Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Did Neil Francis mean it, Irish men built like 'a block with 2 legs' and Facebook for SMEs

Did Neil Francis really mean it?
It’s so easy to say the wrong thing – and for it to go viral.  And when it does, some of the people criticising you the loudest won’t even have heard or seen or read what you actually did say.  I heard some of Neil Francis’ original interview on Newstalk when he talked about gay people not liking sport and that rugby changing rooms are homophobic - and I think he meant what he said at the time – because he made a point of stating he always says what he thinks.  But in his subsequent apology, he says when he listened back he didn’t like what he heard and it wasn’t him. So would he have apologised if there hadn’t been such a furore?  http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/neil-francis-sorry-for-saying-gay-people-not-interested-in-sports-1.1695229?page=1
Irish men built like “a block with two legs”!
Speaking of honesty, you certainly can’t accuse Paul Costelloe of being anything but!  He says Irish men are not built like Italians – “they’re more like a block with two legs”!!  Considering he was doing the interview to promote the fact that he’s launching a menswear range for Dunnes Stores, it was an interesting comment to make!  I wonder will Irish men take umbrage the way we Irish women did when he said some years ago that we had no sense of style?  However, he did redeem the reputation of Irish men a bit by saying that they “can charm the girls off the trees”.   All in all, I think he gets away with it – mainly because you get the impression he doesn’t care what people think!  Another interesting dimension to the Paul Costelloe story is to note the importance of deciding where your market is – if you decide to partner with Dunnes Stores, Brown Thomas will no longer stock you.
SMEs encouraged to use Facebook as their web presence
SMEs don’t have to build expensive websites, according to Facebook – instead we can build our online presence with a business page and promote the page with ads, sponsored posts etc.   I think the really great thing about Facebook ads is how targeted you can make them.


Monday, February 10, 2014

Excellent example of celebrity endorsement - Joe Schmidt and Epilepsy Ireland.....

Excellent example of celebrity endorsement…
Today (Monday 10th February) is European Epilepsy Day and I congratulate Epilepsy Ireland on their excellent TEAM campaign – it ticks all the boxes – credible, relevant and timely.  The campaign features a man currently heading the adoration league in Ireland (especially after Saturday!) – national rugby coach and obviously a fantastic team motivator, Joe Schmidt!   Joe’s son has epilepsy – so he’s a very credible and relevant high profile person to work with.  Timing is also perfect – European Epilepsy Day happening just after the start of the RBS 6 Nations campaign. And the theme – TEAM Be Seizure Aware – is a highly effective way of ensuring the campaign message is memorable. TEAM – take Time to protect the person, Ensure you stay with them, Allow the seizure to run its course and Move to the person to his or her side once the seizure is over. Well done to all involved. http://www.epilepsy.ie/index.cfm/spKey/seizureaware.team.html
Targeting an upmarket female audience?
Another team worth highlighting is the team at Image magazine who in the past year have expanded their reach beyond the printed magazine with a new website, networking events and an upmarket wedding magazine! The new website, Image Daily – www.image.ie - attracts 110,000 visitors per month and they have 22,000 followers on Facebook.  I’ve attended some of their excellent breakfast networking events as they’ve great speakers and probably the best-dressed audience u will ever see at a networking event!  No pressure then at 7.30am!!  I see they’re introducing evening networking and mentoring events now as well.  And they’ve launched a really fab upmarket wedding magazine “Bash” which is published quarterly. Siobhan Brett, Sunday Business Post has more here …. http://www.businesspost.ie/#!story/Home/Media+And+Marketing/Fortunes+looking+up+at+Image/id/f8481988-bab1-4ef3-8fe7-5e1a18d62445
The harder-to-target male audience…..
The only two radio stations that attract a higher male than female audience are Radio Nova and Phantom - 68% of Nova’s audience are men and 53% of Phantom’s – not surprising really as both focus on rock music. Laura Slattery in the Irish Times tells us that the latest JNLR (Joint National Listenership Research) show mixed fortunes for the 2 stations – Nova has increased its audience by 50,000 a day while Phantom’s has sunk to 15,000.   For info - 59% of 2FM’s listeners are female, 62% of 98FM’s, 57% of Q102, 56% of Spin while FM104’s audience is 55:45 split female to male. 
Media Info…..
If you want audience, geographic or other information on the various newspapers, radio and TV stations, cinema, outdoor, online and more, check out www.medialive.ie



Monday, February 3, 2014

Museum owners, entrepreneurship educators and electricity generators!!

3 Inspiring Entrepreneurs!

Three very different types of enterprise were winners at last week’s 2014 David Manley Emerging Entrepreneur Award!   A museum, an entrepreneurship programme for schools and a device which enables you make your own electricity!
Trevor White and Simon O’Connor of The Little Museum of Dublin won the overall Award which sees them get €10,000 in cash and over €100,000 worth of mentoring and consultancy services (including PR Strategy advice from Moi – declaring my personal interest in this story!)  There are 3 categories in the Awards – Arts, Business & Social – and they were the Arts winner also.  Trevor and Simon see it very much as a people’s museum – and all of its 5,000 exhibits have been donated by Dubliners!
Dr. Chris Horn (chair of the panel of judges) and Jordan Casey, our inspirational guest speaker, presented them with their Award.  Jordan is a 14 year old entrepreneur, founder of TeachWare and at one stage, Apple’s youngest App developer in Europe! He told us that by the time he’s 24, he will have twelve years’ experience as an entrepreneur under his belt – you could sense the feeling of utter inadequacy spread amongst the audience!!
The other Category winners this year were Fiona McKeon, Bizworld Ireland (Emerging Social Entrepreneur winner) – a former ‘cigire’ and primary school teacher who teaches vital entrepreneurial skills to primary school children. Our Emerging Business Entrepreneur winners were Anthony Glynn and James Sherlock Ar-Nua Tec for their ‘Dunk-E’ device – developed after “two years of standing in cold rivers” – it’s a micro turbine which is dunked in a river or stream and which produces electricity!   Both category winners receive €1,000 in cash and mentoring.
Read these inspirational people’s stories on www.davidmanleyawards.ie
The photo features, left to right, Simon O’Connor, Sarah Costigan and Trevor White all from the Little Museum and me!