Posted: 29/09/2009
Salary : Exellent Salary & Benefits
Experience: 1+
Location: Dublin

Verve Marketing Ltd. are inviting applications from quality candidates for the immediate position of Account Executive in their Merchandising Department. Reporting to the Head of Merchandising, the successful candidate will be responsible for management of assigned ongoing merchandising contracts with the division’s current clients.

The right candidate will :

       – Have 1+ years experience within a Merchandising Agency (Essential)

       – Be confident, ambitious, energetic, keen to succeed, outgoing and used to dealing with all levels of an organisation.

       – Be a leader with the analytical ability to make decisions on your feet and deal with issues quickly and effectively

       – Have a working knowledge of how merchandising services can benefit our clients.

       – Excellent Excel and PowerPoint presentation skills.

       – Have a high level of computer literacy (especially at ease with learning new web-based reporting systems.

       – Have complete fluency in written and spoken English.

       – Full Irish License and Car an advantage.

The role will involve

      - Data Management

     -  Report writing

      - Personnel Management

      - Logistical Administration

      - Budgeting

      - Quotations

      - Client liaison

The role will be based at Verve offices, with occasional travel nationwide to monitor Merchandising standards.

 Excellent salary relevant to experience.
Mobile Phone
Expenses etc.

 If you have all of the necessary skills listed above, please send your CV and cover letter to brid@verve.ie.

Closing date for applications is Friday October 2^nd.

A group of digital heavyweights from Web giants including AOL, Facebook and Google touted their latest efforts to convince marketers that online advertising in addition to search really works during a panel discussion Thursday at the Paley Center.

The Internet executives acknowledged that traditional banner ads have fallen short, but assured that more precise targeting and improved measurement would lead to better results for display advertising.

“The opportunity in digital advertising has always been out there,” said Mike Murphy, vice president of global media sales at Facebook. “We as an industry for years used banner advertising to broadcast messages rather than deliver highly targeted, relevant advertising.”

Facebook’s answer to the dreaded banner has been “engagement ads” — interactive home page units that let users do things like post comments, send invites or virtual gifts, and participate in polls. In effect, the company is taking what would have typically been a static display unit and “using it to feel more like content,” according to Murphy.

That’s one thing if the ad contains a movie trailer, but what if you’re a consumer packaged goods company trying to sell paper towels?, asked moderator Todd Wasserman, editor of Brandweek. Murphy said he has been surprised at the range of brands that draw enthusiasts.

Eileen Naughton, Google’s director of media platforms, pointed to a contest Heinz ran on YouTube two years ago inviting people to submit videos for selection as its next ketchup TV commercial. She said the effort led to 120,000 hours of people interacting with the brand.

To help prove that social media advertising is actually more effective than ordinary banners, Facebook earlier this week announced a partnership with Nielsen under which the social network will start polling users about some of the display ads on its site.

Facebook will then provide that data — including responses from those who did not see an ad — to Nielsen, which will package it for advertisers, say the companies.

Jeff Levick, AOL’s new ad boss, emphasized that no single ad unit is going to be the silver bullet to rejuvenate display advertising. “It’s more about how you place an ad and how you target it,” he said.

“That’s what’s being defined as we enter the next wave of Internet advertising. Matching up content and advertising early in the process rather than trying to match ads with content down the funnel.”

AOL’s approach to attracting targeted advertising over the last two years has been to launch scores of niche content sites with plans to operate 100 different online properties by year’s end.

Having conquered search, Google made its own major push into the display ad market last week by unveiling the overhauled DoubleClick Ad Exchange as a real-time marketplace for buying and selling unsold display inventory. “Half of all display ad dollars in the U.S. are display ad dollars,” said Naughton, explaining the reasoning behind the initiative.

The new system is designed to simplify the ad-buying process and improve performance through an open exchange that lets advertisers bid on individual impressions and slot ads almost instantaneously.

