Edelman PR

Ireland is in the midst of a cocooning trend that is being fuelled by a property boom which has made trading up inaccessible to many. Mortgages are cutting the disposable income available to adults, with a large knock-on effect on their social lives. As a result, people in this age category are putting more of an emphasis on home improvement and entertainment. The phrase ‘a man’s home is his castle’ rings true for many households.

If you look at the Central Statistics Office’s report on Household Composition, Family Units and Fertility from the 2006 Census, it is evident that this trend is likely to continue over the coming years. The report highlighted the increase in one-person households which have increased 18.7 per cent since 2002.

There are two interesting perspectives to this trend from a marketing point of view - watching how companies are responding to this lifestyle shift and its effects on purchasing patterns.

One sector that spotted this trend early on was the drinks industry. In recent years the industry has stepped up its campaign to target the take-home market in Ireland. The most notable example of this is Guinness’ latest advertising campaign which is specifically targeted at this market segment. In addition they have also tapped into a popular social trend with their Poker Nights initiative. Both activities resonate with the target audience because they feed a number of attributes of the audience profile, specifically:

• Engages in social activity that requires participation of two or more people
• Places importance on ritual events
• Broad interests rather than a narrow focus of hobbies
• Eager to self-improve

In addition to this, despite mortgages limiting disposable income the purchase of a home represents a major opportunity to marketers because such a purchase generates sales of five to eight major appliances. More companies are beginning to target property developers to offer kitted out homes. As more people entertain at home it wouldn’t surprise us to see appliance manufacturers such as high end coffee machine makers take a leaf out of Starbucks’ book and begin educating consumers about the superiority of their products.

One wonders whether that will ultimately reverse the cocooning trend and drive people out of their home…who could sit through a lecture about the product specifications of a Plasma Screen

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In a clever seeding strategy, Rimmel is using Bebo to give away 1,000 jars of Cool Matte Mousse Foundation.

Underlining the shift to the mp3 in the music industry, Apple is confirmed as the third largest music retailer in the world.

Trevor Cook has made a revised edition of his paper on social media available on his website. The new edition includes information on second life, wikis, twitter, facebook and other applications which have emerged since the first edition.

Gizmodo has got pictures of giant iPhone displays which are being installed at Apple stores in New York ahead of the gadget’s launch this month. In other news, Adrian Weckler of the Sunday Business Post tells us that current industry speculation in Ireland indicates that Meteor will sign the exclusive rights for the iPhone, but given the makeup of its customer base Weckler doesn’t have high hopes for Apple’s latest gadget.

RTE reports on the latest Comreg report which shows that 84,000 broadband subscribers were added in the three months between January and March which means that there were 602,000 broadband subscribers at the end of March. The number of broadband internet subscriptions is now ahead of dial-up and flat-rate for the first time. The broadband penetration rate is also now 14.2%, up from 12.5% in December but still below the OECD average of 16.9%.

In other news, RTE also reports that Central Statistics Office figures released last week show that “for the first time since records began, the number of people taking trips abroad was higher than overseas visitors coming into Ireland…In the first three months of 2007 Irish residents took 1.575m trips abroad and spent €1.14bn in the process.” This marks a major cultural revolution in Ireland where holidaying abroad was once viewed as a luxury as opposed to the commonplace activity it is today.

Crisisblogger says that online videos represent the biggest challenge in the future for crisis communicators.

Ireland was one of nine countries which received their own localised verision of YouTube (via Silicon Republic). In other YouTube news, Gizmodo reports that has the popular site has “just unveiled YouTube Remixer, a piece of online software that allows users to do some basic video editing using an Adobe Premiere back end. You can stick videos together with basic cuts or with transitions, add graphics and text or put in some backing music.”

The Irish Times reports that Irish people watch less TV than our European neighbours. Siobhan O’Connell writes that “on average, Irish people watch TV for an average of just over three hours (182 minutes) per day. In the UK, the average is 216 minutes per day.” (Subscription required to read the full article)

Tony Blair gave an interesting speech recently where he stated that ‘the media can operate like “a feral beast” and its relationship with politicians is “damaged” and in need of repair”‘ (via the BBC) Here’s a synopsis from the BBC report:

The arrival of web-based news and blogs and 24-hour television news channels meant reports were “driven by impact”…The media world was becoming more fragmented, with the main BBC and ITN bulletins now getting half the audiences they had previously and newspapers fighting for their share of a “shrinking market”…fierce competition for stories meant that the modern media now hunted “in a pack”…The result was that the media was increasingly “and to a dangerous degree” driven by “impact” which was, in turn, “unravelling standards, driving them down.”

The BBC has launched a new series of online interviews in which the world’s leading thinkers outline their personal vision of where technology could be leading us. The first interview in the series is with Niklas Zennstroem, the co-founder of Skype, who explains how the net will shape the emergence of new technologies.

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The Public Relations Institute of Ireland, in association with the Fitzwilliam Institute, has announced a scholarship programme. The PRII are inviting potential candidates to apply to the Chair of Education, Public Relations Institute of Ireland, 78 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, in writing explaining why they wish to be considered for a scholarship. Applications for support must be received by 31 August 2007 for the academic year starting October 2007 and by 31 August 2008 for the academic year commencing October 2008.

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The long rumoured Irish Times business magazine finally appeared yesterday. The magazine, called Innovation, has a focus on business, science and technology. The magazine will be edited by Michael McAleer, who also edits the Motoring supplement for the publication.

Max Kelly, formerly of Electric News, has moved to the Sunday Tribune.

