Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Sites like YouTube and Google Video epitomise the Water Cooler Effect in 2007. In the past co-workers used to huddle round the water cooler to discuss the highlights of last night’s TV viewing. But now thanks to the the Internet and Digital Television, we’re literally drowning in choice. If you missed it [...]

Michael Silverstein explains in his book, “Treasure Hunt - Inside the Mind of the New Consumer“, that today’s shoppers can seem impossible to understand. In Ireland you can spot a well-to-do mother of two from the Southside parked in Aldi after a shopping spree in BTs. As Silverstein points out:
Consumers will happily pay [...]

The nominations for the Irish Blog Awards have opened. The nomination page can be found here. It’s a tad annoying that you have to enter individual nominations rather than being faced with a page for each category. Edelman Dublin will also be sponsoring the Best Newcomer award at this year’s awards. [...]

I was pointed in the direction of this glowing reference for a McDonald’s employee in one of their Irish stores recently. The story brought to mind something which I read recently about McDs. In his book “Treasure Hunt - Inside the Mind of the New Consumer“, Michael J. Silverstein recalls Jim Cantalupo’s bid [...]

There’s been plenty of talk about digital music sales and the flattening of iTunes transactions of late. Nicholas Carr offers some good commentary as usual.
As an iPod user and iTunes user I see a lot of truth in what is being said. Despite owning an iPod for around three years now, I have [...]

Another book I read over the festive period was “The Perfect Store - Inside eBay“. I think there’s a lot to be learned from successful web organisations, none more so than eBay. A lot of Internet companies in recent years can put most of their success down to developing communities. By developing [...]

I recently purchased Ordinance Survey Ireland’s StreetSmart application for mobile phones and have been playing around with it. It has been pointed out to me that I could have used the Google Maps mobile application instead, but some of StreetSmart’s features appealed to me. Either way I desperately needed some mapping software because [...]

In her book “Why People Buy Things They Don’t Need“, Pamela Danziger points out that the average educational level of American consumers is on the rise. A similar trend can be observed across Europe. Danziger correctly points out that many companies are overlooking the impact this trend is having on the buyer decision [...]

Hate reposting stuff, but this is a nugget. (Via thanks to John Naughton and Bill Thompson)
Smash Hits closed down this year. It was probably past saving but still sad. Is there room for a pop magazine to launch in 2007? Let’s do a little roleplay.
Publisher: Hey kids! Here’s a new magazine.

Kids: What’s a magazine?

Publisher: [...]

There were numerous sniggers when Nintendo revealed that their latest gaming console would be called the Wii. However since its launch, the Wii has captured the world’s attention. This Christmas was highly memorable for me because my extended family and I ended up playing Wii Sports for the day in my cousin’s house. [...]

I was recently pointed in the direction of a Fine Gael video on YouTube. Frances Fitzgerald who is seeking election in Dublin Mid West has posted footage on the popular website. Here’s her video below.

However, what really took me by surprise was that she isn’t the only Fine Gael candidate with videos on [...]

For all the talk of youth audiences fleeing traditional media, the Gartner Research Blog points out some interesting findings.
MySpace’s demographic composition is dramatically changing with teen traffic dropping from 25% to 12%. On the other hand, Bebo’s teen composition has jumped from 14% to 34.5%.
I think the key thing to remember here is that [...]