Print will lose even more UK ad spending share than previously forecast but remain on top, while online is set to grab the second-largest slice of the ad spending pie this year, according to estimates by Myers Publishing.

2009 will be the first year that ad spending online is greater than local and national spot TV, with online expenditures rising from 10.6% of the total in 2008 to 12.2% this year. The rise in market share will occur despite a 0.5% drop in spending forecast for online in 2009, to £24.55 billion.

Myers predicts online’s share will continue to climb, hitting 13.4% in 2011—when it will surpass print to become the top medium—and reaching 13.6% of total ad spending in 2012.

The fastest growth in 2009 is expected to occur in video game advertising, at 12%, followed by mobile (9%). Branded entertainment/product placement and satellite radio advertising will inch upward.

Internet ad spending will start climbing again in 2010, with 0.7% growth, picking up the pace to see 5.1% and 7.2% gains in 2011 and 2012, respectively.

The picture is much less rosy for total UK advertising spending, expected to drop 13.3% this year. Myers’ previous forecast, from May 2009, projected only a 12.1% decrease. The firm pegs next year’s decline at 4.8% (revised upward from a 5.1% drop), with recovery beginning in 2011, at 1.1% growth. UK advertising spending is expected to increase by 5.3% in 2012 to nearly £205 billion.

The rebound will be led by strong growth in Internet, TV, satellite radio, mobile and video game ad spending. In the online sector, video/social network spending is projected to post the fastest growth rates, followed by search.

eMarketer projected in April 2009 that total UK ad spending would drop 8.2% this year, and that online spending growth would stay positive, rising 4.5%.

Mary McGovern, founder of McGovern PR, one of Ireland’s longest established PR firms has launched a new firm, Digital Ambition. The launch of Digital Ambition will, according to Mary McGovern, bolster the profile of the Group to provide a seamless through the line marketing in Ireland “We bring critical marketing, PR and journalists skills to a burgeoning internet marketing industry which, has been led in Ireland, up to now by the SEO sector (Search Engine Marketers). Digital Ambition provides internet advertising and viral marketing services including SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and a full service Online Public Relations. In addition to standard internet marketing core services, the company offers marketing promotions including brand partnership and loyalty schemes, sales promotions, experiential marketing and online news content. It’s training division Ambition Training ambitiontraining.ie will complement the services offered by the group. “We provide web design courses for companies who need to keep abreast of their online content without having to continually outsource this to save on time. A website needs to be updated regularly and outsourcing can delay the process.” “Online PR is not fully understood in Ireland yet”, claims Mary McGovern. Up to now it tends to be packaged under Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Online PR is an integral part of the overall online marketing mix and is much more effective and measurable when dovetailed with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising) and display activity.”

Vodafone is to revamp its brand and marketing for the first time in four years. The Sunday Times reports that the mobile giant is ditching its “Make the most of now” slogan for “Power to you” as it launches services to capitalise on the growing popularity of the mobile internet. Chief executive Vittorio Colao wants to transform Vodafone, which has 315m customers around the world, so as to drive a switch to smart phones such as the iPhone and Blackberry. It is to launch as service this autumn to sell applications on behalf of third party providers, in the same say as Apple’s app store.

The IDA has launched a massive global marketing campaign designed to attract the foreign investment in to Ireland and focussing on research and innovation. The campaign consists of television, internet, newspaper and poster advertisements. Its theme is Ireland’s ability to supply the fresh thinking and creativity which innovation needs to flourish. It stresses the part that the people of Ireland can play in making innovation happen. Ireland, says the campaign’s tagline, is the place where ‘innovation comes naturally.’ Speaking at the event, Barry O’Leary, IDA CEO said that “In today’s extremely competitive world, business people are agreed that innovation is the primary source of sustainable competitive advantage. This search has recently led companies including Facebook, Google, Intel and Citi to locate their European headquarters or other major operations centres in Ireland. Ireland’s unique innovation ecosystem – founded on the creativity and skills of its workforce, a knowledge-based economy and pro-business government policy – has made Ireland a uniquely attractive environment in which to foster innovation”. The campaign is itself designed to be innovative, fresh and full of impact. Each ad in the series, created by advertising agency McConnells, uses a blackboard as a backdrop to make points about Ireland and innovation.

