PUMA

Slattery Communications originally pitched for project work for leading sports and lifestyle apparel brand PUMA around its Volvo Ocean Race sponsorship, but was subsequently awarded the full PR account. The agency is responsible for all brand building activities for Ireland including the communication and promotion of its professional and amateur footwear ranges across rugby, GAA, running and soccer, as well as its lifestyle apparel range, including the iconic PUMA suede product line and leverage of its Afterhours Athlete programme.

Slattery Communications is also charged with amplifying PUMA’s association with its stable of Irish and international sports ambassadors, including Irish rugby internationals; Jamie Heaslip, Andrew Trimble, Luke Fitzgerald and Tommy Bowe; GAA stars; Henry Shefflin (that’s him, above, if you weren’t sure), John Mullane, Sean Cavanagh and Eamon Fennell; soccer legends; Shay Given, Kevin Doyle.

Commenting on the appointment of Slattery, Roger Harrison, PUMA UK & Ireland Marketing Director said:

“PUMA is delighted to be working with the Slattery team across both the Sports and Lifestyle sides of our business in Ireland to help deliver growth in this exciting year of Olympics, Euro Championships and the Volvo Ocean Race finishing in the local waters of Galway.”

Molson Coors

Molson Coors is one of the largest brewers in the World, and one of the few companies bucking the economic and beer market trends by both growing its employee base and market share in Ireland since it launched here two years ago. The company has retained Slattery Communications to handle public affairs work and build its corporate profile as it continues to roll out its investment strategy in the Republic of Ireland. Slattery Communications is also responsible for trade and consumer PR around its growing beer brand portfolio which includes Cobra, Blue Moon, Grolsch and Carling, and will also develop and execute Carling’s Irish social media strategy beginning in May. Slattery partnered with Belfast based agency Morrow Communications, who are handling the work for Northern Ireland.

Commenting on the appointment of Slattery, Niall Phelan, country manager for Molson Coors Ireland said”

“Molson Coors are very excited to be working in partnership with Slatterys on our Irish business. We have had a rollercoaster ride since arriving in Ireland at the beginning of 2010 bucking the economic trends with 40 People now employed in our Irish Business. We believe now is the time to step up our corporate and branded public relations across the Island as we head towards our next phase of expansion and I am confident that the team at Slatterys are the right partners to help us achieve our ambitions.”

What we’re looking for:

The successful candidate will be a highly creative and strategic, thinker who can consistently find new ways to get results for our clients. They should be extremely well organized, detail orientated, have great writing skills and be comfortable as the day-to-day client contact across a number of diverse accounts.

Necessary Experience:

• Experience working in a PR agency at senior account executive or account manager level with a proven ability to manage diverse workloads and priorities. Alternatively, we’re also interested in hearing from people who have strong in-house experience at PR manager level.
• Excellent relationships with consumer journalists and bloggers.
• Strong experience developing and executing social media campaigns for clients.
• Ability to develop budgets and deliver projects on time and on budget.
• A strong business acumen and understanding of the agency business.
• New business development experience.
• Proven ability in successful management of others.
• Experience within beauty, food and alcohol, consumer tech industries strongly favoured.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Serve as day-to-day client contact on a number of major brands.
• Co-develop and implement client strategy, planning and budget setting processes.
• Manage diverse daily workloads and priorities.
• Manage account executives and interns.
• Contribute to the overall achievement of the Division’s business plan through ensuring excellent client work and relationships and helping to identify and win new business opportunities.
• Contribute to the spirit and buzz within the consumer division.

Education:

BS/BA/MBS/MBA. Entry level graduate role. Communications, Journalism, Marketing, Advertising, Business, or other. 3-4 years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Salary:

Competitive salary in line with experience level, including health benefits and participation in company bonus scheme.

Get in touch

Interested? Then drop Graeme Slattery a line.

Slattery Communications was delighted to work with Toyota brand ambassador Katie Taylor, Ireland’s triple World and five-time European Amateur Boxing Champion to announce the new Toyota Auris Hybrid is her car of choice. Katie, a Toyota ambassador since 2010, is one of Ireland’s most successful and celebrated sports stars of all time.

Commenting on the Auris Hybrid, Katie said:

“Not only do I love the look of the Auris Hybrid, but as a person with a strong interest in the protection of the environment for future generations, I also love the fact that I’m driving a car that was created with the future of the environment in mind.”

Online Reputation: Out with Klout

Forget Klout. Firstly, it’s nonsense, secondly, there’s now a humourous alternative: Klouchebag. It was invented by Tom Scott, who says: “I got annoyed with the fuss around Klout, the horrible social-game that assigns you a score based on how ‘influential’ you are online. This is the result.”

Of course we had to test it out on Slattery Communications’ staff….

