Only Virgin Media goes this far to make sure your experience lives up to your expectations – so your home gets the very most from all of our services. Fastest speeds. Greatest range. Connectivity you can count on everywhere in your home and on every device.
Red House Ninjas
Only Virgin Media customers get access to the Red House Ninjas, a team of tech experts who can visit your home and make sure that you’re getting every last drop of awesome from your Virgin Media services. This is unique and personalised – the Red House Ninjas take a close look at your house, your devices and your usage, and fine-tune your set-up to make your experience as super as it can possibly be.
This was one of those briefs that was fun to work on from start to finish. Ninjas, Superheros, lightning… what’s not to like?
Shot by Donal Moloney, retouching and effects by Michael Medvedi, Design and art direction by myself.
There’s a unique atmosphere about the city at night – a heightened, more focused and intimate experience.
For their second year of sponsoring the Virgin Media Night Run, we wanted to evoke this feeling, coupled with the adrenaline rush of participating and competing in one of the most exciting sporting events of the year.
The cornerstone of the campaign was a 40 second video that ran on Youtube, RTE Player, Virgin Media’s website and social channels. This was supported by outdoor, radio, print and digital ads.
As well as Art Directing the campaign (with the exception of the outdoor, art directed by Niamh Fahey) I also took 360 and still photos for social and digital use.
Instructional video for Virgin Mobile (Ireland). We created a new character – Julie – who will explain why Virgin is different from other mobile networks and how to get the best from the service.
Superfast. Ultrafast. Uberfast. Lightning fast. What does it all actually mean? It means that when the going gets tough and there’s “pressure on the pipes”, Virgin Media broadband powers on when the competitor’s broadband crumbles. As this campaign playfully demonstrates…
As part of this campaign, we extended the story of Frank’s weekend and created an online conversation between himself and his girlfriend that ran as VOD and pre-roll support for the TV ad.
Virgin Media is officially Ireland’s fastest broadband network – according to Ookla. To celebrate that, and just to have fun, we dreamed up and made this: a superslick game that shows off the power of 360Mb broadband and Virgin Media’s new mobile offering – by allowing users to control the drone from our latest TV spot with their mobile phone.
The game featured in rich media ads online, in social media channels, on Virgin Media Ireland’s website and on interactive screens in retail outlets.
Here’s a set of videos I shot recently at Irish International for the Road Safety Authority (RSA), to help raise awareness of cyclist’s safety on the road. They were published through the RSA’s social channels during National Bike Week (11th-19th June 2016).
The scenes look dangerous, from the cyclist’s perspective, intentionally. These videos were shot in 360 to give people a first-hand view of what it’s like, when motorists aren’t aware of cyclists or don’t consider their safety. Although there’s plenty of opportunity to observe this kind of behaviour during the course of an average cycle on Irish roads, I did bring along a driver to play the part of the inconsiderate motorist.
I don’t get a chance to cycle often, so it was an eye-opening experience for me. Some of the hazards weren’t actually that apparent while on the bike. When you’re cycling, you tend to focus on the road and the repetitive effort. Quite often you may be listening to music and you may place your trust in other road users to avoid you. Cycling along the country road, I was less aware of the traffic coming from behind, so the potential threat is more obvious in the video. But of course, it was there, even if it wasn’t on my mind at the time. What was also very interesting about this project, was to place the camera on the car, and see what it looked like from the driver’s perspective. The camera was mounted on the driver’s door (in the ‘door-opening’ video) and on the front wing of the car in the overtake video, giving a clearer view than you’d normally get from the driver’s seat.
I’m looking forward to making more of these kinds of videos in the future. 360 VR is a fantastic medium for providing not just an informational piece of film, but also an experience that is a lot closer to actually being involved in the action.
At this time, 360 video is not natively supported on Twitter or Instagram, so I also made non-360 versions for use on those platforms. Working with 360 footage gives you a range of views to select your shots from. From a single sequence, I was able to edit shots looking forwards and also looking backwards from the camera position. 360 video is supported on Facebook and YouTube, as well as many other networks. Some browsers or operating systems, such as Safari, may not allow you to view these videos.
These were shot with a Ricoh Theta S – a deservedly popular entry level 360 camera. It’s a small, light, pocketable camera that is extremely easy to use. It can take decent quality still images. The video output isn’t as good as you’d like it. It shoots HD, and the raw footage looks clean enough, if shot in decent lighting conditions. The 360 player engines in YouTube or Facebook produce a noticeable degradation in quality. This is a rapidly developing area, with many 360 cameras already on the market and some that capture video in 4k. Over the coming months, many more are due to be released and I’m looking forward to getting one of those as soon as possible. However, with the majority of social content being viewed on smartphones, the quality of the Theta video is good enough for now. I would expect support for 360 (with VR options) to be widely, or even universally supported over the next year or so and also for the quality of the picture to improve substantially through the main platforms.
For Virgin Media Ireland’s second campaign, their new 360Mb Broadband service was the big news. Sky-ripping, Eir-shredding speed, available in almost three quarters of a million homes across Ireland. Taking off where we left it with the launch campaign, we created a squadron of superfast jets, zipping through a glorious sunset for the TV ad. Just a few weeks before the campaign aired, Facebook had rolled out it’s support for interactive 360 video and it seemed rude not to avail of that to create the world’s first 360 ad as the cornerstone of the digital campaign. The ad aired globally on the LittlStar platform, making it the world’s first bespoke 360 ad and we popped the 360 (baby) into Google Cardboard VR headsets for in-store entertainment.
