenue of course!). Keep your Agency on its toes – available from RTE or direct from Eason Advertising.

The Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Hodes Global News, which focuses on Employee Engagement, is now released. In this issue, Hodes Network experts from the U.K., Asia Pacific, the U.S., the Netherlands, Australia and Brazil examine the ways companies are engaging their workforce. As the relevance of this topic grows in importance to clients, we believe this issue will be well received in the marketplace and sets the Hodes Global Network apart from others. Eason Advertising would like to thank all our partners who have contributed.

Hodes Global News is available for download from our main site or directly from here. Note pdf file is approx 3.6 m/b.

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According to Interest over Time figures (below)  from Google covering the web search terms “george lee” cross referenced against “fine gael” for the last twelve months in Ireland, both terms reached highs together in May 2009. Fine Gael built on the interest and surged again in July 2009. Sadly neither capitalised on the other, with “George” flat-lining about a month after his election and “Fine Gael” unable to reach the levels of interest they had enjoyed up to George’s election in June 2009.

The numbers on the graph below reflect how many searches had been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They don’t represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100.

Run your cursor over the chart below to find the key dates. Significant news triggers for these high points to the search return figures were:

1. Search term “Fine Gael” [FG] – Feb 10, 2010 – George Lee resigns from Fine Gael
2. Search term “George Lee” [GL] – Feb 10, 2010 – George Lee resigns from Fine Gael
3. FG – Sep 27, 2009 – Fine Gael exit poll boost for Yes campaign
4. GL – Sep 20, 2009 – George Lee to speak on Lisbon
5. FG – June 7, 2009 – Fine Gael to heap pressure on Cowen with no-confidence vote
6. GL – May 31, 2009 – George Lee elected
7. FG – May 3rd, 2009 – George Lee may contest by-election for Fine Gael

Make up your own mind, but someone, by accident or design, missed an opportunity to explain their case or enhance their position.

PRESS RELEASE

Love is in the Air this Valentine’s Day at Eason!

Win a romantic hot air balloon ride for two!

Love is truly in the air in the card department in Eason stores this Valentines Day where there is a chance to win a fabulous romantic hot air balloon trip for two as part of the “Love is in the Air at Easons” promotion! As if this wasn’t enough, customers buying a Valentine card from the huge selection at any Eason store nationwide can also purchase a luxurious box of Lindt chocolates at the special price of €3.99.

A recent Eason survey showed a trend of last minute shopping for Valentines Day with 70% of people buying their cards the day before, or the day of, Valentines. However, you can enter the “Love is in the Air” competition online at www.easons.com from 1^st February right up until Valentines Day.

A recent survey into Valentine card purchasing behaviour commissioned by Easons showed that the majority of Irish people choose romance and humour ahead of raunchy cards for their loved ones on Valentines Day. When choosing a way to show their love on Valentines Day, funny cards emerged as the favourite at 40%; with romantic cards at 36% and raunchy cards trailing at 24%. Romantic cards were the favourite among females (43%) with males preferring funny (39%); closely followed by raunchy (34%).

The Love is in the Air competition at Easons is open to all and can be entered online at www.easons.com from 1^st February until 14^th February.

Ends

For further information contact:

G Gilligan, FD, 01- 6633612

R Clarke, EASL, 01- 873 0477

Remarkable but true, it was the man in the gansey, Ryan Tubridy and his first Late Late Show in November 2009. Almost 1.4 million people watched the programme for a minimum of 15 minutes. One had to go back to the year 2000 to find the nearest competition, 1.27 million adults watched the October airing of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

It’s football, soaps, sport, current affairs, the news, Pat Short, the Eurovision, and  Eddie Hobbs – not all in that order. That’s what we all watched. Click in the thumbnail below.

In a move to try and maintain revenues, RTÉ has introduced a new pricing system for its television advertising that it hopes will put a floor on its ad. income stream, which has fallen sharply over the past year.

After half a decade of growth in revenues, RTÉ expects its TV advertising revenue to decline by well over 20 per cent this year. Consultations between the Advertising Institute (IAPI) and RTE have resulted in a move from the current supply and demand system where TV ad. rates are charged based on a function of ratings (supply) and revenues (demand), to a fixed rate card offering set discounts to advertisers between June and December 2009.

RTÉ has said these discounts would range from 8 per cent to 16 per cent and would be in addition to existing discounts that have been in place for some months.

From RTE’s point of view it is an attempt stabilise steeply declining TV ad sales and to try and put a floor on ad. rates.

This move is not necessarily to the advertisers advantage.

More details will follow.

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