Twitter, the fast-growing microblogging site has changed its terms for users to allow advertisers to reach its more than 45 million monthly visitors. Twitter, the two-year-old venture capital-backed company that lets people send an unlimited number of 140-character messages, is just now beginning to ramp up efforts to monetise, or gain revenue from, its popular site. It has now revised its “terms of service” to specify that it may run ads. “We leave the door open for advertising. We’d like to keep our options open, as we’ve said before,” founder Biz Stone wrote on Twitter’s official blog. Advertising revenue is the time-honored way for Web sites to generate revenue while remaining free for consumers. Explosive growth in social networking is attracting interest: worldwide unique visitors to Twitter’s site reached 44.5 million in June, up 15-fold year-over-year, according to comScore. Some analysts are sceptical that advertising will catch on in a meaningful way on social networks, arguing that companies are reluctant to juxtapose their brands with unpredictable, and potentially offensive, user-generated content. Stone himself has said the company was wary of annoying its growing base of users by pummeling them with ads. But other analysts point out that users of social networking websites tend to spend a lot of time on those sites, providing an attractive platform for advertisers to promote their brands — especially if preferences are tracked. Twitter kept its new clause on advertising open-ended and stressed it was subject to change. “The services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the content or information on the services, queries made through the services, or other information,” the terms read. “The types and extent of advertising by Twitter on the services are subject to change.” “In consideration for Twitter granting you access to and use of the services, you agree that Twitter and its third-party providers and partners may place such advertising on the services….”

Opportunities for Irish SMEs to grow their businesses online is the focus of a new direct marketing campaign by Google. “Proportionate to our size of population, we buy far more online than our European neighbours: 94pc of internet users in Ireland have shopped online, placing Ireland in the top 10 countries in the world for online buyer penetration. Irish SME’s are increasingly taking advantage of the growth opportunity the internet presents”, said Ronan Harris, Director of Sales, Google. “The advent of the online marketplace has revolutionised how business is conducted and has opened up enormous opportunities for Irish SMEs. Our direct marketing campaign outlines the ease with which these opportunities can be harnessed using Google’s search marketing platform, AdWords”. In 2008, an estimated E2.5 billion was spent in online transactions in Ireland (i.e. purchase of goods and services). 25pc of Irish people expect to spend more online in 2009, and it’s not difficult to work out why. Half of all Irish consumers say they research online before making a purchase, and 90pc believe they can save money by purchasing online. According to Harris, “With consumers moving online, search marketing has become an essential medium for the modern marketer. Advertisers have complete control over what they pay, when their ads are shown, and to whom.” Whitesmiles, a specialist in dental teeth whitening, has embraced the online revolution. Established by Alex Thomas, Whitesmiles has clinics in Dublin and Cork. Thomas has had customers fly from Kerry or Belfast to use his service, having seen ads for his website on Google. He is now expanding by opening new clinics in Drogheda and Limerick. -oogle’s AdWords advertising programme allows customers to write their own text-based ads. These appear above, or to the right of, ‘organic’ search listings when potential customers search on a relevant term. Because customers are already searching for what the advertiser offers, they are all the more likely to engage with the ad by reading and clicking on it. Alex Thomas says, ‘as a business owner, it can be hard to get your message across to people if they’re not thinking about your service or they don’t know it exists. With Google, people are already searching for what you offer – in our case, tooth whitening. They know they want to get it done, they’ve heard about it, so there is more chance of gaining sales’.

We asked the UK’s top marketers under 30 to share their tips for success to those just starting their careers in marketing and the creative industries.