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Glasgow city council have come up with a rather innovative approach to combat posters which are being put up illegally around the city (via Boing Boing). Council workers are sticking ‘cancelled’ stickers on the posters which has lead to music fans complain to promoters thinking that the gig has been called off.

Silicon Republic reports that “the UK Football Association Premier League Limited has filed legal proceedings against YouTube for copyright violation.” It’s an interesting development given that soccer clips can often be found in the top rated videos section everyday. One of England’s biggest clubs, Chelsea, have set up their own channel on YouTube, offering footage from Chelsea TV, an obvious move to help their marketing efforts in Asia, where the sport is going from strength to strength.

The New York Times has revealed that eBay, the online auctioners, have begun to sell radio airtime. While the service has not gotten off to the best of starts, it’s an interesting development for the advertising industry.

The Irish State examinations, the Junior and Leaving certificate, started last week. The exams are a huge cultural milestone in the country with thousands of students taking the exams. The Irish Times launched last-minute study tips from highly regarded teachers as a podcast and after one day the podcast was downloaded almost 1000 times.

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Claire Keane, Account Director in our Corporate Division, clocked a respectful time of 59 minutes and 59 seconds at the recent Women’s Mini-Marathon held in Dublin.

Claire put in two months training for the 10-kilometre race, which is the biggest all-women’s event of its kind in the world, with more than 40,000 competitors taking part this year.

She raised more than €800 for the Jack & Jill foundation, an Irish charity set up to care for families with terminally ill babies suffering from irreparable brain damage. The Mini Marathon has helped raise in excess of €100 million since it was first held in 1983.

“Never again!,” said Claire. “Joking apart, it was a great experience and I’m delighted to have finished it. It’s a good stepping stone to my next challenge – The Dublin City Marathon in October.”

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Regional media continue to go from strength to strength in Ireland. News comes through that SPIN South West is due to launch on 4th July 2007. The station will cover will cover Limerick, Kerry, Clare, Laois and Tipperary and is primarily aimed at the 15 - 34 age group, similar to its sister station, SpinFM in Dublin. It’s interesting to note that it is youth focused and we’ll be watching closely with how it competes with the likes of Limerick’s Live 95FM.

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The CSO has released the first in a series of annual reports on Small Business in Ireland. It paints a picture of the contribution of small business in Ireland, offering data on the contribution of small businesses in industry, services and construction, as well as statistics on labour costs, the knowledge economy and the labour force. It also includes international comparisons. The report is available as a pdf. The report underlines the importance of SMEs to the Irish economy by pointing out that small workplaces accounted for over 60% of the workforce.

One point of concern however is that SMEs generally make less use of more advanced Information and Communication Technology than larger enterprises. The report’s March 2006 figures show that 59% of small businesses (between 10 and 49 persons), had a website or homepage. This compares with 80% of businesses with 50 or more employees. However the point of real concern is that small businesses are less likely to adopt e-business, with only 41% indicating that they had dedicated ICT systems for managing purchases or orders, compared with 59% of larger businesses.

There is an obvious opportunity for IT companies to profit from this, but there is still a marked gap in how they communicate this deficit and illustrate the benefits of their offering. By looking through some of the other stats highlighted by the press release accompanying the report, it goes to show that one-stop solutions are far more appealing to SMEs. Instead of engaging with a number of vendors, due to time pressures and a lack of technical expertise small enterprises are looking for quick and efficient solutions.

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One story which dominated the news agenda in Ireland and other parts of the world last week concerned a new reality TV show planned in Holland. The show would feature a terminally ill patient with one healthy kidney who was going to give it away to one of a number of patients in need of a donation. There was outcry from the outset with numerous media outlets labeling the show as a new low in television standards. However there were rumours that it might all be a hoax due to the death of a Dutch TV producer linked to the project.

As it turns out the show was a hoax. While some people might think that it was a crass method of raising awareness about the lack of organ donors in the Netherlands,Textually.org reports that 12,000 Dutch TV viewers signed up as future donors as a result of the show. Publicity stunts are a risk and high profile stunts like this are difficult to set in motion, but the cut-through this incident achieved highlights how effective it was. In a world where consumers are constantly barraged by messages of commercial and non-profit organisations, innovative tactics are required in order to raise your share-of-voice.

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Ireland Offline, the lobby group that campaigned for affordable broadband access to homes and businesses around Ireland, has wound up reports Silicon Republic. The lobby group has done tremendous work over the past year. Let’s hope that the Government and broadband operators work together and improve broadband access across the country in the wake of Ireland Offline stepping down.

Nicholas Carr reveals that some Amazon users are using the tagging system on the popular shopping website in a fashion that the online retailer hadn’t expected. It is likely to raise some controversy in the future. Here’s a synopsis of his post:

I recently received an email from a reader of this blog who described how, in browsing for DVDs at Amazon, he came across some creepy keywords that users had used to categorize movies. The 1985 French coming-of-age film L’Effrontée, for example, had been tagged, as shown in the screen shot below, with such keywords as “child nudity,” “infant nudity,” “young girl,” “bare butt,” and “nymphette”

…

Does Amazon really want to be known as a company that makes it easy for people to find movies labeled as containing “child nudity.” If it were a physical store, would it set up a “child nudity” section in its movie department? I don’t think so.

Adrants has some great pictures of Lynx’s Bow Chicka Wah Wah campaign which has jumped from our TV screens to the real world thanks to some stickers that will make people double-take when they walk past some ordinary signs.

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