Telecom campaign switches emphasis

Irish International is now half-way through its intensive £3 million advertising campaign for the Telecom flotation and already one million people have registered for shares.

As the Government has finally announced a closing date for the registration, the campaign has switched gear, moving from the evocative and atmospheric 60-second television advertisement to the more workaday business of informing people that the closing date is May 28th.

According to Mr Ian Young, managing director of Irish International, information is what the campaign has been about from day one.

"We can't urge people in any way to buy shares," he says. "The aim of the campaign is to inform everybody that they are entitled to register for shares and what that registration then entitles them to." The agency won the account after a competition and unusually the advertising it presented at the pitch is pretty much what the public is now seeing.

Mr Young feels the fact that its treatment of direct mail was included in the pitch was a major factor in securing the account for the agency. The campaign rolled out with 2.8 million mail shots to everyone on the electoral register, supported on television with a 60 second ad based around the singing of Dulaman, a traditional song that was re-mixed for the ad by Donal Lunny.

The public response to the music, at least, has been so strong that Lunny is planning to release a single of the air in the next couple of weeks.

Intriguingly, what appears to be a cast of thousands in various locations around the State is in fact a much more modest cast of hundreds which computer technology then multiplied to look like a large crowd. So, the city street which appears to be jammed with hundreds of people was actually filmed with about 20, as was the financial services shot which features a woman apparently surrounded by hundreds of umbrella-carrying business people.

Casting was on the basis of singing ability. "We had to go for choirs," says Mr Young, "because it would have been extremely difficult to lip synch the music later."

They also employed some non-actors with ordinary and recognisable accents for the voice-to-camera shorter ads.

"Again, the idea at all times was make sure no one felt in any way excluded by the advertising."

While the Dulaman ad, with its monks chanting, comely maidens on inner city street corners singing like larks and sweeping shots of the Irish countryside, might seem more than a little over the top for what is essentially an ad for a financial product, Mr Young says the creative rationale was not to trivialise the flotation and to mark it as a "monumental event for Irish people".

At the moment, according to Mr Young, the share-owning Irish public accounts for 4 per cent of the population. If 30 per cent of those registered go on to buy shares, then that will bump up overall share ownership to 10 per cent - a massive change in a very short space of time.

The second distinct phase of the campaign begins after the closing date for registration but as the actual date for flotation has yet to be announced, there is no end date.

The 60-second Dulaman ad will be brought back for what will probably be a four-week share-buying period but again the agency is in the very unusual position for an ad agency in that it cannot actively encourage people to buy.

"All we can do is talk about the event," says Mr Young. In terms of media buying, the agency has adopted what he calls a "belt and braces approach", so for example, during the registration period the mail shot and free-phone number were followed up by a press ad with a coupon. This yielded only 600 responses but because of the nature of the campaign, the agency considers it to have been worthwhile.

At least some members of the public are also adopting a "cover all angles approach". To date the Flotation Helpline has received 60 calls from individuals inquiring if they can register their unborn child. The answer, reassuringly, is no.