Top dog of the Sports division, James Wynne is “a bit of a douchebag”, with a score of 56. Our head of digital, Steve Dempsey gets a score of 30 and is “a bit of a prat.” While top of the Slattery Communications pile is Grace O’Reilly, who Klouchebag tells us is “mostly alright”. A ringing endorsement, if ever we’ve heard one. We’ll definitely be playing with Klouchebag this week.

Allianz Hurling League Final To Deliver The Goods

The Allianz hurling league has consistently delivered top class finals over the years and Semple Stadium never fails to deliver that special kind of atmosphere that somehow doesn’t translate in large modern stadia. This Sunday we’re heading down to Thurles where Cork and Kilkenny will challenge for the Division 1 Cup with Cork looking to win their first league since 1998 and Kilkenny theirs since 2009. We’ve our fingers crossed for sunshine and are predicting some lovely hurling!

Ulster & Leinster Fans Taken To Cleaners By Planes Trains and Automobiles

According to the Irish Independent Leinster and Ulster fans who’ve yet to finalise their travel arrangements to London for the Heineken Cup final next month have left it too late with airlines and ferries jacking their prices up after the weekend.

I just checked return Dublin – Heathrow flights leaving 0850hrs Saturday morning and departing 2000hrs on Sunday which came in at a staggering €646.98!

Let’s hope there are plenty of ATM’s on the way!

Well one man has answered this conundrum. And answered it well, proving that business cards can showcase digital capability, and be memorable, rather than just homogenised corporate calling cards. Social Business strategist Mike Coulter has a novel take on the humble business card that illustrates his digital smarts and connectedness.

Business cards based on Tweets about my work: from Mike Coulter, DigitalAgency.com on Vimeo.

Best Business Card Ever?

Impressive eh? But one man might disagree. Joel Bauer claims to have the best business card ever. See for yourself. We prefer Mike’s approach, though.

Slattery Communications was delighted to work with BT and Irish Olympic hopeful, Kieran Behan, last week. BT ambassador, Behan is only the second Irish gymnast in history to qualify for an Olympic Games. His achievement is all the more remarkable as the 22 year old has suffered an extraordinary series of injuries and was twice told he would never walk again. Commenting on BT’s support Kieran said:

“To think years and years ago I was told: ‘You’re never going to be able to walk again let alone do gymnastics’, to find out I’m going to the Olympic Games is something that dreams are made of. I’m absolutely delighted to receive this support from BT and will be putting it to very good use with my training and preparation in the coming weeks.”

Photocall Research

Naturally, this close to the Olympics, we wanted to make sure Kieran to do anything too dangerous. We did a fair bit of research with Inpho on getting the shot just right. It was pretty in-depth research, as you can see, using Dan from Inpho, one of the finest stunt doubles/photographers around. Good to know all the hard work was appreciated.

+Steve Dempsey

Instagram Employees to go on a Shopping Spree

Last week we talked about how Instragram had just launched its Android offering but we didn’t see the bigger picture (pardon the pun) – that the 2 year old company with about a dozen employees would be the talk of the town less than a week later after being sold to Facebook for a mind boggling $1bn.

We’re betting that the San Francisco based employees won’t be shy of splashing the cash on some new toys after becoming the latest dot com posse to make me feel like a disappointment to my parents!

Paul O’Connell Statue in the Near Future

Only the greatest men are immortalised in bronze and with Paul O’Connell being granted the freedom of Limerick City we reckon it’s only a matter of time before a statue of the great man erected in his home town of Limerick.

This follows on from Cork City’s plans to pay tribute to the Cork contingent’s contribution to Munster rugby over the years by commissioning statues of Stringer and O’Gara due to be revealed at some stage this year.

Titanic Tribute Ship to Finish the remainder of its Journey on Schedule

Being the centenary of the Titanic’s maiden voyage it’s no surprise that it’s getting lots of headlines. Headlines it won’t have wanted were for the being delayed twice; once in poor weather in Cobh and now when a passenger had to be airlifted off having suffered a heart attack. Despite the serious delays we reckon the remainder of the voyage will be incident free.

This week instagram launched an android version of the popular photo sharing app

Despite some people not being too happy about it, we think that enough android users will relish the chance to take snaps and stylize them with filters, and push them out to various social networks for Instagram servers to begin to feel the strain. We doubt there’ll be any sort of Instagram fail whale though.

Young Beatles? We hope not…

Rumours that the Fab Four’s sons are planning on starting a next generation band are fairly cringe-tastic to any Beatles fans. McCartney’s son James has been quoted in the papers saying he’d love to equal the Beatles but has conceded that it might be tough to do so. We’re predicting (hoping) that the “kids” band don’t try to follow in their father’s footsteps and stick to their day jobs.

US Master Mania – Par 3 jinx to continue

G-Mac has decided to conserve his energy and sit out the US Masters par 3 competition today setting his eyes on the main event starting Thursday. In the competitions long history no golfer has ever won the par 3 and gone onto don the green jacket and we’re predicting the trend continues for at least another year.

