Industry News March 08
Operation New Life – Inaugural Gala Ball at the Four Seasons Hotel on Friday 4th April.
Operation New Life will be holding their Inaugural Gala Ball at the Four Seasons Hotel on Friday 4th April. The Charity’s founder, Siobhan D’Arcy-Bewick needs to raise €1 million to build an essential clinic in Niger to treat women suffering from Fistula.
If you think that your company/organisation/friends would be interested in supporting the event, please contact Zoe at Operation New Life. You can help by making a donation, buying a table (€2,000) or by providing a raffle prize or auction lot.
Tickets for this Black Tie Ball cost €200 per person (tables of ten).
For more information on Fistula please visit www.operationnewlife.net where you can read about the Fistula women, Siobhan D’Arcy-Bewick’s work and the plans for the clinic.
Operation New Life appreciate any support you can give so please contact Zoe on 086 806 8821 or visit their website for more details.
Understanding and building brand impact
As ‘the brand’ moves increasingly centre-stage in the organisational mindset, discussion and debate surrounding this strategic and practical area for marketing action is high on the agenda. This fascinating and essential component of the communications mix is nonetheless frequently confusing and widely misunderstood.
Designed for PR and communications professionals who want to learn more about the ‘how to’ of branding excellence, this half-day workshop explores how harnessing your brand has significant potential both to achieve corporate and campaign objectives to best effect, and to increase the overall value of your business. Combining analysis and case studies with a visually interactive presentation, this session will guide your efforts to:
Understand the role and importance of branding
Become more informed on brand definition tools and techniques, and on how to craft a brand
Explore the differences between defining the brand proposition and brand essence
Manage your brand, including ways to support, refresh and re-launch it.
The presenterBrid Shinners is a senior consultant with Bradley McGurk, one of Ireland’s leading specialists in brand communications strategy and consumer research. She has built an extensive repertoire of skills and brand perspectives following experience across a wide range of businesses.
Previously, Brid has worked as a strategic planner with McCann Erickson Advertising and in product management with Green Isle Foods, and has also worked in a number of strategic research and account management positions.
Date: Thursday 13 March 2008
Venue: Dublin Chamber of Commerce
Fees: PRII members €220; non-members €320
Source
New guide outlines how advertising agencies charge
For anyone wondering how their ad agency estimates the €250 an hour it costs for the attention of a creative director, a new guide to the cost and structure of ad agency rates has been released by the Institute of Advertising Practitioners of Ireland (Iapi).
The Iapi Client Guide to Agency Remuneration is based on a survey conducted last year among Iapi’s 48 agency members. It includes a salary survey of ad executives and explains how ad agencies charge their fees.
Released on Thursday, the survey puts creative directors at the top of the cost pile, with an estimated average cost of €250 an hour. Next in line are media directors and heads of strategy who bill €230 an hour for their services.
Account directors and client directors also perform well, with rates ranging up to €230 an hour. At the bottom of the pay pile are account executives and media buyers, who are likely to cost around €100 an hour. The Iapi guide also gives detailed explanations and figures of how different fee models work, based on percentages commonly charged in the industry.
These include commission-based work, retainer fees, performance-related bonuses and project fees. There are also guides to the cost and structures of production mark-ups, concept and licensing fees and variable fees. Discussing the various salary rates, Iapi estimates that the mark-up cost of a staff member who costs €54 to employ would typically be €130 per hour, based on a 130 per cent mark-up.
This, the institute says, is based on external costs and overheads, such as new equipment and ‘non chargeable staff’. A recommended 20 per cent gross profit margin should also be added in, it says.
‘‘The guide is designed for all in the advertising, marketing, communications and media businesses,” said Shane McGonigle, president of Iapi and managing director of Leo Burnett. ‘‘It should help clients and agencies alike.”
McGonigle said that the guide had been distributed to all of its members. He said that it would ‘‘benefit any agency or client in the pitch process’’.
Source
Ireland: ’Hollywood of the web’?
At the opening of the Irish Web Technology Conference on Tuesday night, the organisers were congratulated for making Ireland the "Hollywood of the web".
Roger O’Connor, Director of Business and Technology at the Department of Communications, made the comments to around 100 people from Ireland’s IT industry attending the conference’s opening event in Dublin’s CineWorld complex, on Parnell Street. Minister of State Tony Killeen had been scheduled to open the event but was called away for a government vote.
The four-day event, organised by IrishDev, will feature over 50 lectures on topics ranging from early stage venture capital to the accessibility, usability and psychology of web design. A number of speakers will also address the legal and marketing aspects of web design.
