"For The Love Of" in group discussion at eDIT Festival 2011

FTLO (myself and Shane O'Driscoll) were delighted to be asked by eDIT Festival to be part of a group discussion on starting up your own business during a recession. The discussion took a Q&A format and was arranged by Dublin Institute of Technology tutors and students. Other people involved included Block T (Smithfield, Dublin), Designist (George St, Dublin) and The Lifeline project (Dublin).

Key items discussed over the course of two hours were business sense and where that fits in creative courses in college, new ventures being part of and benefiting the local community, the importance of collaboration between college courses with one another and the community, the ability to follow through on goals with realistic planning and other topics. The discussion was opened to the floor, which consisted of approximately 50 students from DIT, NCAD and other colleges, for Q&A.

The festival itself was a great success and testament to the hard work of its organisers Ned Kaar and Ruth Hynes who showed great initiative in creating this worthwhile and important event.

Best Yet advertising competition 2011

I competed in the inaugural Best Yet advertising competition at the end of March in the Irish Times building on Tara Street, Dublin.

I teamed up with TBWA Art Director Keith Lawler for the day.

The client was Miller Genuine Draft (MGD). The brief was to create awareness of MGD on tap and put the product in the minds of 18-35 year old males for consideration when in the pub. "It's Miller Time" also returned as the campaign line. Here are the two concepts that got us a top 5 finish:

The key aspects Keith and I picked up on where that the target audience "don't want to feel as though they are missing out on anything, that they are getting the most out of life", MGD should be synonymous with these great times. Our first solution is an image of a man's hand holding a pint of MGD with wrist bands from gigs/events up to his elbow, stamps from nightclubs and events covering his hand along with some lucky ladies' phone numbers.

The other aspect we concentrated on was "the potential of a big night out" and again making MGD a part of these nights. For this we pictured the lads in the pub swapping stories about their fantastic 'Miller night' experiences. "Make It Happen" was the campaign line focusing on the sense of adventure, excitement and positive outgoing attitude of Miller and the target audience.

Overall it was a fantastic day, a great competition showing the strength and healthy future of advertising in Ireland.