This year's judges were looking for advertisements with design creativity, innovation and simplicity. They also examined the tone of language used in the advertisements, writes Gabrielle Monaghan
The Garda Síochána and design agency DMA emerged as the biggest winners of this year's Cedar Awards, scooping two accolades for the force's recruitment campaign for the Garda Reserve.
The Irish Times-sponsored awards, now in their 19th year, recognise creativity and effective design in recruitment advertising. They were presented both to the recruiting firm and the advertising or design agencies behind the winning campaigns by Maeve Donovan, managing director of The Irish Times Ltd, in Dublin's Westin Hotel last Friday.
The Garda's €135,000 campaign was the most extensive recruitment drive ever undertaken by the police force.
The advertisements, which featured slogans such as "Get ahead in the gardaí" and "You could be the new face of the gardaí", were aimed at encouraging ethnic minorities to volunteer for the Garda Reserve and to demonstrate the breadth of work done by the Garda Síochána.
"The look and feel of the advertisements had to motivate people from all backgrounds and aged between 18 and 65, which was one of the main challenges," said Oonagh McPhillips, press officer for the Department of Justice.
"We were delighted with DMA as the response to the ads exceeded all our expectations."
As a result of DMA's campaign, almost 7,000 people applied to become reservists in the Garda Reserve even though there are just 900 initial vacancies, according to McPhillips.
"We were pleased to see such modern and forward-looking advertisements in the public sector and I hope it continues," said Lucy Fallon-Byrne, director of the National Centre for Partnership and Performance and chairwoman of the judging panel assessing the entries in this year's Cedar Awards.
The Garda Síochána and DMA won in both the "general management" and "series" categories for their series of advertisements in regional and national press.
The Cedar Awards are presented for winning advertisements printed in all newspapers, not just in The Irish Times, RTÉ star Mary Kennedy pointed out as she hosted the awards ceremony.
The recruitment and advertising industries have had "a good year", thanks to the "exceptional" performance of the economy, Liam Holland, the advertising sales manager for The Irish Times, told guests at the ceremony.
"Two million people are now in employment, the highest level ever, and Ireland now has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the EU.
"The forecasts are good for growth in the medium term, but it's important that Ireland continues to promote itself as a knowledge economy," Holland said.
However, the recruitment market has become increasingly competitive, prompting companies to seek new ways to brand themselves and to attract both active and inactive job candidates, the advertising executive said.
The Irish Times itself is boosting its presence in the recruitment advertising market and reaching a new audience through its stake in Metro, the free quality paper that hit Dublin's streets last year. At the end of this month, The Irish Times recruitment sales team will assume responsibility for recruitment sales in Metro, Holland said.
The Irish Times, along with the recruitment and advertising sectors, has an "important role" to play in ensuring workers can adapt to a changing economy, a belief shared by Fallon-Byrne, whose organisation has contributed to research on the future of the Irish workplace.
"Lifelong learning is going to be a big thing this decade and it's important for the knowledge economy," she said. "If you develop people and support them, they will be loyal and stay with you. The wellbeing and health of workers is very important. All the people you manage have signature strengths. If you tap into those strengths, you will go a long way in enabling them to achieve self-fulfilment."
Fallon-Byrne said that the judges were looking for advertisements with design creativity, innovation and simplicity.
They also examined the tone of language used in the advertisements and whether they gave potential job candidates an insight into what the role involved and made them enthusiastic about applying for the position.
"We found a wealth of ideas and a high level of creativity and originality," she said. "Some of the more powerful ads were done with clarity and provocation. Courage and confidence are important."
The winner of the first category of the afternoon, information technology, was Dell, which employs more than 5,000 in Ireland and is the country's largest exporter, and Ogilvy Recruitment Advertising.
Boston Scientific and Zest Design were named the winners of the pharmaceutical award. The advertising slogan used for their campaign was "If you have the power to improve lives, share it."
The category for finance was won by PricewaterhouseCoopers/ Michael McNamara & Company and agency TMP Worldwide.
The engineering and technical award was scooped by medical devices maker Guidant and Ogilvy for their campaign "Our opportunities get hearts pounding."
The Health Service Executive and TMP Worldwide won the medical award for a recruitment advertisement for the Ballydowd Special Care Unit. The slogan on the advertisement read "Nobody understands . . . do you?"
The sales and marketing category was won by Oxfam and TDP Advertising for an advertisement seeking volunteers for the charity, while consultants KPMG and agency Ogilvy were named winners of the education category for the Airfield Trust.
In addition, a special merit was awarded at the event to Betaset and McConnells Recruitment Advertising.
Along with Fallon-Byrne, the judging panel comprised: Joe Dobbin, managing director of Javelin Young & Rubicam; Ursula Murphy, head of human resources at Allianz; Niall Glynn, head of human resources at ABN Amro Bank; Mark Hogan, managing director of Owens DDB; and Dominic Coyle, deputy business editor of The Irish Times.