Great sponsorship strategy is where it’s at these days. Having a brilliant, insight-led strategic idea supporting your sponsorship should be at the core of every brand’s reasoning for entering a partnership in the first place. It goes beyond “shared values” or jumping on a particular bandwagon as has been proven by the most successful partnerships in recent times.

Strategic Sponsorship

What’s surprising is that so few brands have followed the likes of O2, Guinness and others in seeking out some strategic depth to their sponsorship. A well thought out, cleverly activated sponsorship can be a fast track to a genuine emotional connection with your consumer – fact. It’s these emotional anchors that drive brand affinity and loyalty and, more often than not, sales revenue.

P&G has it sussed and provided one of the highlights of ISS 2012 with a slick and to the point presentation from Nathan Homer, P&G Olympic Projects Director, UK and Ireland. P&G invests heavily in elite level sport as Olympic partners but it’s not athletes that you find at the heart of their campaigns, its Mums. P&G puts the spotlight on their core target group of Mums the world over by reminding them that when it comes to life’s greatest challenges and defining moments Mums play the pivotal role – a winning strategy in my view. Their campaigns also benefit from being fully integrated which helps them drive home the consumer message more effectively.

Apart from examining effective strategy there are a number of topics affecting sponsorship in Ireland which it would appear we are not taking seriously enough. For instance, the impact of digital media on sponsorship was only a side bar at this year’s summit which is surprising when you consider how much it is impacting on how we consume sport and entertainment.

Sponsorship and Digital

According to Pat Coyle, president of Coyle Media, an Indianapolis-based consulting company that works with sports teams to maximise revenue from digital channels, “Fans want three things: camaraderie, recognition and access. Camaraderie comes from interacting with other fans. They want recognition from the team for their passion and loyalty. And access means they want to feel close to the team or the athlete. Social (media) relates to all of that.” What Coyle is pointing to is that fans are multitasking. They don’t view social media or other online channels as an alternative to attending or watching the event on TV, they’re using those channels to enhance the overall experience. This opens up a world of opportunity for sponsors to interact with their consumers.

Could sponsorship potentially challenge advertising for a bigger share of the marketing mix? The global trends would suggest it’s possible. A recent study by PwC on the global sports market stated that sponsorship revenue is estimated to generate $45.3bn (€34.3bn) in revenue in 2015 and become the largest segment in sport, compared to $44.7bn (€33.9bn) for gate revenues, the second biggest slice of the market.

The state of the global sports market

The same report predicts that the global sports market is set to grow 3.7% in revenues to $145.3bn (€110.3bn). PwC says the market will be boosted by a “rebound in TV advertising” and the migration of sports to pay per view TV, as well as the rise in sponsorship revenue. It’s all really positive news for sponsorship practitioners and means that here in Ireland we need to be on our toes, executing a world class, best practice approach to sponsorship leverage so that we can benefit from the global increase in spend.

The elephant in the room which got some lip service but no real debate at this year’s ISS is the alcohol and sponsorship question. The premise for the prohibition of alcohol sponsorship is that it will help to change alcohol consumption behaviour and reduce the misuse of alcohol. If that is the case then we need definitive research that shows what impact, if any, the prohibition of alcohol sponsorship will have on the misuse of alcohol. Also, the debate should reach beyond the brewing companies and politicians to all those involved in marketing and sponsorship. My concern from a funding perspective for sport and entertainment is that it won’t just stop at alcohol; other sectors are in danger of being prohibited along the way.

I suspect that to find the answers to many of the questions posed above we need to look beyond these shores, which is why my hope would be that ISS 2013 will have more of an international flavour.

James Wynne is Slattery Communications’ Head of Sport.

Fair weather horse racing “experts” to believe their own hype

As one of the highlights of the horse racing calendar it come as no great surprise that the Cheltenham festival has the ability to turn everyone from computer programmers, PR consultants, politicians to pilots into hardened steeplechase experts. With almost every paper providing us with a dedicated supplement I too was convinced that I had the formula to beat the bookies. Everything I’d read lead me to believe that Willie Mullins’ Hurricane Fly was unbeatable. Having the inside scoop I didn’t hesitate lumping on the ill fated red hot favourite… We’re predicting that more will suffer the same fate as the week continues.

Cheltenham 1, Rob 0

Kian Egan to release a track without Westlife

Voice of Ireland judge and Westlife backing vocalist Kian Egan put in a decent shift on Sunday night when he and the other judges did a rendition of Arcade Fire’s Wake Up. We’re predicting that Kian, spurred on by positive reviews, will release a single at some stage this year without the rest of the band.

Ireland to Beat England

It’s been a tricky Six Nations to predict but we’re sticking our necks out and predicting that the rugby team will sneak a win on Saturday and give all the travelling fans a St Patrick’s Day to remember.