the irish digital outlook 2015 from shane o leary

8/9/2019 The Irish Digital Outlook 2015 From Shane O Leary

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The Irish Digital Outlook 2014


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The Irish Digital Outlook 2014 is supported by

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‘Ha’penny eve’


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‘Lines on the horizon’ by

@coconut2674

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Fi i M h

http://instagram.com/p/txPUp2hJKb


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ON TRENDS FOR 2015

Truly integrated campaigns, because the work has to get better. Converting 6 sheets or 25x4 press

ads into internet banners is no longer acceptable and the opportunity for truly great use of digital willbe grabbed. I look forward to seeing smart use of video, personalised content, and mashing up of

APIs.

CHANGES IN AGENCY LAND

Ad land is in a real transition as experienced digital thinkers are now at the point where they havemore sway in the boardroom, but agencies and clients might need to be more willing to experimentwith ideas. More importantly, we will continue to see the rise of collaborative work where agencies,clients and consumers must work together to get the best results.

MEDIA INDUSTRY IN FLUX

We are seeing some developments of legacy media brands - but these changes are too slow. I admire those organisations who prototype products and develop them if they are successful or killthem o" if not. Media organisations have such potential, but they remain to be quite conservative.

PERSONAL HOPES FOR 2015

2014 has been a big year for me - with lots of changes - so hopefully build on these. Agility hasworked with the Web Summit and Other Voices this year, so we look forward to speaking to moreorganisations and brands who wish to collaborative on interesting ideas, campaigns and products.say [email protected]

Ki Fl

http://www.twitter.com/finianmurphy


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Kieran Flanagan:$,;+


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ON TRENDS FOR 2015

I think in a lot of respects it's year zero again for the Irish digital scene (but not in a Pol Pot way).There has been caution and looking over shoulders to see what other businesses have been doingand a lot of 'next big thing' gu" being sprouted in others. Essentially though, various ideas and

models have been tried and tested now. Those test results are in and I think that next year we'll seesome bold movement from the bigger players with some serious punts being made. Digital is still a fairly nascent scene here but I'm hoping that the sustainable businesses who havesurvived the last five years will now start to flourish. They deserve to.

As regards social, every so often Facebook's death knell has been rung, but once again recently theyshowed how they could gazump youtube with Facebook video. It's hard to know what, if anything, will

raise to the heights of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but I've enjoyed using Vine, (Yik) Yak, andDubsmash. When you consider the possibilities of something like Yo also, with it's most basicfunction, anything is possible in social.

THE MEDIA INDUSTRY

The paywall (or meter) is coming. That's going to have huge implications. I spoke at an event in theUCD Innovation centre in October where the head of Irish Times said that for the first time in thepaper's history, digital took the first spot in the agenda for the editorial meeting that morning. Thelegacy media outlets look like they are going to go in slightly di"erent directions, which is excitingfrom the outside but must be incredibly anxious from within. I think a publication like the IrishFarmers Journal should not be overlooked either. Of all the Irish publications they have grown their

print sales this year while also keenly developing their digital o"

ering.

Ultimately, loyalty to brands likethe Indo and the Irish Times will be really tested in 2015.


I'm almost back in start-up mode having side-stepped Le Cool in 2014 to concentrate on developing

Sweatshop.ie as a digital and creative company. I've had a running start and really just looking tobuild on that, to use what I learned since 2001, when I first started working in digital content, to builda sustainable, long lasting business. I'm looking forward to continuing to work with sites likeBroadsheet.ie and to developing prowlster.com. We’ve developed a great network of creatives andpublishers and now I'm looking to create a network of coders and tech people. I'm looking not to 2015 but to the next five years (but not in a Stalin way).

Lorraine Gri!n

http://prowlster.com/http://twitter.com/kowalshki


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ON TRENDS FOR 2015

Anonymity on social. It's what the kidz want, and Facebook is your auntie's kitchen at this stage.Comfortable, warm and great for catching up with the fam, but you won't want to bring your friendsaround. Although you still might if it's 3.30 am, your judgement is three parts Bacardi and your

iPhone still has enough juice left for the really-shouldn't-have selfies. Otherwise it's onwards andupwards for Snapchat, or the likes of Yik Yak, the anonymous Twitter clone. It's just been given a$62m cash injection by some investors and is valued at $300. Will it take o"? Doesn't matter. If itdoesn't, the next one will. Then Facebook will buy it for 20 times more.

