ECB's euro campaign will air across Europe

An advertising campaign on the introduction of the euro is currently in production in Paris and will be on Irish television screens from September 1st.

The latest campaign is from the European Central Bank (ECB) and is being devised in the Paris base of global communications network Publicis for use simultaneously in the 12 member-states of the euro zone.

The same message - "The Euro. Our money" - will be translated into 11 languages and the Irish version will be revoiced here for television and radio.

Des O'Meara & Partners, which is part of the Publicis group, will co-ordinate the campaign in Ireland and buy media here.

The ECB campaign will run alongside the Euro Changeover Board of Ireland campaign, which has been running since the start of this year with the copy line "The change is in your pocket", and the Forfas campaign designed to make businesses aware of the euro.

"All have distinct functions and we are all co-ordinating our activities," said a spokesman for the ECB in Dublin.

"Our campaign won't deal with details such as euro launch dates or exchange rates but will focus on the visual appearance of the bank notes and, to a lesser extent, the coins," the ECB spokesman added.

So by the autumn there will be three separate euro information campaigns running in Ireland - all vying for television space. It will be a challenge for media planners to ensure that consumers are not saturated to the point of boredom with the various messages.

The timing of the ECB campaign will coincide with the unveiling of the actual euro banknotes. The ones currently seen in the press, promotional material and on the ECB website are mock-ups; the final versions will first be seen on August 30th. Until then, their final design - which will incorporate several security features - is being kept secret to reduce the risk of forgeries. One of the functions of the ECB advertising campaign will be to point out these security features.

Publicis has been commissioned by the ECB not just to devise advertising but also to advise it on the overall communications strategy. Seventy agency staff are working on the account, around half of them in an office near the ECB in Frankfurt.

While the Publicis campaign, with its €80 million budget and audience of 300 million people, is bound to be sophisticated in its execution, the Central Bank of Ireland is currently in the middle of a simple, low-budget, three-week press and radio campaign to encourage people to empty out their change jars and spend the coins or bring them to the bank well before the euro arrives. This campaign was devised by Brindley Advertising.

There is £30 million in coins in jars in people's homes. The ECB estimates each household in the State has a stash of coins worth £24. This will cease to be legal tender on February 9th, 2002, although the Central Bank will still exchange pounds and coins for euros thereafter.

"It's too early to tell exactly how well this campaign is working but banks are reporting that people are starting to bring in bags of coins," said a Central Bank spokesman, adding that the same campaign would be repeated later in the year.

bharrison@irish-times.ie