An article of mine from today’s Sunday Business Post:

A Dublin design agency has stopped working for RTE, citing creative differences over some of the adverts produced by the broadcaster.

Last week Rothco quit the RTE contract that it was awarded jointly with another media buying agency, Vizeum, earlier this year.

The firms were awarded the contract to handle the broadcaster’s creative and media buying business in April, with Rothco in charge of design and Vizeum looking after media placement.

‘‘We made a principled decision based on the fact that there’s work out there that we’re getting credit for that we absolutely don’t want to get credit for,’’ said Patrick Hickey, Rothco’s managing director.

He said a disagreement about the standard of advertisement led the company to make its decision.

‘‘We weren’t given the ability to be the brand guardian.

“Somebody has to take responsibility for that and, in normal circumstances, it would be the advertising agency who were tasked with doing that, but our hands were tied,’’ Hickey said.

RTE’s head of communications, Bride Rosney, said: ‘‘Obviously we’re disappointed, but we are very pleased that Vizeum wants to continue and we look forward to talking to them next week.”

Rothco made its decision during a six-month review recently.

‘‘We said from the beginning that we would be using our internal team, but, as we cannot meet all of our requirements internally, we need an additional advertising agency on occasion,’’ said Rosney.

‘‘It was in their contract that we asked them to be brand custodians where they were providing the service, but not generally.

‘‘Clearly, we couldn’t ask an outside company to be brand custodian of everything within RTE. It was based on a project-by-project basis.”

Hickey said that the decision to resign from the contract would have no financial or operational implications for the company’s activities.

‘‘We don’t want to be seen to be beating on RTE, we were absolutely ecstatic when we won it. In previous years, it would have been seen as a very prestigious account to hold, but that’s now questionable,” he said.

Rosney said no decision had been made on the possibility of re-tendering the creative side of the contract.

More on the way tomorrow, including the ones I missed from the last two weeks.

Supplimentary article from today’s Sunday Business Post:

Thursday, October 5:
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary calls an early-morning press conference to announce the company’s approach bid for Aer Lingus.

Ryanair’s offer values Aer Lingus at around €1.48 billion – €2.80 a share – 60c above the flotation price.

At the company’s press conference, it is revealed that Ryanair has already bought 16 per cent of the company. This rises to 19.2 per cent by the end of the day. Many Ryanair shareholders voice their concern at the logic of the bid.

Aer Lingus chairman John Sharman describes the move as ‘‘unsolicited’’ and ‘‘opportunistic’’, saying that it significantly undervalues the business. Minister for Transport Martin Cullen tells the Dail of the government’s opposition to the bid and its intentions to hold onto its 28.3 per cent stake.

Friday, October 6:
The government moves to cement its opposition to the bid; Cullen says any potential buyout could put the US deal with Irish carriers in jeopardy. The government also begins to consider potential opposition on legal and competitive grounds.

Shares in Aer Lingus rise to €2.98, meaning Ryanair is prohibited from purchasing additional shares until the price drops or the company improves its offer.

October 9
The Employee Share Ownership Trust (Esot) at Aer Lingus considers the options available to it to block the bid, including the purchase of additional shares.

With the government and Esot holding about 40 per cent of the airline between them, the purchase of another 10-11 per cent would stop Ryanair from gaining a controlling interest.

US shareholders in Ryanair continue to voice their opposition to the move, as the low-cost airline tries to get them on-side again.

October 10
Aer Lingus asks Goldman Sachs to prepare a defence to Ryanair’s bid; this includes preparing a regulatory and competition case against the offer.

October 11
It is revealed that a group of Aer Lingus pilots has spent about €24 million buying over eight million shares at more than €3 each.

This represents a stake of around 1.5 per cent and narrows the amount of free-flowing shares available to Ryanair.

Minister for Finance Brian Cowen tells the Dail that a ‘‘lot of obstacles’’ remain in the way of the attempted takeover, pointing out that, as the government holds more than 25 per cent of the company, it cannot be delisted from the stock market and, as such, would remain separate from Ryanair, regardless of what happens.