BEST CAMPAIGN OF 2014

Kim's photoshopped arse failing to crack the internet. Not because it was classy, clearly, butbecause Paper Magazine was clearly gaming people and demanding that they click. They dideverything right: Jean-Paul Goude as the snapper, this decade's Paris Hilton as clickbait and aneditorial decision to drive right into the gutter. The Mail Online must've been raging.

THE FUTURE FOR IRISH AGENCY LAND?

Increasing dichotomy between those who understand that first-point advertising contact can meanan immediate sale (especially online, and increasingly on mobile), and those who push brandadvertising in vague terms and on the wrong channels at inappropriate times. I don't know how deeply Irish media agencies are looking into programmatic marketing, but if they'renot they really, really should. Google's Global Head of Marketing, Lorraine Twohill, has said that itwants to put 60% of its marketing spend there in the immediate future, and Amazon and eBay seemto have woken up big time to the storehouse of data they're sitting on, all of which points to theincreased shrinking of ATL brand advertising, I feel. Programmatic marketing is a soulless term, Igrant you, but it's where the money's going.


I'm working on a drone app concept with a friend of mine and fellow Cavan man, Mick Brady, and webelieve it'll really take o" in 2015. It centres around corporate business speak buzzwords, and aims

to de-jargonise communications.

A complex algorithmic program within the app can 'hear' jargon-infested conversation from akeyword list of 3,000 terms. The drone does the rest, hovering over the speaker and releasing a kiloof liquefied Cavan porcine faecal matter. It's called Shitehawk. Beta testing is going well.

https://twitter.com/nmcgivneyhttps://www.dropbox.com/s/o3r1iatrdwjyc9a/The%20Irish%20Digital%20Consumer%20Report%202014%20from%20Shane%20O%27Leary.pdf?dl=0


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Keith Bohanna

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o3r1iatrdwjyc9a/The%20Irish%20Digital%20Consumer%20Report%202014%20from%20Shane%20O%27Leary.pdf?dl=0


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Keith Bohanna

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USER EXPERIENCE & IRISH E-COMMERCE

User experience is an ever evolving piece, with new requirements constantly bubbling to the surface.I do think it is fair to say that as businesses mature, and build/deliver all the services they needaround their product ( eg click and collect, free shipping, next day delivery etc ), then user experiencetends to get more attention. The best way to improve user experience is to constantly test, this iscostly but important. Many businesses do not have the budgets to do this on an on-going basis, butthose that do tend to end up with sites built around consumer behaviour, observed in a multi varianttesting environment and delivering the best results, but all of this can take time.As the ecommerceindustry matures, the bigger players will consistently move the bar, with personalisation leading theway, many brands will indeed have to pay more attention to user experience.

TOO MUCH MONEY FLOATING AROUND FOR STARTUPS?

This is a fair observation, but it just seems to be the way it works. If you look at the USA it is nodi"erent, VC's will throw money at start ups, many of whom have no customers, or in some cases noproduct. The " build the plane as you fly it" culture is well and truly alive. From a VC's perspective,you would imagine that the financial returns seem to exist, the minute they don't exist, the money will

dry up. From a startup point of view, the individuals involved are getting invaluable experience in howto build and scale businesses. Enterprise Ireland and similar entities o"er great support to startups and there does seem to be a lotof cash available, my one concern would be that many startups can over rely on instinct andsometimes lack the structure and strategic experience required to scale and can often fall at thishurdle. I would love to see more programmes developed to help startups navigate this stage of theirdevelopment.

PERSONAL HOPES & DREAMS FOR 2015

I hope Man Utd can get back to the top where they belong! I also hope to see many more Irish retailers adopt true multi channel strategies. The days of talkingabout the threat of ecommerce are long gone, the future is about serving up relevant experiences tocustomers through whichever channels they choose to engage. The future of retail is quite exciting if

you consider the opportunities a truly connected business can create, both online and o%ine,through data capture, personalisation and dialled up convenience. Done right, retailers can build theirbrands better than ever before and drive loyalty and, most importantly, conversions through relevantexperiences.

Connor Keppel

https://twitter.com/geoff161


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Connor Keppel

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Connor Keppel

BEST DIGITAL/SOCIAL CAMPAIGN OF 2014

Based on my answer above, it would be the Honda Civic Type R Youtube campaign. A very cleverinteractive use of storytelling, the duality of a brand and totally engages two di"erent sides of aperson, and even perhaps two totally di"erent markets. With the touch of a keyboard you are turningthe main character from a caring father in a safe car to a stunt driver turned bad boy in a hot hatch.Smart and unprecedented in its delivery. The product is at the centre of a story, not a sales pitch andit’s all beautifully shot. Really great stu".

