The National Lottery scooped two, winning Best Integrated Marketing at the All Ireland Marketing Awards (AIMs) and Best Facebook Page for a business (Non-campaign) at the Social Media Awards. SuperValu claimed the Sponsorship Management Award at the AIMs for their GAA All Ireland Football Championship work while Fáilte Ireland were tops for Best use of social media by a State body.

Congratulations and continued success to one and all.

Taking the gong in the “Best Integrated Campaign” category for our work on EuroMillions, we used our brand characters to show how ATL & Digital executions can work seamlessly across one big idea.

This particular campaign tells the story of one lucky old lady (Peggy), and her faithful Jack Russell Terrier (Ted)!

RMG has launched the website for the the soft launch of Ireland’s largest ever Diaspora campaign, The Gathering Ireland 2013.

The campaign is a year-long series of celebratory events in 2013 to showcase all that is great about Ireland – the natural beauty, culture, history and entrepreneurial spirit.

We wanted to create an online experience that would help present The Gathering Ireland in a progressive manner whilst at the same time providing visitors with an intuitive self-service environment. The site uses a parallax scrolling approach to create an interesting 3D illusion of depth and a feeling of immersion.

The website has had a great reception and we look forward to launching phase 2 in April.

The app will notify the user when their treats become available to collect. It also invites users to check it on their birthday to brighten up their special day with a extra treat!

The app is being trialed at selected stores across Dublin & Cork with a view to a national rollout later in the summer.

RMG’s work for the Centra App has been shortlisted at the 2011 Appys in the Best Food App category.

The App features over 50 recipes sorted according to the time of day, each of which can be saved and shared with friends via social platforms. Shopping list, store locator and special offers functions were also included.

The Appys take place on November 3rd in the Mansion House, Dublin.

The reviews are in on our newly launched Centra App and it’s good news all round. The Irish Independent’s bits and bytes from the world of technology described the app as ‘an example of a brand creating a useful utility for their customers’ – a mean feat in a market awash with pointless brand apps.

The App itself is a neat collection of recipes, meal ideas & special offers. It allows users to simply shake their smart phone to get fresh, quick and easy meal ideas with easy to follow step-by-step instructions meaning all you need is a smart phone to become a master chef.

The Centra App is free for download for either Android or iPhone.

RMG have been confirmed as a finalist for the Best Campaign at this year’s Eircom Golden Spiders.

The nomination is for the agency’s integrated EuroMillions campaign featuring Peggy & Ted, the story of one lucky old lady and her faithful jack russell terrier, both of whom were created by our stablemate DDFH&B.

By Gary Brown, CEO BTL, DDFH&B Group

Times change, economies change, laws change, rules change, everything changes. We go from Bust to Boom and Boom to Bust.

Brands change, consumers change marketing and media channells change. We move from the marketing age to the Digital age. Always moving always changing and regrettably making the same mistakes and errors as before.

History says we should learn from our mistakes, however as we all know to our detriment here in ireland, it seems we do not learn. We have seen AIB nearly bring down the economy with the Insurance Corporation of Ireland debacle in the 70’s only  for the same thing to happen us again, this time with more banks being involved and the scenario much much worse.

What these two disasters have in common is a reckless neglect of accountability. We allowed Bankers run wild without proper checks and balances being implemented, we did not hold anyone accountable. Accountability did not matter, however it always should.

Now what this got to do with Direct Marketing?. Well simply put, one of the main principles and cornerstones of Direct Marketing as a disclipline is the principle of  Control. Control ensures and enforces accountability.

If we are in control of our targets and budgets we are ensuring accountability. We want action, we want clear propositions,we want value, we want return on investment, we want results. We want accountability, we demand it. If we demand accountability we nearly always get results.

As Direct Marketers we are in the results business. Our business focus should always be on making sure our share of the marketing budget is spent in a way that is Targeted and accountable.

In this current economic climate results matter more than ever. Brands are under such market share and margin pressure that they can no longer afford to spend money  just on warm fluffy advertising and marketing campaigns. Brands also need reults.

Brands can no longer afford to spend huge amounts of money on what was loosely called “ Awareness advertising”. Awareness advertising is in lots of cases another description of spending advertising budgets on something that is very hard to monitor and difficult to evaluate, in others words it lacks accountability.

The concept of awareness  advertising is something that as an experienced and grizzled marketer I have always struggled with . You see, awareness is after all an involuntary act, once you become aware of something it is very difficult to make yourself unaware of it.

So if a brand keeps  spending lots of money making people aware of something they are already aware of, well that seems to me to be a waste of money and why?, lack of proper accountability. If a person is already aware of a brand then surely the brand should be spending money persuading that person to buy that product or service. Thats were accountability and direct marketing come in again. Direct marketers use persuasive marketing techiques and strong and direct calls to action to get those consumers to buy.

In this digital age the principles of direct marketing, namely, Targetting, Interaction, Continuity and Control are particularly relevant. Digital marketers really need to up their game in the whole area of targetting. Proper targetting will make the message more relevant and relevancy is the key driver in getting consumers to engage with a message.

If the message is not targetted it is not relevant. If a brand can develop a targetted and relevant messaging program for its consumers through the various digital media, it is on its way to building a dialogue with its consumers that becomes anticipated by the consumer. Imagine consumers waiting in anticipation for brand messages, now that surely is the Holy Grail. And all this is possible in the digital age through the use of all the various democratised digital media channells, Facebook,twitter, et al.

But please for Gods sake be relevant. Relevancy comes from proper and relentless targetting and data analytics. My biggest bug bear right now is all the crap we have to  get through digitally in order to get relevant and engaging messages. Also a lot of Digital marketers forget to plan for what comes next after they send their message out there into the ether.

There is a big gap in Continuity planning amongst Brands and people using digital media. The consequences of using digital as a channell have never really been thought out in great detail, thence all of the stories we hear about Brands engaging in damage limitation exercises because a digital communication has backfired or has been hijacked by consumers are all too frequent.

This is particularly relevant to App development and creation. Remember once you send that digital message or device out there you are in fact ceding ownership of that piece.

Consumers will interact and deal with it as they see fit, they will like it,loath it and in some cases change it, and you know even thats not bad if they have gone to the trouble of engaging with it. Its all of the consumers who do not engage with our messages we never  think about. Its funny how we never measure the amount of people who never engage with our communication?, now theres a real Holy Grail to pusue. Anyone?

At the 2011 Social Media Awards we asked attendees to design and name their very own EnergyBot – the stars of the new Bord Gáis Energy campaign.

Using the state of the art digital graffiti wall, participants gave us designs from the Grim Reaper to Pirates, a Fresian Cow to Batman and many more besides. An innovative and engaging platform in keeping with the brand’s own commitment to innovation.

During this time, his work has been acknowledged with many industry accolades including the Grand Prix award at the IDEA awards.

James also has experience implementing a number of award-winning, pan-European campaigns running in 14 individual markets.