Media&Marketing:Pratt counselled that, to climb the corporate ladder, marketing executives need to push themselves into operational functions to show what they can do.
Fashion retailer awear was a notable winner at the recent marketing awards organised by the Marketing Institute when it fought off competition from Bank of Ireland Life, Bank of Scotland and EBS Building Society to pick up the award for the best public relations campaign.
Awear group marketing director Vivienne Bushell's winning idea was to appoint Riverdance star Jean Butler as the public face of the campaign for a fashion collection designed by someone most women have never heard of.
One judge noted: "Bringing Butler on board was very clever. She didn't have a huge profile but she was good at the PR and she delivered a lot of column inches for a-wear."
It was the first time in awear's history that a face had been linked to the brand in such a direct way but with her red hair and freckled complexion, Butler also nicely drove home the "Irishness" of the fashion collection.
She appealed to both a-wear's existing customers and new upmarket customers the store was trying to attract.
A three-tiered PR campaign was created to connect with the target market by developing "a face" for the collection as well as drive awareness of the first ever ready-to-wear Peter O'Brien collection in Ireland, and plan the official launch photocall and launch when the collection went on sale.
The five-month PR campaign commenced in July 2006 when market research confirmed most awear customers weren't familiar with Peter O'Brien.
Awear pioneered the idea of getting well-known designers to design a high street collection when it introduced a range by John Rocha 20 years ago. But the retailer, recently the subject of an MBO away from exiting owner Brown Thomas, has spent the last 10 years concentrating on the growth of awear's own brand.
Awear has a policy of not advertising, despite facing increased competition from British and European retailers such as H&M, Oasis, Top Shop and Zara.
As well as dressing up the story with different angles for newspapers and magazines, awear also drove awareness with a Peter O'Brien website and a specially designed e-newsletter was issued to the 60,000 customers.
This invited them to preview the online animated fashion shoot of Jean Butler the day before it was due to go on sale.
Bushell and her team fulfilled the brief from senior management to launch the collection and drive the sales with a claimed sell-through rate of 95 per cent at the end of the sales period. O'Brien was recently commissioned to do a capsule collection for this autumn.
The award to awear was one of 29 gongs handed out at the event, back in the awards calendar after a couple of years absence.
More than 500 marketing professionals attended the Burlington Hotel function and saw the main award for All Ireland Marketing Champion go to Maurice Pratt, chief executive of C&C.
These days Pratt is better known for selling brands than building them but he was not short of advice to the young marketing professionals in the audience.
"Marketing needs to be in the boardroom," he advised.
The extensive roll call of plaudits included: Fintan Lonergan of Aer Lingus; Dave Keenan of EBS; Jennifer Kiernan of O2; Lee Thompson of Metro; Aoife Murphy in Rabobank; Marc Sheridan of Gyro; and Simon O'Rourke of Vodafone.
The law fights on
The Personal Injuries Assessment Board (Piab) derailed the personal injuries gravy train for solicitors and barristers but the legal fraternity hasn't given up the fight.
If you have an accident, there's nothing to stop you making a claim through a solicitor.
Unlike the pre-Piab days, you'll have to pay your own costs. Still, solicitors would argue that that such an investment is well worth it, given the hassle involved in personally processing a claim through Piab.
Now the Law Society is trying to get this message across through subtle newspaper advertisements devised by McConnells.
Ken Murphy, director general of the Law Society, said the rationale for the six-figure spend is to remind consumers of the wide range of services on offer from solicitors.
The executions depict a woman sending a solicitor's letter to a golf club whose members hit golf balls into her garden; a man who has had an accident at work gaining compensation; and a family's relief when they find out that a family member killed in an accident had made a will.
siobhan@businessplus.ie
