Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Technology has enabled us to communicate with each other in ways that would have been completely unimaginable a couple of years ago. There’s quite a learning curve that goes hand in hand with this. Over the past few months we’ve seen people fired from their jobs because of their blogs or MySpace page. […]

A lot has been made recently about Snakes on a Plane’s failure to live up to the hype after if took only $15 million dollars at its opening. Mainstream audiences simply didn’t see the appeal. I’m an example of one such consumer who simply couldn’t be bothered with it, despite every blog post, […]

Damien O’Broin has posted some interesting commentary entitled “Charities, accountability and the Web.” He goes into how donors will put more research into which charities they donate to and says that it is only a matter of time before someone creates a database of charities that people can rank.
It’s another sign that charities are […]

Bill Thompson details his airport experiences following the recent terrorism scare in the UK. It really highlights that fact that PR practitioners really have to put a lot more thought into new mediums of communication such as the internet, email and SMS, espeicially their use in crisis situations.
This is going to be a subject […]

You’ve probably heard how the media landscape is changing, if not have a read of the BBC’s recent coverage about it. There’s lots of hype about how people are dumping one medium for another, but what needs to be realised is that the public suddenly has more choice than ever before. Naturally enough […]

I think I must be a little obsessive compulsive, but facts and figures about consumer behaviour fascinate me. Furthermore, my mind boggles as freely available information floats around unwittingly ignored by marketing executives that should know better. I guess it’s much easier to get caught up in the hype than actually sit down […]

Microsoft has come up with a great idea for its Xbox Live service by allowing its customers to make games for the Xbox 360 when it starts to sell the XNA Game Studio Express software, a stripped-down version of its game development tools, for $99.
A lot of people are excited at the prospect because they […]

Hans Kullin, among others, talked last week about Google’s decision to send “a series of legal letters to media organisations warning them not to use the word “google” as a verb, meaning “to search the internet”. The search company is worried that wrong usage of its trademark will harm the brand. In the long run […]

Hans Kullin points out that the Metro in Sweden was fined 500,000 kronor after it had published an advertising wrap in the form of an article. The post immediately caught my interest because a similar advert in a Dublin freesheet in the last fortnight leaned far more towards editorial content than previous wraps I […]

Interesting sidenote on Nicholas Carr’s website, Wikipedia pages rank high on searches. All the more reasons for your company to have its own wikipedia page or have a link in relevant entries. The easier it is for consumers to find you, the easier it is for you to get your grubby paws on […]

The Late, Late Show is one of Ireland’s popular television programmes. Its current presenter, Pat Kenny, is sometimes criticised for being a bit wooden, hence his being called a plank.
Not everyone is turned off by his performance as one avid RTE fan can attest. In last week’s Sunday Business Post, Adrian Weckler wrote […]

It looks like it@Cork have started a trend, as the International Wireless Conference has just launched a blog for their upcoming event. Word on the street is that it’s the first of a number of similar blogs which is a nice sign to see. Nice cost effective way to build up more awareness […]

Interesting analysis my boss made the other day at work:
The Internet will be the medium people turn to for breaking news.
People will tune into broadcast media because it captures the emotion of a story.
Newspapers will continue to be read because they will provide analysis of the event.
As Mike Walsh would say, “Mediums don’t die. […]

I’ve found the recent conflict in Lebanon and terrorist threat in the UK interesting mainly due to the media coverage, specifically for its portrayal of violence and muslims. I’ll talk about each point separately because one concentrates on Irish media and the other about International media.
With regards to the media’s portrayal of violence […]

Interesting discussion with another Irish blogger about receiving mail from PR agencies. He has received relevant press releases due to his line of work from an agency in the past, but recently received a completely random release and he’s annoyed about it.
I’d say that the email was sent in error, but it does highlight […]

The Irish Times reports today (Subscription required) that Gap are finally entering the Irish market by opening a concession outlet in Arnotts, a major department store in Dublin.
The funny thing about this story is that I also read about it in the Times yesterday, it just happened to be in the advertising section of their […]

This year’s Ryder Cup is taking place in Ireland and it’s the biggest sporting event in the country for many a year. Needless to say there’s countless euro tied up in its sponsorship.
The funny thing about sponsorship though, and what many people don’t realise, is that you’ve got to spend as much activating the […]

David Harvey was in the office to tell us about City Channel last week. City Channel is one of the leading media organisations in Ireland when it comes to ethnic programming and he announced that they were about to launch another program for one of Ireland’s new communities, the Filipino audience.
What really caught my […]

A photographer from the Irish Times came into us in Drury Communications to talk to us a little bit about photography and PR as part of a ongoing series of in-house sessions we run.
One of the interesting points that came out of the session was the lack of variety of PR images submitted to the […]

Our old telephone company keep ringing us in an attempt to resign us as customers again. It’s funny how eager a company gets when it actually loses customers to sign them up again, but up until the point that those very customers actually change provider, they won’t listen to their concerns.
A lot of companies […]

Agenda Inc reports “after years of helping TV viewers skip past ads, TiVo unveils an initiative…that will enable Madison Avenue to measure the damage. The digital video recorder pioneer has created a division, TiVo Audience Research and Measurement, that will compile detailed data showing how many TiVo users zap particular ads, including the exact second […]

I was on the Last Word on Today FM this evening to talk briefly about podcasting. I’ll throw up a link to the show when it goes up on their website. First time for me to wear the headphones in studio as opposed to a client.

Technorati Tags: Last Word, Piaras Kelly, Matt Cooper, […]

The sure sign of a good consultancy, much like a good friend, is that they offer a different perspective. They applaud you on your accomplishments, but point out the toothpaste that’s still on your cheek from this morning.
Sometimes you need a different perspective to see that everything isn’t smelling of roses. For example, […]

A friend, Morgan Roche, has just launched a new Irish business blog. Morgan is a kitesurfing instructor and extreme sports enthusiast. On the site, he’ll be discussing tips, basic tricks, safety and suitable equipment for beginners.
It’s ideal subject matter for a business blog because kitesurfing is so niche and it provides the perfect […]