Here’s the TV commercial and two sweet little radio ads I wrote for the home of the Happy Meal. Family time being a special place is a nice little idea we struck upon, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t steal more than a little bit from my own experiences of downing McNuggets with my own kids to come up the bones of the idea.

“When I Grow Up”

“Happy”

“Rocket”

‘Excuses’ was great while it lasted. But all good things, as they say, must come to an end as a result of research finding out that although well liked by all, the campaign wasn’t actually making people get a TV licence.

This time around so, the brief was all about alerting people to the perils of forgetting those little things that seem insignificant at the time. Like, for example, where you parked the jaysus car.

“Car Park”

Well it’s well and truly on air by now, but sure here it is; the new spot showing off the new (and some of the old reliable) line-up of presenters for 2fm. When we were coming up with concepts, we had this notion of a Wacky Races type of affair, all of the guys making their way to the studio in the spirit of the linen ‘Come together’. But when all was said and done the script weighed about a half a million quid.

We did float the idea of going greenscreen, but dismissed it initially as it might look, well, shite. And then after a couple of moments of silence there it was: the “You know what?” moment. What if we made a virtue out of the greenscreen, and harked back to the days of rear projection? That could be fun.

And you know what? It was.

“Journey”

of reaching a level of creativity such as this. Or maybe dream is the wrong word.

Or so I like to think anyways. This may well be the last of the Excuses campaign for RTÉ and TV Licence. We’re in pre-production on something completely new and improved. Which is nice.

“Papyrophobia”

Let’s face it, for members of the creative department, sitting through a media presentation is pretty much the definition of death by a thousand cuts (or a thousand spreadsheets anyway). But in an era when even the cleaners are being told to think creatively, media presentations are starting to become entertaining. I of course refer to the spicing up of practically every slide with a stock image, that more often than not bears no relation to the words (which the media ninja will have squeezed 500 or so of onto the slide) around it. Nothing is too cliché for our media friends when it comes to stock image selection. NOTHING. Even our friend below gets a look-in in our “cash-rich, time-poor” society, complete with the watermark of the stock library the image belongs to.

Who would have thought? There is such a thing as a bad idea after all.

Sorry, I meant ‘The Leopardstown Inn’. Now this isn’t shameless promotion (shameless self-promotion, yes) at all here, if you have never been to this pub, do it now. There’s no other pub in the country like it. We were speechless on the tour. And believe me, it is a tour. Anyhoo, here are two new radio commercials I’ve written and produced for The Leopardstown Inn that centre on this very idea. Have an aul listen.

As an aside, the name Leopardstown has always intrigued me. When I was a kid I had the romantic notion of big cats roaming the savannahs of South County Dublin. Working on this gig I learned that the name has evolved. In Irish its name is Baile na Lobhar, meaning ‘Town of the Lepers’, which refers to the leper colony that was once ensconced there. Nice. I suppose lepers need a pint every now and then too.

“Big Questions”


“Unique”

I need to go find me a lift and try this out. Pity buildings with lifts in Dublin have an average of about four floors. Did you know that our two tallest buildings have 16? Skyscrapers me hole.

The Samsung Wave HD is a pretty smart phone, as smart phones go. When it came to developing an idea for it, I asked the question, “Why do people (like me) who do not have iPhones, not have one?” When I thought about it, as cool and as tempting as they are, I found they had no real relevance for me.

So there, the idea needed to give a relevance to all those people who haven’t stepped into the era of the Smart phone and the world of Apps yet. It must then follow that, relatively speaking, when it comes to phones these guys are living in the dark ages slogging it out.

An idea was born. That idea being that after all the phones they’ve had to put up with over the years, and the way in which their lives have suffered due to the lack of Apps in their life, the Samsung Wave HD is something they owe themselves.

The Samsung Wave HD is the phone they deserve.

When we were briefed on this initially the client was looking at two, maybe three, radio scripts to be recorded.
They liked it so much that we ended up making six.

They’ll be airing at various stages from the start of July and on throughout the year. Have a listen.

“You deserve it”



“Irish Rugby App”



“TV Remote App”



“Entertainment.ie App”



“Georgina Campbell App”



“Gaelfón App”

The Excuses campaign for TV licence has gone into extra time with these two new spots I wrote and produced last week. Only when I recorded them did I and everyone else in the room realise what a dark and yet light-filled corner I must have been kneeling in when I wrote them.

“Terrible Gift”


“The Thing”