PERSONAL HOPES/DREAMS FOR 2015

I have carefully hired an amazing team over the last few months that work well under autonomy and

have great can-do attitudes. While we are doing great in UK and Ireland, we are nobodies in the UShair and beauty space. My personal goal is to craft a content strategy that gets noticed in the US andreally establishes us as thought leaders even among the bigger US players. Some of the competitionhave raised $25m+ in funding recently - we are bootstrappers and take immense pride in that. Ourmantra as a marketing team here in Phorest is simply: If it takes time, lots of e"ort and lots ofcreativity, then the competition won’t do it. But we will… well, and we’ll make sure it adds tons ofvalue for our clients.

My hope and dream is simply that we can take what we have done here in UK/Ireland on a smallbudget, localise it for the US, and make the impact we need to grow over there at the rate the CEOand investors want. However, hoping and dreaming is probably not the way to achieve it!

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‘summer in Dublin’

by @shaneoleary1


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Graham Nolan

http://instagram.com/p/tP5EHLzYt8/


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ON TRENDS FOR 2015

There’s been so much talk of mobile and yet Irish agencies are still yet to turn that talk into action.Designing for mobile and all the possibilities it o"ers is still in the minority in Ireland. Looking aroundthe are plenty of examples of agencies doing mobile but not sweating it for all it o"ers. I see lots ofexamples of ad and digital agencies lumping the above the line strategy into what appears to be adigital one. But its not mobile to the core and so underwhelming.

In 2015 I think we’ll see that changing and the recent IAB mobile conference outlined much of what

we can expect to see. Geolocation possibilities, contextual possibilities and wonderfulpersonalisation powered by mobile capabilities and insights. At CKSK we are in year 3 of our multiaward winning Coors Light mobile platform now and are still seeing continued positive shifts in KPI’s.We’ve been able to achieve this by using mobile capabilities to full potential which we’ve been ableto do after 2 years of activity and by looking at year on year data back to back. Its a learning processbut when I look to our CKSK Sol Search campaign (which imagines how a beer brand can create asearch engine underpinned by the idea of “Independence”) then we can see beyond just running the

press ad as a mobile expandable. With Sol Search in London and Sao Paulo this year we are o"eringan alternative to Google on mobile, enabling admirers of more independent destinations andexperiences to find them via a multi platform search engine that’s very “UnGoogle” in terms of theusual mainstream results.

Mobile is unique and I think we’ll see more and more brands appreciating that.

FACEBOOK PRIVACY BACKLASH

Yes. All of our user experience (UX) learnings point to users wanting the brands and the socialchannels they interact with to be up front about what they will, and critically, will not do with yourdata. Fail to inform, be ambiguous up front and you’ll under perform no matter if you are a big socialnetwork or a local brand.

Graham Nolan

http://twitter.com/grahamdotnolan


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IRISH AGENCY LAND

We published a post on our http://ckskblog.tumblr.com/ lamenting the lack of truly interactive digitalin the landscape. Everywhere we look today, from Cannes to Irish awards, digital is getting confused

with 21st century advertising. Look at whats winning in so called “Cyber” categories and you’ll seeits just a longer video distributed via promoted posts on social media. Brilliant to watch in manycases but is it digital, is it interactive? No, its just longer video thats shareable.

Cecilia Wogan Silvia, Director of Creative Agency Development at Google rightly points out "Thetrend toward the mean-spirited shock video filled with actors faking real-time reactions to disgustingpranks is the result of the mistaken belief that eyeballs equal success. This mentality is largely a relic

of the measurement of success in television advertising, which isn’t surprising”.

I agree with that POV and the projects we’re proudest of in CKSK are the ones where we designsomething useful and inspiring that solves problems for people and creates interesting possibilities.


Within the last 2 years I have a big soft spot for the Droga5 “Recalling 1993” campaign where theyturned old pay phones in New York into geo-located oral history capsules. By dialling a number into apayphone, users could hear a real story from that specific area and get a glimpse into New York in1993. Designed to amplify an exhibit at New York’s New Museum, its a brilliant reimagining of ananalog medium for the digital age and exploit the trend for oral rather than written history.


Well Liverpool FC will win the Premiership of course so lets put that hope to the side. I’ve been luckyenough to work on some projects in CKSK where we now have so many proof points of success inthe form of hard and fast KPI indicators that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt our thinking and, insome cases, the risks we took were well and truly justified.

One thing I’ve learned is that you have to package and communicate your successes and we’vegotten good at doing this down on South William Street. CMO and CTOs are under such pressure to justify investment that when you have the proof, get on the road and let every stakeholder know.More of the same in 2015 please!

