An article in the Business Post a while back covered the fact that RTE, Today FM and the regional radio stations are uniting to do an ad campaign to promote radio ads. This is the first time ever it’s happened. Shame it took a recession and many of them on deathwatch for it.
Why aren’t companies in the same industry doing this? Why aren’t hotels in a certain tourist location uniting and talking up their area? Why are so many companies now doggedly fighting over a smaller and smaller patch instead of making the patch bigger? Cooperation works if you want it to. The businesses in Washington Street in Cork did this a while back as did a number of other pubs running “decades’ nights in various pubs.
Do businesses in Ireland take things too personally so much that they couldn’t be a uniting force to build their whole industry? Thoughts?
As people know I’m a massive fan of Hell Pizza, even Sunday Times employees have accused me that I’m on their payroll but I’m not. However I am on the payroll of WhoseView.ie who had me help them organise a blogger/Twitterer/rantAndRaver event where we came, saw and pizzaed.
We were there to not be very sciencey but to sample pizzas from 6 different pizzerias and see which ones we liked and disliked the most. It was a blind taste test, nobody knew until after which pizza was from where and to my surprise and slight shock, Hell didn’t finish too well in the list.
It was my first time sampling Bianconi’s and I liked them a lot. They also apparently came out the cheapest. I heard from a few people that they do really good pizza and they’ve won some world pizza awards too but taste is subjective. Some of those on the night loved some pizza that others hated and vice-versa. So, have to head to Bianconi’s. Also the Steps of Rome? was mentioned. Where else is good in Dublin. Was our small focus group of foodies way off, near to reality, bang on? Sorry Hell đ
Last week at the Nokia World Conference the most talked about and most referenced thing was Twitter. Every talk, every conversation mentioned Twitter. Taxi drivers in between giving out about the Taxi Regulator ask me “what is this Twittering thing?”. The Britney Spears of tech and now general business is what Twitter is now. Beaver shots in a way too.
As a result of Twittermania everyone is creating neologisms some of which are entering everyday language like Tweets and Twitterings and others that are plain (not even barbeque flavoured) stupid like Tweople and Twips. One word that is becoming commonly used though is Twestival. The definition of it is:
A Twestival or Twitter-Festival is a global series of events organized by volunteers around the world under short timescales via Twitter, which brings people offline for a great cause.
Twestivals in the past year have raised something like a million quid for charities. Two now are coming up in Ireland. Galway and Dublin. Tickets for Galway and Dublin are just a tenner. You don’t need to be on twitter to attend.
Galway Twestival is in The House Hotel on 10 September 2009 and is in aid of the Galway Society for the Protection of Animals so they can build a cattery. Galway Twestival needs a good bit of help with sponsors for the event and to help spread word about it.
Dublin Twestival is on September 10th in Krystle Nightclub on Harcourt Street, Dublin at 7pm and is in aid of Barnardos, Irelandâs leading childrenâs charity. Dublin too would like more sponsors and to spread the word.
Support them if you can and go along as it’ll be a fun night I should think.
Go on, get nominating. Reward the websites in Ireland that you love. Nice to see most sponsorship slots are nowt full. One or two spaces left though if you think a company is interested.
Posted in business, Ireland, irishblogs | Comments Off on Get in – 09 Realex Web Awards – Few more days to nominate
Last week a few food and drink bloggers were invited out to the offices of Edward Dillon and company, who look after Hennessy in Ireland. This was organised via Brennan Sabatini (warning music plays). The meet and greet also extended to sampling some of the variations of Hennessy as seen below. We tried Hennessy V.S., Hennessy V.S.O.P., Hennessy X.O. and Hennessy Paradis. We got the history behind Hennessy and how the various cognacs are made. Hennessy then asked us for feedback on how they market and as people in the blogging and online media space, is there anything they should do. Feedback was given.
Very interesting to hear that Hennessy in America is consumed mostly by African Americans and Hennessy is references a hell of a lot in hihop songs. Oh and by volume, not per capita, Ireladn is 4th biggest in world for consuming Hennessy.
So what did Hennessy get out of this, 5 people who may now consider ordering Hennessy based cocktails? Or them telling their readers? Perhaps. Still negligible audiences compared to print or radio though. Getting to know people who spend all their hours in this new medium might be a good thing though. I heard it has a future this internet thing. For the bloggers, they got to sample a small amount of booze but they also got new content for their blogs. They also know a little bit more about their subject area which is probably the biggest benefit. Cognac making and blending is to me at least, highly interesting. I do wonder what the next step after the various meets and greets are though. Will consumers eventually design products they want and so become part of the customer care and product design teams?