"What is happening here with the Irish web conference is very exciting. They are representing a new initiative to try and bring about as much entrepreneurial spirit as possible and to bring the various players together and to get them to fire off each other in a very open way and a very exciting way. It’s great to see this taking place," O’Connor said.
"The Irish software market is one of Ireland’s fastest growing business sectors with annual growth rates of 10 percent in recent years. The modern Irish economy continues to be one of the fastest growing ones in recent years even now, even when things have slowed down."
O’Connor also pointed out some of the challenges facing the IT industry saying that the decline in the number of IT graduates is likely to continue for the next two to three years and that a recent OECD survey of 29 countries found Ireland ranked 16th for scientific literacy and 17th for mathematical literacy.
"However, the CAO acceptances are showing some signs of recovery and this should have a positive effect on future output," he said. He also pointed to the increase in PhD enrolments in scientific disciplines and said delegates at the conference had "a vital role as role models and catalysts for effecting young people at secondary level, and third level into this field."
"The key message we would like to put out is the importance of having future skills in place and the capacity to grow the software development sector. We rely very much on software developers. We are one of the biggest software exporters in the world. We have a lot of major world leading companies here in Ireland and we manufacture a third of the PCs that are built in Europe."
The keynote speaker for the night was Fergus Burns of Nooked.com. Burns won the Irish Internet Association’s 2007 net visionary award and was congratulated at the event by the O’Connor.
Burns explained why the event was so important. "It is getting everybody together. It is a look at all that is required. They are bringing in people from outside of Ireland, which is key because they are giving them a different perspective. These guys brought in heavy hitters. It is building a network."
There was also a vigorous panel debate at the event. The members included: Charlie O’Connor, Fianna Fail TD for Dublin South; Eoghan McCabe of web design company Contrast; Martha Rotter, software developer with Microsoft; Joe Drumgoole of digital information management company PutPlace; Paul Walsh of the web accessibility company Segala; and Stephen Kennedy of the recruitment agency Talent Partners.
The panel members debated everything from how web development will affect recruitment companies and the importance of Web 2.0 to asking whether Google and Microsoft poaching skilled IT workers harms innovation in Ireland. Source
Google’s new health service gets a workout
Not content with the search and online advertising market Google is now entering the area of online personal health records (PHRs) with Google Health but unlike its other services this is the one, which will raise the most privacy issues.
Due to the nature of private data on personal health such as medications, health conditions, immunisations and previous illnesses, the storage and use of user data would need to differ hugely from that contained in Gmail or Google homepages.
“Google Health will protect the privacy of your health information by giving you complete control over your data,” said Google vice-president Marissa Mayer.
“We won’t sell or share your data without your explicit permission. Our privacy policy and practices have been developed in thoughtful collaboration with experts from the Google Health Advisory Council.”
This stance was clarified yesterday when CEO Eric Schmidt, at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference, said the platform will work like Google News and relies on site traffic to generate profit and as such will not be ad-supported.
Google Health will act as a platform for users to manage and access health records. It will be open to third parties with services that could potentially allow your doctor’s records or medication history from your chemist to be automatically imported and easily accessed.
The company said it is using the “launch early and iterate” strategy and is currently in the initial stages.
In May 2007, Google invested US$3.9m in 23andMe, an emerging biotechnology firm started by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google co-founder Sergy Brin.
Although no crossover has been hinted between Google Health and 23andMe, the goals of both companies are somewhat similar. 23andMe offers a service to map DNA and compare with family and friends, explore your ancestry and keep a gene journal.
Chambers Ireland event at Osprey Hotel in Naas
The seminar on the 12th March 2008, will be of interest to business owners, senior managers and anyone interested in growing a lasting business.
Featuring Simon Woodruffe of hit TV series Dragon’s Den this one-day seminar
will show how you can transform your business through innovation and
technology.
Speakers include:
Simon Woodroffe OBE, Former Dragon on ‘Dragon’s Den’ and founder of YoSushi and Yotel
Dermot Griffin, Chief Executive, The National Lottery;
Keith Lowe, FIAVI MIPAV, CEO, Douglas Newman Good;
Joe Eustace, FIEI Principal Consultant, Convergent Solutions, BT Ireland;
Brian McIntyre, Head of Research and Development, Sage Ireland.
Aileen O’Toole, Managing Director, AMAS
Nick Mulcahy, Editor, Business Plus Magazine will chair the seminar.
As a result of attending the seminar, you will learn:
The importance of using innovation to move up the value chain;
How the most successful companies are creating value from acquiring and applying new knowledge and ideas;
How companies can acquire and use new technologies to give them competitive advantage;
How the best business leaders encourage an atmosphere for ideas to grow and flourish; and
How to channel ideas and for profit and growth.