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Rachel Ray

http://twitter.com/grahamdotnolan


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A BACKLASH AGAINST FACEBOOK PRIVACY ISSUES?

I wish people were as concerned as all that but unfortunately they just aren’t. I believe this is much more to do with ignorance than complacency. People don’t seem tounderstand the level of personal information that’s available on them. They also don’t seem tounderstand that this isn’t just about who has that data now, but who has it later when it is sold orwhen someone else is stirring the ship in the years to come. To be honest, I would be moreconcerned with what deviant individuals or other governments are doing with my data than Snapchat

or a bunch of madmen. After all, they are the ones that are forcing the likes of Snapchat to hold ontoall that info in the first place…

IRISH AGENCY LAND

Twitter is awesome, but it’s not going to be the next Facebook and the laughable ‘Facebook forWork’ (in a post-Snowden world) is certainly not going to be the next Facebook. The good news forgood agencies is that because using niche platforms in unique engaging ways requiresactually understanding those platforms and having real consumer insight, the snake oil salesmen(read: ‘gurus’) should be easier to weed out than before. I also think it means there will be greaterpressure on brands to share data insights with agencies so that we can all do greater things.


I don’t agree that the solution is as simple as the campaign makes out but as a mechanic, it has tobe Leo Burnett’s ‘Second Chance’.

PERSONAL HOPES/DREAMS FOR 2015

That the referendum on gay marriage will have a record turn out and that the outcome will be a first

step in igniting real and progressive change through all aspects of Irish life. Oh, and more pitch winsplease.

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Rachel Ray

https://twitter.com/Rachel__Ray


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FACEBOOK FACES EXODUS

My prediction for 2015 is perhaps a rather dull and obvious one (always, good to start with anengaging opening line) but it is rooted in a pivotal change in how we do social - the exodus of

businesses and brands from Facebook.

For the last few years, we have witnessed the splintering of consumers (otherwise known as ‘people’)across di"erent social platforms that tailor for di"erent needs and situations. When you think about it,it’s totally natural if we consider the history of other mediums that have gone before. Like TV forexample - where we started o" with as little as one supplier and wind up today with an audience thatis dispersed across hundreds of niche providers, channels and multiple platforms…all consumingdi"erent content in di"erent ways. Digital is no di"erent - whether you’re talking social media,services, news or retail. It is even more natural when you consider the human condition, specifically,our need to create and separately maintain multiple identities in di"erent aspects of our lives.

We like to, we have to, draw lines of separation around things - the personal and professional, theparent and the party animal. But Facebook forces all of these aspects of our personality, our pastand our present into one big messy algorithm. It tries to be all things to all men - the home of LOL catvideos and harrowing ebola updates. It just doesn’t work anymore. And despite the mass adoption ofsmart mobile devices in this country, numbers are reflecting a fall in popularity for the social giant. This has encouraged some brands to test out other platforms but unfortunately (due to classic lossaversion) they haven’t migrated enough time or marketing budget to them yet. It’s like we’ve all beenwaiting around for the next ‘sure thing’ - the next Facebook - before making the move. A sort ofdigital shiny new bus to replace our lovely old one, with the familiar route. I believe (and hope) 2015 is

the year people finally realise that just isn’t happening.

And, as I’m sure you know, from January 2015 - thanks to Facebook’s continued endeavour to sitaround fiddling with itself - our consumer reach will dwindle to near zero and all that money we’vecarefully invested growing engaged communities over the last decade is essentially a now valuelesssunk investment. It’s rather bemusing that people aren’t angrier… perhaps they are hoping it will allchange again last minute. It just seems a bit ironic that while so many brands worried about handing

control over to the agency or worse, ‘the consumer’, it was actually the ignorance of the platformthey really had to worry about. Long term a supplier monopoly is never good for your businessthough right?

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Sean Earley

http://twitter.com/@rachel_ray


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TRENDS FOR 2015

There will be many, but one of the biggest movements by brands will be mobile first thinking.Consumers are mobile and are constantly connected, so companies need to prioritise that behaviourand consumer preference. Companies will move beyond having a responsive site or mobile app, and

focus on mobile first content and social media marketing that scales up to fit desktop, rather thanscaling down to serve mobile. Mobile first will also allow for more personalised experiences for users,and will prioritise technologies like location based marketing. Video, content marketing, native and paid for social amplification will all grow significantly too.


