Saint Brendan
Issue 14 | March 2010
Agency
Dialogue, Ireland
Creative Team
Creative Director: Des Columb, Copywriter: Gerry Ryan, Art Director: Aga Grandowicz
Production Team
Production Manager: Christine Kennard
Other Credits
Managing Director: Michael Killeen, Account Manager: Jane Fleming
Date
December 2009
Background
Dialogue had a successful track record in helping to launch in Ireland American companies such as Microsoft, Burton Group and Dell.
In the dreadful economic conditions of 2009, which made life very hard for Irish agencies, Dialogue set out to market themselves to other US firms, positioning Ireland as an ideal European hub for their communications.
Ireland is the only English-speaking country in the Eurozone and its agency rates are cheaper than either the USA or continental Europe.
Taking advantage of their membership to the Magnet Network of agencies in the US, Dialogue targeted medium to large companies that had expressed an interest in expanding into Europe.
Idea
200 Marketing Directors of medium to large American companies were targeted and mailed a piece depicting Saint Brendan, an Irishman who is thought to have reached America long before Columbus.
The message was clear. In this same tradition of expert exploration, an Irish agency could help US companies make the return journey to Europe.
Cave-carved inscriptions written in Ogham, an ancient Irish alphabet, are said to be proof that Saint Brendan reached America first.
To tie in with this, the mailing included personalised stones, with the recipient’s name engraved in Ogham script. It represented Dialogue as their stepping stone across the Atlantic and into Europe.
Results
This campaign is still rolling out, but Dialogue has already been invited to tender for a major loyalty programme and will be presenting in late February to a Houston-based multinational.
Our Thoughts
In grim times, agencies are always telling their clients they need to spend their way out of trouble. Few take their own advice. But here’s Michael Killeen, who spent ten years in the States himself, spreading good cheer among his staff by investing in marketing. And the production costs would not have been insubstantial, what with hand-carved stones and so forth. So here’s hoping the luck of the Irish prevails in 2010 and Dialogue prosper. Because, actually, it won’t be luck but confidence in their own talents and confidence in the medium of mail which will see them through.