The public exposure and access to power that St Patrick’s Day affords represents a unique opportunity that Irish businesses need to exploit to better effect
THE WORN cliché of “pulling on the green jersey” will be bandied about ad nauseam in the excited climax to St Patrick’s Day, amid an exodus to shore up support for Brand Ireland. But businesses are almost universally agreed that March 17th, a unique one-day gateway to the international arena, has benefits that can infiltrate the other 364 days of the year.
John Hartnett, founder and president of the Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG) based in Silicon Valley, has been working with US companies for 14 years and believes March 17th is a “phenomenal platform” that no other country can boast of. Ultimately, it lends itself to high-level access, once-off networking, invaluable press opportunities and, often, new contacts and contracts.
But while Hartnett is complimentary of the work undertaken by the Government to promote Irish businesses and investment opportunities abroad using St Patrick’s Day as the launch pad, he is critical of the “love affair” with Washington and New York, when places such as Silicon Valley and Hollywood are key areas of employment and opportunity.
“The Taoiseach might be better off coming here with a bowl of shamrocks to Mark Zuckerberg ,” says Hartnett. “We need to be very relevant . . . One week in a year doesn’t do business. You have to be relevant 52 weeks of the year. Showing up one week in a year is not going to do the business. It will open doors and give great access, but you have to be here and have to be relevant 52 weeks of the year.”
And that means building on what Hartnett calls the “four pillars” of the United States: Washington DC, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Hence, the ITLG runs events year-round, sometimes in March but also in April or September. Its immediate focus is the ITLG Innovation Summit on March 12th and March 13th, separate to the March 17th festivities but likely to tap into heightened awareness of all things Irish.
Often, business groups offering access to specialised suppliers in the US can charge membership fees of up to $5,000 in "hello money", according to Director of Eirtight Technology and Managing Director of BuyIreland.com, John Beckett. "That's not a joke when you're a small start-up – and why Enterprise Ireland is great, in that it's doing introductions to target businesses directly," says Beckett, who is hugely complimentary of the State agency's networking abilities.
And as someone with dealings in 30 different countries and who has previously targeted large businesses such as WalMart, around March 17th, he knows the restrictions and realities of the annual trade missions. Often the investors taking part abroad are those already in contact with an Irish company, and so the event itself becomes a “final tipping point”, according to Beckett.
“It’s very difficult to overstate the importance of it . It’s so valuable to us – 99 per cent of people dont realise how valuable,” he says. The marketing push and publicity around March 17th means the company is remembered again in September when people start thinking towards Christmas. “If you didn’t have that push in March, you would have never gotten the roll over in September,” says Beckett.
And it seems March 17th and the ministerial trips with companies on board can lead to long-term contacts and contracts. Brian McArdle of Hi-Spec engineering in Carlow was part of the Irish delegation to Germany last year with Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Richard Bruton. The company, a manufacturer of diet feeders for dairy and cattle farming, used the opportunity to announce a new joint venture with German company Europe Dairy Systems.
“We got names and numbers and advice from people who were in the market before us, who could talk to us about the pitfalls, the dos and don’ts . . . It gave a big boost. It was a big help,” McArdle says of the “shop-window” event, which introduced him to people who remain contacts today. “But you still have to go on and do the groundwork. With something like that, there is so much goodwill – and you have to remember that business is simple, but you can make it as difficult as you want. Agriculture is a personal thing, it’s about building relationships.”
Echoing that testimony is Andrew Kavanagh, chief executive of animation company Kavaleer, who brought a client to the St Patrick’s Day event hosted by Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton in London last year. A deal with the client followed, but Kavanagh says the event also helped promote Ireland’s business culture on the night and hammered home the “right message” about doing business in Ireland.
Kevin Sherry, head of international sales and partnering with Enterprise Ireland, says each of the ministerial trips abroad has a trade aspect attached, providing for access to “key influencers that is difficult to get at other times of the year”. Such contacts can influence where investments take place in the US and become long-term contact points. “For a small open trading economy, where exports are our lifeblood, it’s about those relationships,” says Sherry.
QVC is one such example. Every year on St Patrick’s Day, the shopping channel throws open 24-hour coverage to Irish products, with potential final sales of more than $10 million. It taps directly into the 11 per cent of the US population claiming Irish heritage and beyond.
After 12 years of appearing on QVC, managing director of Fragrances of Ireland, David Cox, can testify to its wide-ranging 24-hour impact. The publicity and exposure of being beamed into 120 million households helps boost recognition every year, on top of helping to sell upwards of 10,000 bottles of perfume (such as its most popular fragrance Inis) from a 20-minute TV slot. This year with St Patrick’s Day falling on a Saturday, the time slot for Irish companies and their products has been reduced from 24 hours to 11 hours. And with that, the companies formed an ad-hoc marketing group called Irish Truly on Facebook and created some YouTube videos in an effort to drum up attention ahead of March 17th outside of the US trade fairs they partake in year-round.
ISME , ICT Ireland, the Small Firms Association [SFA] and the Irish Exporters Association are all agreed with the likes of the IDA’s Barry O’Leary who describes it as a “very valuable opportunity” which Ireland’s competitors do not have. Others such as IBEC’s head of trade policy, Pat Ivory, says that because Ireland’s international reputation was seriously damaged by the economic crisis, rebuilding the country’s image abroad is crucial to future success.
For a country that exports more than 80 per cent of everything that it produces, trade missions are an important way to profile Irish companies. Frank Barry, professor of international business development in Trinity College Dublin, believes the March 17th publicity and ministerial missions represent an “unbelievably good opportunity”, giving access to the White House and increasing the country’s profile in the foreign press. “We are far better known among the foreign business community than almost any other country of equivalent size,” Barry says. He concedes observers will never be able to identify a particular project that is drawn to Ireland simply because of St Patrick’s Day. “This is all about the long game,” he adds.