The Sweetie campaign blew my mind and achieved amazing results for an important cause. To raiseawareness of the problem of webcam child sex tourism, D&AD in the Netherlands created a virtualchild called ‘Sweetie’ in order to identify perpetrators online. Horrifyingly, they caught 1,000predators from 71 countries in the act of using webcams for child sex tourism. Then they handedover the files to Interpol, leading to arrests. 1 billion people have seen that campaign and it won

12 Golden Lions and Grand Prix for Good at Cannes Lions.

Most importantly though, webcam childsex tourism is now a globally recognised problem, governments are changing policies and around 15

children have been rescued. I will never forget the chill I got when I watched the Sweetie case studyvideo.

TALENT WAR

I think there will be more digital talent hired, and agencies will work across the line in a more cohesiveway.

PERSONAL HOPES FOR THE NEW YEAR

I hope to travel further, maybe South America (Shane you can give me some tips when you’re back!).My absolute dream would be to adopt a dog.

Kathy Troy

http://twitter.com/liobrien


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TRENDS FOR 2015

Video and pictures are obviously going to continue in their importance. You Tube is the secondbiggest search platform in the world, Facebook have bolstered the importance of video again in 2014

by making videos in the platform autoplay and Instagram has just surpassed Twitter in user numbers.Consumers have a short attention span and Millennials particularly expect branded content to beentertaining. But there is one big trend underpinning all of that and it’s consumer creation. We now allhave at our finger tips the capacity to produce brand pictures, comments, vines, videos and brandswill need to leverage that in a way that works for them. Brands will need to embrace consumerparticipation in the creation of content for the brand. Whether it’s haul videos, consumer reviews,Instagrammed photos of meals consumers will be contributing to the creation of a brands identity

online. The most progressive and successful brands will make their brand ‘open source’. They willencourage consumers to co-create and provide them will all of the tools they need to do that.

A great example of a company trail blazing here is Unilever with their ‘All Things Hair’ You Tubechannel. They realised that the key influencers on their consumers were vloggers and when a typicalconsumer had a hair query they were looking up You Tube for inspiration or tips on how to achieve astyle. By allowing non-brand and non-agency people to create collateral for their suite of brands theybecame relevant to their audience when they actually needed them. It’s not an easy thing for a brand

owner to do and requires a very strong sense of who the brand is and what it stands for. Creativeagencies will also have to adapt the role they play, it’s no longer enough to be the content creators,agencies now have to create content that will inspire consumers to do something. The big move we’llsee in 2015 is the move on social from storytelling to story-doing. And that story-doing will comefrom greater consumer empowerment.

IRISH AGENCY LAND

Irish agencies have had a tough time for the past few years but there seems to be a bit of movementnow in terms of people, accounts and a return of some marketing spend. There’s amazing creativityin Ireland and very talented people working in agencies and in 2015 the imperative will be on them to

encourage and support clients to produce outstanding work.

I went to Eurobest in Finland this December and no Irish work was represented on the shortlist. TheNordic countries were by far the most prolific for engaging, creative and award winning campaigns.There’s no reason Irish agencies and clients can’t produce work that’s winning awards in Cannes andat Eurobest so for 2015 my hope is that Irish agencies push the creativity agenda.

Kathy Troy

http://twitter.com/kathyannetroy


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THE STATE OF PLANNING

Planning is crucial to the advertising process and to brand strategy because good planning placesthe consumer at the heart of the strategy. That’s going to be even more important in 2015 as thesocial and economic landscape undergo a lot of changes. Consumers were slow to fight back at the

beginning of the recession but the tide has turned and consumers are more demanding of brandsnow than ever before. Every planner needs to tap the consumer landscape and stay tuned in towhat’s going on. So planning needs to play a greater role to keep everything relevant and futureproofed.

I hear more convoluted job titles for planners all of the time and people specialising in very narrowareas and it’s losing sight of why we’re here and the value planners can add. I don’t think ‘Planning’

or ‘Research’ are things that agencies need to shy away from. If you’re doing these things really welland contributing value to your colleagues and clients then you don’t need to obfuscate the issue. Ultimately a planners job is to really know what motivates people and represent the voice of theconsumer to our colleagues and clients, to bring a brief to life and to produce work that is e"ectivefor our clients. There are talented people out there and as an industry we need to nurture and growthat both within our agencies and as a discipline.