To extend the campaign, we enlisted the help of Team CUBE Action rider, Greg Callaghan and his buddies, Killian Callaghan and Ian Coates, to film an action packed MTB descent in 360, creating the highest engagement ever enjoyed by Virgin Media Ireland for a piece of social content.
For the launch of Virgin Media Ireland, our objective was to land the message that UPC is now Virgin Media. The home of Ireland’s fastest broadband just got a new lease of life and sense of humour and we wanted to set the scene for all the good stuff to follow. The TV and outdoor creative featured a huge red truck, driven by Richard Branson and a voiceover by Patrick Stewart. The digital part of the campaign extended the truck’s repertoire and brought in more of the Virgin Media brand and personality, with simple, strong display ads, interactive games and bespoke VOD videos.
Here’s the TV ad:
The second phase of the campaign announced Virgin Media Ireland’s new ‘Infinite mobile’ offer, with a new edit of the TV and a new homepage takeover that included a video billboard, originally planned to run infinitely, but more modestly executed in 30seconds in the end.
At this year’s Expo world fair in Milan the theme was “feeding the planet, energy for life”. Ireland’s Pavilion celebrated Origin Green, Ireland’s world-leading sustainable food movement. We helped create all kinds of interesting material, including this simple, cost-effective and unputdownable Google Cardboard piece, which transported thousands of users from the parched earth of Milan to the lush idyll of the Irish countryside. The Irish Pavilion was a huge success with visitors and critics alike, and won bronze for Ireland out of 145 countries.
We developed an ad campaign to promote UPC Ireland’s 240mb broadband. Life flows better with Ireland’s fastest broadband. The TV ad tells the story of a dog called Pixie who wanders out while his owner isn’t paying attention, steps on a bus and disappears. A frantic search ensues and through the magic of superfast broadband, and all the lightning fast social media power it gives, Pixie is found, recognised and returned.
For the digital part of the campaign, we thought it’d be nice to extend the story, filling in the gap to show you what Pixie got up to when he stepped off that bus. We hooked Pixie up with a GoPro and brought him out on an adventure of a lifetime.
The 50″ video featured in homepage takeovers. We did a 30″ cut which ran on pre-rolls as well as four different 15″ pre-roll videos.
Here’s a couple of the 15s.
Here’s the TV ad:
We also spent a day in a green screen studio with Pixie, creating content for standard and rich-media digital display as well as for outdoor and instore digital screens. Here’s a pre-roll video of Pixie’s road trip, which was also featured in the outdoor and on a Yahoo login page takeover.
We also produced an interactive video that ran as a masthead on YouTube
By out smarting our rivals, we get ahead. By out thinking our competition, we make gains. By using clever tactics, we bring great business rewards. Because, smart wins.
In the age of smart devices, smart cars, smart cities and smart economies, smart marketing’s time has come. The An Post Smart Marketing Awards 2014 expand and deepen smart marketing moves across businesses, brands and sectors with recognition of ideas that actively celebrate intelligence, insight and innovation.
In 2014, we re-branded and re-launched the An Post Integrated Direct Marketing Awards. The name we chose, reflects the new focus of these prestigious awards and everything, from the ‘Fox’ icon, to the sophisticated photography and responsive, mobile optimised website support the profile of one of Ireland’s most coveted awards for the advertising and marketing industry.
The GAA is at the heart of Irish culture. No matter who eventually gets to run out onto the green pitch of Croke Park in late September, fans across the whole country take vivid memories from our games.
The association is constantly aware that it’s our people who make the games as colourful, exciting and attractive as they are – the players, fans, mentors and volunteers. So, coming to the end of another vintage year, the GAA tasked us with putting together a video giving thanks to all of these people.
Using some of the more vivid memories from the 2014 season, we sought to showcase exactly what the games mean to us all, and gave thanks to everyone that made it a season never to forget. Because as we all know, nothing beats being there.
As part of this year’s sponsorship of the Vodafone Comedy Festival, we created Ireland’s first live streamed, in-banner comedy gig. Through a media partnership with Independent.ie, we gathered some of the best comedians in the land, including PJ Gallagher, Karl Spain and Barry Murphy. Across three separate lunchtime slots, we live streamed jokes and joviality directly to the homepage of Independent.ie through a leaderboard banner and promoted the event through our various social channels and the CentreStage website.
September’s Electric Picnic symbolises the crescendo of another epic Summer of Irish festivals and the event that many Irish music and comedy fans are looking forward to for months.
Vodafone’s unique sponsorship platform Centre Stage also reaches a culmination around this time of the year, and having facilitated festival fun all Summer, we were tasked with bringing people closer to the festival through great content, ticket giveaways and of course event activations.
This year, we created a nutty professor/music doctor and cast the very funny and talented Bryan Quinn as ‘Dr. Beat’ – a wacky character who recommended ‘patients’ with different acts to go see at EP, was involved in the social competitions, retail activation and had his own surgery section in the recharge tent.
For Virgin Media Ireland’s second campaign, their new 360Mb Broadband service was the big news. Sky-ripping, Eir-shredding speed, available in almost three quarters of a million homes across Ireland. Taking off where we left it with the launch campaign, we created a squadron of superfast jets, zipping through a glorious sunset for the TV ad. Just a few weeks before the campaign aired, Facebook had rolled out it’s support for interactive 360 video and it seemed rude not to avail of that to create the world’s first 360 ad as the cornerstone of the digital campaign. The ad aired globally on the LittlStar platform, making it the world’s first bespoke 360 ad and we popped the 360 (baby) into Google Cardboard VR headsets for in-store entertainment.
