Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Apple is a company that has continued to capture the public’s imagination over the past couple of years. However its innovation is turning into a bit of a double edged sword and could start to become a nightmare for them over the next twelve months.
Take two of their recent launches: the […]

I had to source Wellington Boots the other day for a photoshoot and was wondering where I’d be able to find a pair. One of the girls told me that I could get a pair in a popular women’s shoe shop, which I had to laugh at. It turns out that wellies are […]

I find it comical that newspapers and magazines are talking about restricting their content from Google and other search engines because they feel that these companies are profiting off their work.
I’m one of the potential consumers that media organisations are afraid will read the news via the Internet and will not purchase their product as […]

I don’t believe advertising is dead or anyway near close to dying. In reality, it’s evolving like all communications disciplines. I firmly believe that it still holds its place in the communications mix, although its goals are often different than other tools. Having witnessed the capabilities of advertising to help a business […]

The Arctic Monkeys’ debut album became the fastest selling debut album in the United Kingdom at the end of January. While this is newsworthy enough, the media were espeicially drawn to the fact that their success wasn’t a result from the usual marketing and PR actitivies by record companies. The band had made […]

I came across two initiatives that really illustrated how exploiting popular trends can pay off huge dividends.
Saturday’s edition of the Irish Times features a story about three hairdressers who cracked a code which has confounded intellectuals. The story is a result of an initiative run by GHD, a hair care and beauty product manufacturer. […]

The Daily Mail launched its Irish edition today as copies of Ireland’s newest paper were distributed on the streets for free. Another newspaper launch and cue the inevitable comparisons to the Irish Independent. The same arguments that the Mail will lead to the demise of the Indo were heard only a few short […]

The voting for the Irish Blog awards has opened and just like every other Irish blogger today I’m posting a link to the nominations. I’m up for the best personal blog, along with numerous others (after the initial round of voting the list will be narrowed down to five).
Unfortunately I can’t make the […]

We live in a world of personalised ringtones, 21″ spinning alloy wheels and mashups. Simply put, the days of Henry Ford’s philosophy that consumers can have a car in any colour they want as long as it’s black are long gone. Personalised consumer goods are the future.
One interesting aspect of this is that […]

Filesharing and illegal music downloads are big news in Ireland, like everywhere else in the world for that matter. The IRMA is pursuing more filesharers and Irish ISPs are now handing over records.
While almost every company in the music industry seems to be moaning about the fact that they’re not earning enough money to […]

I found a press release via Press Release Ireland announcing the launch of Kick.ie, a community driven news website similar to Digg. With no central editing process, articles are submitted by readers and the articles are ranked by votes of approval (kicks).
One interesting aspect of it will be that users who submit stories that […]

I was out in Today FM the other week and I learnt a valuable lesson about second guessing your audience. A lot of people that evangalise about blogs, podcasts, etc like to think that they can tell journalists a thing or two. Especially since in their eyes they’ll have those journalists jobs in […]

The last week or two haven’t been good if you’re a search engine provider or Danish newspaper. With cries of censorship and inciting racial hatred, there has been a lot of debate about human rights in the online and offline worlds.
A couple of people though have made some interesting comments about the role the […]

Despite the fact that we are more connected as people online than ever before, it’s still extremely difficult to keep track of what is being said about you online. For example, the students of the Tipperary Institute recently gave feedback as part of their Educast series of podcasts about a post I had previously […]

If you fail to prepare, then you prepare to fail.
I was involved in a new business pitch the other week and it was really interesting to watch other members of the team prepare for the presentation. I found one team member in a room speaking out by herself as she practiced what she was […]

There is a lot of hype about many of the emerging mediums of communication. Companies are often hesitant to jump on the bandwagon because they are unfamiliar with these new channels and often slow to adapt to change.
However, I believe organisations will start to offer video journals at a must faster pace than offering […]

One of the beautiful facts about democracy is that there once was a time where you could communicate with your elected representative in a real and meaningful fashion. Nowadays they pop up on your doorstep when there is an election, claim credit for anything good that happened and won’t go near any sensitive issues […]

Women in business constantly appeal to the media yet we don’t see enough of them profiled in the press. Journalists and producers are always on the lookout for female entrepreneurs, but they don’t seem to be as good at promoting themselves as their male counterparts. It is a shame really because the resulting […]