In 2015 I’d love to see more emphasis on planning, more training at an industry level, morediscussion of ideas among those that work in planning and more recognition of the good planningthat’s happening. We’re quick to award creativity but planning is still silent and in the shadows. Greatplanning doesn’t happen by accident and great planners won’t just knock on agency doors. We needto encourage and grow planning talent and we’ll only do that through senior planners and planningdirectors making a concerted e"ort to do that. My experience is that clients really value planningbecause when it’s done well they see the di"erence it makes to their business. I think every planner

needs to reframe the question from ‘is planning valued?’ to ‘how am I adding value?’. And thendiscuss planning and ideas and celebrate where it happens well.


That’s a tough question! I’ve been very lucky in the past few years to work with talented clients onprojects that have yielded brilliant results for them. So more of that for 2015! And more good weatherthis summer!

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Hugh Curran

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ON TRENDS FOR 2015

For a long time I've watched these kinds of predictions with interest. The main reason is that I'vespent a couple of years working in mobile and it felt that every year was predicted to be the year ofmobile. So I'm a bit hesitant to stick me neck out...

But I will anyway. I think/hope we'll see mobile payment get traction here in 2015. I've oftenwondered why it's taken so long for retailers and banks to get on board with the contactless paymentoptions and I look at the ungainly way our public transport system utilises it for things like Leap card.Once the public really catches on to the fact that they don't need to use their debit card for smallpayments and their transport card to get on a LUAS they'll embrace NFC and using it for payments.

It's not cause the tech hasn't been there. Android handsets have had NFC for ages. But with Applypay coming online I can see appetites changing. Global brands like McDonalds etc will likely be atthe forefront but it would be great if we could get things like the Leap card into a mobile app meaningone less card to have to carry in my already bulging wallet.

I think the trifecta for uptake is there. 1. The technology is there and now the biggest mobile handsetmaker has gotten on board. 2. Big brands like McDonalds and Marks and Spencer are already onboard with contactless payments. 3. Consumers have the appetite for using it. Small value purchasesthat they don't even have to take their walled out for? Yes please.

IRISH AGENCY LAND’S FUTURE

It's funny, in 2014 I moved from a more digitally focused agency to a traditional agency so my

perspective on this may have changed over the year. Personally I think that all agencies in Dublin arebeginning to find balance in what they do.

Looking at the volume of agencies that have popped up in the digital/social space I think we'll see abit of convergence as larger agencies look to skill up and bring those skills into the fold meaning we'llsee agencies change their tune from wanting to be Creative Agencies to Integrated Agencies.

We certainly hear clients say they wanted integrated thinking on projects so collaboration betweentraditional agencies and digital/social agencies is definitely better than it was and I see thatcontinuing with the above scenario being the obvious next step. 2015 might be a bit soon, but it'scoming.

Hugh Curran

http://www.twitter.com/hughcurran


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THE PRIVACY CONUNDRUM

You have the likes of Facebook doing God only knows what with our data and selling it o" to

advertisers but look at the younger generations. They literally don't care what they put out there soI'm pretty sure that they don't even consider privacy factors when it comes to things like Facebook.

But they're not the only ones using the internet. I do see there being a backlash. I don't see how thatcan't happen. But is the backlash going to be big enough to cause issues? Personally I don't thinkpeople realise just how much of their lives are online and how much data is available.

Case in point being the number of big hacks this year. Even though a good few of them happened onnetworks I don't use, I still changed my passwords. I'd hazard a guess of at least 50% of those whowere a"ected not even doing that. Here is a question. When was the last time you changed yourFacebook password?

Or just look at Tindr or Grindr. I really don't think we've hit that point where people are afraid for theirdata.

Data is everywhere and it's collected at so many touchpoints that we've just lost track of it. Peopleare beginning to try and reign it back, but I think that ship has sailed. Backlash yes. Enough to makeFacebook change their policy? I don't think so.


That's a tough question. Bottom line I want to be successful and work on great campaigns. I likewhat I do. I'm lucky. Oh and winning a couple of awards would be nice.

What I'm really looking foward too is the new platforms that are going to come on stream. Bebo beta just launched. It's a mashup of Whatsapp and Snapchat and it looks like it could be fun.

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http://www.twitter.com/hughcurran


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TRENDS FOR 2015

I think 2015 will be the year when we see our mobile devices working much harder, in terms of howwe use them for day-to-day tasks. At a basic level, this will be things like Apple Pay and basic NFCuses along those lines. On a more marketing, or commercial end of the scale, things like iBeacons willbecome much more important, using customer data to create much more present engaging content

and relevant to the consumer. Wearables will also be make or break, I think that the smartwatch maybegin outpacing dedicated niche devices. In terms of social, we’ll continue to see the fragmentationof the market. Interestingly, while people talk about Facebook losing its youth audience, what we willprobably see is them migrating to other, Facebook owned platforms, such as messenger orInstagram, especially has not overtakes Twitter. Music will be very interesting in the first half of theyear, Spotify still leads in terms of social music, but YouTube music may seriously erode its youthaudience.


