Edelman will take over Ryanair’s UK/Ireland communications from Murray Consultants from 1st August 2010 from which date all media queries should be addressed to Joe Carmody, Director Corporate, Edelman. Ryanair and Murrays part after 15 successful years.

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said:

“We are pleased to announce Edelman as our new media and communications agency for the UK and Ireland after a very competitive tender process involving many agencies in the UK and Ireland. Edelman will assume responsibility for all Ryanair media contacts from 1st August. We congratulate Mark Cahalane and Joe Carmody in winning this business for Edelman and we look forward to working with them.”

Mark Cahalane, Managing Director, Edelman Ireland said:

“We are looking forward to supporting Ryanair and know that the work will be both challenging and rewarding. Our team will focus on partnering in the development of Ryanair’s story, as it continues to deliver lower airfares, increased routes and a no nonsense approach to everything it does.”

For the past year, Edelman has been working on the TalktoEU campaign. The initiative was established to listen to the views of the general public and to hear their thoughts on the EU.

On Friday the 7th of May, TalktoEU will hold a wrap-event at the European Commission offices on Dawson Street. Martin Territt, Head of the European Commission Representation in Ireland, will give an overview of the TalktoEU campaign and the key lessons learned this year. This event will also give attendees the opportunity to give their feedback on the campaign and share any further viewpoints.

If you are interested in attending please RSVP to joanne.osullivan@edelman.com

Date: Friday, 7th May 2010
Venue: European Commission, Dawson Street, Dublin 2
Time: 9.45am

Refreshments provided

Martin and Colm leave Dublin on the 2nd of April on a trip that will take them from Helsinki to Brussels, through 16 countries in just 20 days. Along the way they will be required to complete a series of quirky tasks designed to put the EU to the test.

Colm said “TalktoEU has really created something amazing here. I’m so excited, I don’t know whether to laugh, pee or cry. What a spectacular opportunity we’ve been given and I’m looking forward to experiencing Europe and its hotch-potch of cultures with my best mate”. Martin added “This is epic; to be given the chance to travel around Europe for free and experience different cultures, is such an amazing opportunity. I just want to say thanks to TalktoEU and to my mother”.

Martin and Colm will be documenting their journey around Europe online by tweeting, facebooking, uploading images and blogging each day. To follow Colm and Martin around Europe, and keep up to date with their progress on tasks and challenges, log onto www.talktoeu.ie/eurotrip and become a fan on facebook www.facebook.com/talktoeu.ie

Here’s a brief synopsis of what Colm spoke about, which included a lot of very interesting points:

• Obviously key to facebook is engagement, Colm referred to facebook as the “most engaging page on the internet” and a “social graph”
• Speaking about the creation of facebook he said that now successful businesses/start-ups are emerging in universities and colleges rather than “garages” and industry should be aware of this
• Facebook currently have 400 million users worldwide but they are aiming for 1 billion!  125 million facebook users are in western Europe and western Europe is rapidly outgrowing the United States
• Some interesting stats for Ireland – out of population of 4.2 million, 1.4 million are on facebook with 700,000 of these logging in every day and the fastest growing user group is 35+, which shows that facebook is not just for younger people, a point he emphasised repeatedly
• Facebook users are using it to replace email which they find “too slow” and key to facebook’s success is “real time” updates
• Mobile is a huge area and one they are planning to build on – 80 million facebook users do so on their mobile phone
• Colm said how online branding is currently “broken”, facebook aims to fix this.  He pointed to Guinness and their Area 22 campaign as leading the way with online branding, he also used the case of the Grand Canal theatre who have successfully built “an online community” and Hairy Baby T-shirt company who are very successful in turning online engagement into sales
• The key to facebook for business is that you can target your product at a set of people who have a particular set of interests
• An interesting point about news referral, facebook makes three times more referrals to news sites than google
• Gaming is another big area for revenue, companies that have developed games for facebook such as Farmville, Mafia Wars etc are making massive profits e.g. EA games bought Playfish for $400 million last year
• Colm also made the point that facebook are targeting apps such as Farmville for the next phase of “wealth creation” on the web, they want to build a credit system whereby credit that you earn on one app can be used to make purchases on another
• Interestingly, facebook view themselves in terms of Google and Yahoo, and don’t compare themselves to other social networks, currently the levels of loyalty and time spent among Facebook users are rapidly overtaking Google, Yahoo etc

Susan Flynn

Figures vary, but it is estimated that 150,000 people were killed in the quake with millions further affected. The tragedy has in many ways, become a modern one, as communications technologies and platforms has allowed news outlets up provide up to date information like never before and expose the true severity of the disaster and conditions suffered.

The use of the internet and social media has been leveraged by organisations and individuals around the world to provide help to those affected. Over 50,000 transactions have been processed in the three weeks since the tragedy according to Realex, a payments service that supports Irish charities. Countless Facebook pages have been created allowing individuals to not only gain information but also play their part by for example organising charity events. Twitter and mobile phone campaigns have also made it easier for people to make donations while Skype and YouTube have allowed people to contact and find out information about relatives that may have been affected.

The disaster in Haiti has shown how social media can be utilised in times of crisis and has proven its worth as a means to mobilise the masses.

David Kinch

Dr Brennan has previously worked on EU affairs with the Departments of Industry and Commerce and Foreign Affairs. He was a Director of IBEC until 2001 and also a Director of the Brussels-based Irish Business Bureau.

EPS Consulting has successfully completed over 350 projects for Government Departments, the Oireachtas, State Agencies, Local Authorities and a wide variety of private sector organisations.

He is an active member of the Small Firms Association, the Institute of Directors, the Institute of International and European Affairs (as chair of its climate change group), and is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants and Advisors. He is this year’s President of Dublin Chamber.

Mr Brennan’s appointment follows that of Jim Glennon who was appointed non-executive Chairman of Edelman in 2008.

Conor Carmody, Meteor
Stuart Fogarty, McConnells
Kate Uí Ghallachóir, DIT
Deirdre Houlihan, FBD Hotel Group
Paul Kelders, Jump!
Pat McDonagh, Supermacs
Pauric McGowan, University of Ulster
Fanchea O’Byrne, J&J
Geraldine O’Neill, Edelman
Kieran Rumley, Batchelors
Tom Trainor, Marketing Institute of Ireland