McCann Erickson Dublin chief executive Orlaith Blaney will address the topic ‘What’s your personal brand?’ at a Women’s Executive Network (WXN) workshop later this month. WXN’s mission is to “inspire smart women to lead”. Blaney will explain how the personal brand is an important weapon in anyone’s career arsenal.

Blaney says: “Your vision of yourself might not match what your colleagues, superiors or clients see. It’s down to you to strategically identify, develop and maintain your brand, so why not approach it like Coca-Cola and Nestle? Once you’ve found your values, the same digital, marketing and PR tools apply to personal branding.”

The WXN workshop, hosted by BNY Mellon, is in the Westin hotel in Dublin at 6pm on Thursday, May 24.

To register, visit http://www.wxnetwork.com/?events&id=756

See Marketing.ie interview with Orlaith Blaney at http://www.marketing.ie/2003/oct03/article1.htm

In what is claimed to a first for an Irish FMCG brand, Bulmers Irish Cider has launched an augmented reality (AR) app – the Bulmers deCider to drive an on-pack promotion in Ireland. The app allows users to win prizes and engage with others in real time, tapping into what’s happening in venues around the country. Belinda Kelly, Bulmers’ trade marketing and events manager, says AR is a live, 3D view of a real-world environment, which is augmented by sound, video and graphic components to create an interactive app.

Bulmers advertising characters Dessie and Liam feature in the app. The mechanic is simple in that users download the app to their mobile device and scan their promotional Bulmers pint bottle for the 3D animations. From the label, they then enter a code which could mean one of 17 trips for two to New York – the Big Apple. Phase two of the Bulmers deCider app is the event planner. The app was developed by eightytwenty4D and sister Havas agency, Young Euro RSCG, which handles Bulmers advertising.

The proposal is based on a British nutrient profiling model which categorises foods as healthy or non-healthy. NDC nutrition manager Dr Catherine Logan said that in the case of cheese products, the model did not take into account the role of calcium. While obesity rates doubled among young people in the last 15 years, cheese consumption remained more or less the same. The code would define diet cola as healthier than cheese.

The NDC delegation of Maeve Guthrie, Dr Catherine Logan and economist Ciaran Fitzgerald in the Dáil

Guthrie, who worked for PepsiCo, said categorising cheese as less healthy would cause “huge confusion” in consumers’ minds. The Department of Health had recommended three servings of milk, cheese and yogurt a day. Fine Gael TD Tom Barry said the proposal was “absolutely crazy”. The banning of cheese ads during children’s TV shows would “sabotage” Ireland’s dairy industry, which was world renowned for its quality.

Further details at www.ndc.ie and http://www.bai.ie/?page_id=2275

The Adfaces online outdoor advertising platform will be formally launched in Dublin tomorrow. Targeted at small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Adfaces allows marketers to buy outdoor and out-of-home panels through the internet for as low as €3.60 a day. Adfaces CEO Nick Dimer said the service was launching in Ireland with over 1,600 panels. The company has access to over 30 per cent of Germany’s outdoor sites.

McDonald’s Ireland has switched to Ballygowan as the exclusive bottled water brand for its 81 restaurants across Ireland. McDonald’s sells over 1.25 million bottles of water in Ireland annually and has used Vittel bottled water up until now. Commenting on the move, Adrian Crean, McDonald’s Ireland managing director, said the company likes to source Irish products whenever possible. The McDonald’s switch to Ballygowan means that all the beef, milk, cheese, eggs and water sold in their restaurants is Irish.

At the announcement of the deal between McDonald’s Restaurants of Ireland and Britvic Ireland, the UK group which owns Ballygowan, were some of Ireland’s Olympic hopefuls from the DCU Sports Academy, which McDonald’s sponsors. The athletes are part of the elite athletes programme in the nearby DCU Sports Academy. Ballygowan has a new bottle and brand identity devised by an agency in London. Its new TV ads were created by Cawley Nea\TBWA, which, coincidentally, is also McDonald’s agency.

Acorn Marketing has been named as Ireland’s top agency at the An Post Integrated Direct Marketing awards presented at a gala dinner in the Mansion House last night. The agency, founded by chairman Frank McCaughey, competed with Brando, Goosebump, Javelin Direct and Target McConnells.

Acorn is now run by chief executive Phil Cottier and managing director Estelle Gorby.

Acorn won golds for PrePay Power and ActionAid Ireland. The other shortlisted agencies mentioned above all won golds, along with Ask Direct, Brown Thomas, Chilli Pepper Marketing, Direct Marketing Campaign Management (DMCM), Dragon, Ignition, Language, Ogilvy, RMG, The Dialogue Network and Verve Marketing.

DDFH&B’s Goosebump won golds for Irish Distillers Pernod  Ricard’s Jameson. Its sister agency, RMG Target, was previously a multiple agency winner for its work for Diageo. Dataconversion Direct was supplier of the year, while Brown Thomas got the judges’ vote for the best overall creative work.

The awards MC was Dermot Whelan from RTE’s Republic of Telly.

For more on the awards, click on http://www.anpostdmawards.com/

FAI chief executive John Delaney with Emer Cobbe, Peter Gallogly and Ruth Brett, all Dixons

Ireland kick off their tournament with a game against Croatia in Poznan on June 10. Croatia are ranked eight in the world. Ireland then play the World Cup winners Spain in Gdansk on June 14. Four days later, they return to Poznan for the third and final group match against Italy, ranked ninth. All three games kick off at 7.45pm.

Currys and PC World stores will offer deals on TVs in the coming weeks. Customer competitions are also planned and a marketing push celebrating Irish football’s most cherished World Cup and Euro tournament moments. Dixons’ marketing manager Ruth Brett works to M&C Saatchi in London and Starcom.

Quinn Healthcare private health insurance provider is rebranding to Laya Healthcare. The new name is derived from the brand promise to its members – looking after you always. The company is currently in the process of communicating the name change to its 450,000 members. As from today, the company’s new underwriter is Elips Insurance, a wholly owned subsidiary of SwissRe. Laya will be formally launched on May 14.

Paul Enright is leaving Vizeum after five years to return to Mindshare to work on the Unilever account. He joins the agency as planning director Mark James moves to Carat as strategic director in place of Peter McPartlin, now the chief executive of Today FM. Enright’s main client at Vizeum was Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

He also worked on Opel, Irish Distillers and the National College of Ireland (NCI). He previously spent ten years in Mindshare and prior to that was with McCann Erickson for four years, before it became Universal McCann – UM. He studied advertising at the College of Commerce in Rathmines. He will leave the agency on June 1.

Enright’s replacement at Vizeum is Conor Murphy, ex-Youngs, who moves over from sister agency, Carat.

Counter coin boxes will be on display in all 56 stores. Eurospar will support the 1 Day for Rehab national fundraiser on June 15 as well as local People of the Year awards. BWG marketing and communications director Suzanne Weldon (above) said they hoped to raise over €100,000 for Rehab this year.

Weldon was joint winner of the Marketing.ie Marketer of the Year in 2003 for her Special Olympics work.