On a local level; Eighty Twenty did a great campaign around awareness of Sex tra$cking using Tinder.Coors Light Rocky Mountain game was also very clever in using iBeacons and engaging app content.More recently, Meteor’s Christmas campaign was very good, it ties in a lot of di"erent elements, butits well planned and very consistent! On a less local level, NASA would be a good example ofsomeone who has really embraced social in what is, e"ectively a rebranding and awareness drive toshake o" a very tired image and get the public engaged on a mass scale.

IRISH AGENCY LAND

I think that overall, things are getting a lot more exciting. Not only is there a better confidence in the

economy, but there’s a lot more confidence in terms of pushing the boundaries and looking to be a bitmore innovative as more and more interesting consumer tech comes out. In terms of evolution, itwould be great to see that growth of mobile based innovation expand. I think there's a lot of room forIrish agencies to really utilise the youth market here and mobile penetration to our advantage to dosomething very unique.

HOPES FOR 2015

Personally, I would love to see what we can get out of wearables. I'm an early adopter, so I've alreadygot a Pebble, Moto360 etc. and am fascinated by how they could be used to engage with me, not justfor marketing! I also love watching new KickStarters, its great to see small European companies likeJolla making headlines. I also hope that this year, Irish startups can start getting noticed moreglobally, to really cement Dublin and Ireland as a digital hub in Europe.

Ronan Costello

https://twitter.com/coconut2674


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TRENDS FOR 2015

For me 2015 has got to be all about mobile. What we’re seeing is a massive shift in how people areinteracting with businesses on their mobile devices - di"erent contexts and di"erent expectations.Users are more willing than ever to complete a sale on mobile devices. We only need to look as far asthe Twitter & Stripe integration to see how easy mobile commerce is destined/expected to be.

Furthermore, Google have announced plans to identify which of their search results provide a greatmobile user experience. So before a user even gets to your site, their impression of your business ispartially formed. Expect lots more focus on delivering responsive experiences as standard with amore ruthless content strategy, hopefully providing users with the right content at the right timeregardless of device.

ADVICE TO GRADUATES

Put yourself out there! There’s a really great network of helpful folks out there (Twitter, Linkedin etc)only too willing to discuss all things “digital”. The UX industry in particular has lots of great events,often free, organised by groups such as IXDA Dublin. Step outside your comfort zone, join theconversations and soak up that great bank of knowledge that is out there. Don’t wait for something tocome knocking on your door. Pick a project and make something, anything! Create some form ofportfolio to demonstrate your thinking and approach as well as showcasing the final deliverable.

THE GROWING ROLE OF UX

Technology gaps between competitors are narrowing in a lot of sectors and as product o"eringsbegin to look similar, businesses are looking to customer centricity and experience to di"erentiate. UXand UI designers have a crucial role to play in this scenario, helping organisations to understand their

users’ needs and how they can be met whilst satisfying business goals - creating simple yet engagingexperiences that acquire more customers and create sticky relationships ensuring increased customerretention.


2015 promises to be another crazy year for myself and the team in UPC. Early in the year I’m hoping

to have nailed our responsive website experience allowing us to meet and exceed user expectationsregardless of the device their using. Also, I’ll be spending a lot more time understanding how ourcustomers behave and interact with us online and on the back of that hopefully delivering a morerelevant, personalised experience. In the midst of that madness I’ll be dipping my toes into the worldof coding to satisfy my desire to “make more stu"”. If I could manage to write a little more along theway that would surely be an added bonus!

https://twitter.com/anonymousronan


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TRENDS FOR 2015

Bringing things back to basics. Every year brings new sites, apps and tech, which isn't going tochange any time soon, but I think it's relatively safe to assume that the big elements of digital/social(Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, push notifications, search etc.) are here to stay for the foreseeablefuture. Before now, it was a case of having a presence in every area to maximise your audience and

ensure you're reaching as many people as possible, but since not all companies have the resourcesto do this without spreading themselves too thin, it rarely works out. Combine that with vast amountsof info that's brought to us and there's a real need for quality over quantity. It won't happenimmediately, but by now, brands and companies should know what they're good at and stick to itinstead of going for a scattergun approach. Also, we'll likely see more physical events pop up overthe year, with digital/social tying them together. They make brands and businesses more memorablethan a Facebook post.