October 12
At a meeting of transport ministers in Luxembourg, Cullen defends the government’s handling of the situation and details its plans to open talks with the EU relating to competition issues raised by the bid.

In a conference call to investors, a Ryanair executive gives additional details on the company’s plans for Aer Lingus, including the development of former state airline’s 18-acre headquarters.

He says jobs may be lost in the merger, but declines to give a figure.

October 13
Speaking on RTE radio, Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion says he is confident the airline will maintain enough support to see off the hostile bid by its rival.

He says it’s inconceivable that the two management teams could be integrated and says he can see no circumstances where they could work together.

While flicking through the promotional magazine for this weekends Hey! Big Spender expo being held in the RDS (organised by the Sunday Business Post, iQuest and Mary Rafferty PR) I was a little taken aback when I spotted the following amongst the property and investment exhibitors:

In the booklet, each exhibitor is given a paragraph-long speil detailing the purprose of their presense at the event. This particular company got the following:

You’ve really got to hand it to those phoney, money grabbing scam artists; setting up tent offering a stress free life at an expo that’s full of busy business-people looking to offload their huge reserves of disposible income is a stroke of genius.

I’m not sure what this does for the organisations claims that it is not simply a cult designed to extract money from gullible rich people, but it’s inspired marketing all the same.

We Irish politicos have been lucky in recent times; just as the steam seems to have escaped from the Bertie/Loan saga once and for all we have another major political debate to turn our attentions to, the restoration of devolution to Northern Ireland.
Of course while the opposition in the Dáil were careful enough to end their siege on Government as soon as it was obvious that the public no longer cared, their Northern counterparts (from all communities) have failed miserably at enacting upon such instincts, much to the dismay of anyone who got that nauseating sense of deja vu as the ‘will they, won’t they?’ discussions resurfaced once more.

The DUP, being careful not to allow Sinn Fein the opportunity of calling their bluff, have implied that additional caveats will be added to their deal-breaker demands, namely the provision of information and ‘ill-gotten gains’ by the IRA to the PSNI.

The fact here is that Ian Paisley and Co. got scared that their focus on policing was looking weak; what if Adams agreed to their demands? What if the DUP had a support base that still opposed co-operation, despite there being no good reason to? Wouldn’t they need a safety net to justify their departure from talks? I don’t think the DUP have any intention of using this little point as a deal-breaker just yet, unless it is obvious that their followers aren’t ready for a deal in spite of Republican progress; they’re just keeping it in reserve so they can continue to blame the other side if things go arse up.
Sinn Fein on the other hand have tried to look reasonable by seeming to accept policing while not really doing so; quickly implying that they aren’t the ones with a decision to make.

It would be unfair to compare the NI Assembly’s structure to that of a regular majority-led Government; I think the simplest way to describe it is a forced coalition between opposing sides. To that effect Sinn Fein’s stance is baffling. Can you imagine if Labour, as part of their coalition-forming discussion with Fine Gael demanded that the Garda were reformed, and that they would only join Government when this had happened? Surely being a part of the establishment that can exact the change is the best way to make this happen?
That’s not an entirely fair comparison, I know, but I have no sympathy for a party that fails to supply reasons for their stance and yet externally demands that others do the work they should be doing from the inside anyway.
Whatever happens in the next few weeks, I just hope that the two Governments don’t cop out with some interim agreement on November 24th that leaves everything as it has been all along. I still agree with a friend of mine that ignoring NI politicians for a year is the best way to get a solution from them, and cutting off their funds is only going to speed up their respective thought processes in the direction of a solution.

… No, it’s just his lane.

Back from London as of last night and still feeling the effects of the late nights, early mornings, finance-ese overdose as well as the constant state of transportation I seemed to be in… In fact, due to the lateness of my arrival in London on Sunday night my total transit from A (Dublin) to B (Tower Hill, London) went like this:
Walk (to bus-stop… with bags) -> Get bus (to Airport) -> Get plane (to Heathrow) -> Get tube (to Hammersmith) -> Get tube (to Earls Court) -> Get bus (from Earls Court to Trafalgar Square, because the trains had finished for the night) -> Get bus (to Tower Hill) -> Arrive at hotel at 2AM on Monday morning… about 2 hours later than intended.
I can tell you that wandering around a huge city I didn’t know after midnight was not my part of the plan, especially considering the fact said plan relied entirely on the tube system, something I didn’t think finished up so early (stupid trains).
I was in the city at the invite of Lloyd’s of London and the UK Foreign Office; the intention of the visit was to show foreign journalists the city’s financial and insurance markets. I’ll be the first to admit that anything of any great detail went way above my head but at the same time there was plenty to take in. All in all I now have a much better understanding of insurance, finance, stock exchanges etc., which I guess should be a ‘job done’ for the organisers. I’ll also likely have some form or article related to it on Sunday too.

I had hoped to blog from the hotel but the lack of wifi (it was a wierd system where only Orange Bill Pay customers could use the service, but they got it for free…) hindered that intention.

Fingers crossed I’ll be blogging regularly again as of now; I’ve let myself break the habit and haven’t given myself the time to get back into it until now. I also have plenty of articles to put online, including a few I missed out on last week… the website itself hasn’t been updated in a month either, which is annoying too.

I had planned on going to the blog conference today. I had registered my interest as soon as it was possible (I had also registered my disgust with Damien for having the conference on a Saturday!) and I was even set to suggest I attend in some kind of official capacity for the Business Post, so why am I blogging from home now?

Well a number of things came up, the main one being the fact that I was asked to travel to London tomorrow until Tuesday… don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with going to London for a few days at the request of the newspaper (in fact I look forward to it), but it does mean that my Saturday has been overwhelmed by the need to pack, prepare and plan etc.

I’ve had very little luck when it comes to blog meet-up’s in recent times. I was in Wolverhampton when the awards took place earlier this year, and returned to Dublin two days afterwards… judging by the topics Slugger has mentioned I am rightly pissed off at not being in attendance; there seems to be a lot of worthwhile discussion going on.

Maybe next time? I would say I’ll 100% be at the next blog event, but I said that last time too.

To Cian and co., congratulations and I hope it is all going as well as it seems from this end.

An article of mine from today’s Sunday Business Post:

With conventional production costs and advertising rates rising, a campaign by ad agency Chemistry showcasing a fake development plan for Dublin Port has highlighted the power of viral advertising. This is the term used for advertising that relies on consumers passing the ad to each other online.

The Dublin Coastal Development video, which runs for two and a half minutes and has been hitting mailboxes, blogs, newspapers and the airwaves since last week, was created on the relatively modest budget of €15,000, but has garnered considerable attention for the product behind it, new Irish property site Funda.ie.

‘‘It’s gotten a pretty amazing reaction, we’re pretty overwhelmed by it,” said Funda Ireland chief executive Ronan Higgins.

Funda, which is a subsidiary of a Dutch company by the same name, has entered into a partnership with the Irish Auctioneers & Valuers Association (IAVI), and has taken over the group’s website, www.realestate.ie, as part of a ten-year deal that will offer access to the vast majority of property sales in Ireland. 

An article of mine from today’s Sunday Business Post:

Wine brand Carmen is using Ireland as a launch pad for its rebrand and a new marketing campaign that revolves around the ‘‘passion’’ of the product.

The amount Irish people spend on wine has also increased in the last year. 

An article of mine from the Agenda section of today’s Sunday Business Post:

A sharp, heavy pain strikes you in your chest, stopping you in your tracks. It makes breathing more difficult but just as you start to worry about what is wrong, it disappears again. People of all ages will have experienced something like this, and while it is not certain to be dangerous or heart-related, neither should it be ignored.

At present the Chest Pain Clinic opens from 8am to 8pm every day. With the right resources it is planned that the facility will open 24 hours a day, seven days a week from January 2007.