For myself, improving my abilities and quality of my pieces. I'm a broken record for saying this everyyear, but while there's been many positives from the last twelve months, there is always room forimprovement. To be honest, I'd be more worried if there wasn't scope for improvement on my end.

On a side note, I'm really happy to see podcasts receive a resurgence

in popularity after steadilygrowing in recent years. The popularity of Serial has been great for the industry, and hopefully it's

shown non-listeners that there's practically a podcast out there for all interests.

THE FUTURE OF IRISH MEDIA

It's honestly hard to say without speculating (stones, glasshouses, that whole connection), but from

the outside looking in, it does feel like most entities are still thinking publication first and digitalsecond. It's understandable why this approach has been taken, from both a legacy and financialperspective, but there's still a way to go before we can say digital has been properly embraced by all.ultimately, digital isn't a checkbox where you say you have a site or app or do a multimedia piece andshare it around, it has its own demands and expectations from those reading that isn't a straightswap from other mediums. The transition is still ongoing and there will be much change between nowand the next few years, but I think by the end of it, the industry will be stronger and better for it.

IRISH STARTUPS

Companies like Adama Innovations, which specialises in health nanotechnology, and Drop, whichhas a specialised scale and iPad app to help you with cooking, look like they could really go places.

Martin O’Leary

http://twitter.com/qoreilly


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ON TRENDS FOR 2015

Better use of customer data. 2015 could see brands & companies mining the information they get to

better understand customer behaviour. Social platforms are used by all generations, brands nowneed to segment and target their messaging to ensure relevancy and e"ective reach with the budgetthey have.

BEST CAMPAIGN OF 2014?

It's not a campaign but I love An Gardai Siochana on Twitter. They have the perfect blend of

information, humour & excuse the pun - cop on!

Also really think Electric Ireland do a great job. Powering Kindness was a fantastic campaignexecuted so well & 80's power ballads for Electric Picnic was genius! Using video content so well &tapping into the target audience perfectly.

BEST WEBSITES FOR TECH/DIGITAL NEWS

The usual suspects Mashable, Social Media News, Forbes, Social Media Today, Social MediaExaminer. Also can't beat Twitter for an endless source of info.

PERSONAL HOPES FOR THE NEW YEAR

I'm working with an amazing team the past year & as we continue to grow & evolve I hope to reallydevelop the online strategy further. It's such an exciting time professionally, understanding how youproperly mine & use the endless data you have to truly connect with your customer when, how &where they want. Not paying lip service to it but actually delivering it that's the plan!

I'm in Australia right now so the above depends on me coming back! On a serious note I do think thework life balance here is better. Switching o" when working online can be so hard but it's absolutely

necessary.

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PREDICTIONS FOR 2015

A more clued-in, innovative, di"erent approach to both digital and social by someone - anyone -would be nice, though I am not holding my breath. The great thing about the growth of digital andsocial is that we have instant oversight on what's going on everywhere - which leads to the sad fact

that most of the Irish digital and social work I see tends to be a photocopy of something whichsomeone else has done elsewhere (and done better too). I think there's definite scope for some folksto make a stand by standing out.

FUTURE OF MEDIA

I really want an end to all this "future of media" ri$ng and some action about the "present of media".No more executives windbagging with lines like "if you were starting a media business, you wouldn'tstart with a legacy printing press" please. The question, though, is defining that new digital reality. Onone hand, it's still constantly changing and hence all this kick-the-can-down-the-road futurescoping.But the reality can be seen in every set of figures about who's reading what where, when and for howlong and the questions this provokes. Can these readers produce more sustainable revenue now and

in the medium term? Will we see some innovative pricing schemes before the leaky paywalls go up? And just how long are readers going to put up with click bait, lists and the kind of polarising,deliberately skewered opinion columns which Kevin Myers or John Waters wouldn't have got awaywith in their pomp? I think we're in for more of the same in 2015: cutbacks in areas and sectors

judged to be on the wane, falling sales of hard copies, investment in areas seen as growing (though Iwonder just what sort of real traction legacy print orgs are getting with video content), increasingdigital revenue, scoops from hard-working reporters and the usual quota of outrage, disgust and

pitchfork wielding mob tweeting about the media from the usual suspects (who'd actually really liketo be on the other side).


Time for a new challenge. Our 100th Banter takes place on January 28 and it has been fascinating to

watch it grow and change and take flight. I've a few other things in the pipeline so my hope/dream isto get at least one of them out of damn pipeline in 2015. Oh and for Tipp to win some hurlingsilverware this year.

https://twitter.com/jimcarrollOTR


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the irish digital outlook 2015 from shane o leary

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