Graduates seeking their first job in marketing today could well be forgiven for believing hopping on a plane and taking a year off is the best option. Rising unemployment, recruitment freezes and the fall out from the meltdown of the UK’s leading financial institutions have combined to create a challenging jobs market.

However, all is not lost and the long hoped for green-shoots of recovery have already been heralded by leading US analysts. With this in mind we asked the UK’s top marketers under 30 to share their advice to those starting out in the industry. Here is what they said:

1. Get Some Work Experience

While critics dismiss work experience as the ‘finishing school for the middle classes’ employers – particularly in the creative industries – increasingly expect graduates to invest significant time in work experience or internships.

Shona Campbell, marketing manager of Harvey Nichols, advocates the importance of work experience. ‘We always have a lot of work placement students in Harvey Nichols and personally I have also invested a great deal of time in work experience. It helps you think about what you really want to do and it also gives you the real world experience of brands which you simply can’t get at university,’ she says.

This view is echoed by Anita Kinniburgh, Brand Manager Green & Blacks, who says: ‘Its important to do work experience to gain some understand what marketing is really about. People use the term so much its easy to loose sight of what marketing is really about.’

2. Market yourself

Put simply if you can’t market yourself properly to potential employers it will be difficult to believe you can market their brands.

Tom Cartmale. UK marketing director of Oakley, says it is crucial to identify exactly what you can bring to the table. ‘Interviews are an increasingly intense process and there is a lot more competition – particularly for in-house sports roles. Now more than ever it is all about showing your versatility,’ he says.

3. Don’t be held back

Don’t let your academic background – or lack thereof – hold you back – marketing professionals have a wide variety of backgrounds.

Sarah Kilmartin, Brand Development Manager, T Mobile, had a French and English degree which she said meant ‘everyone assumed I would be a teacher. ‘Don’t feel bound by what you study – focus on what it is you want to do she says.’

4. Understand the commercial realities of marketing

Marketing is a vital business discipline – its not a fluffy career option.

James Millett, Brand Communications Manager Audi, says there is a genuine need for marketers to be commercial. ‘It is vital to be creative and come up with new solutions to old problems, whilst understanding the commercial implications of everything you do.’

5. Understand the complexities of marketing

As one of the most over-used words in the English language many prospective employees actually have very little idea of what marketing actually entails.

Fiona Bosman, Nokia says: The whole marketing world has changed so much since I was a student. People don’t just passively consume ads its a much more complex market now. To come out of university and go straight into marketing is not as easy as it was. Marketing is no longer about simply making a TV ad and s few posters with a bolt on bit of digital work. People are no longer interested in brands telling them what to do – you only need to go on tweet deck and you can easily access thousands of opinions on your brand. The digital space has made the whole communications channel far more complex than ever.

6. Visualise your long term career

Its very easy to get stuck in a rut – particularly if you grab the first job you are offered or specialise too early.

Jennifer Gershon, European Brand Director Snickers & Milky Way says: ‘Think about the steps you are making to build your career – it is an easy trap to think that simply working on different brands is enough to grow your experience. If all the brands are similar the experience you get will be very similar.

7. Manage your digital footprint

Criticised a company on Twitter after a bad interview? Got a load of dodgy photos on Facebook? Remember your potential employees don’t want to see all of you.

8. Network

Oakley’s Cartmale, says being able to communicate with a broad range of people is key. ‘Step out of your comfort zone and expose yourself to new experiences as much as possible,’ he says.

9. Do your research

When you get an interview take the time to find out about the brands you would be working on and respect the fact that others in the business will inevitably know more about the challenges facing these brands than you.

Mike Smith, group brand manager at Dairy Crest, says: ‘Trust your instinct but always make sure your opinion is qualified.’ He advises being ‘like a sponge’ and picking up as much information as you possibly can.

10. Be passionate about what you do

Realistically not every graduate will land a job at a brand they are passionate about – but enthusiasm is key. As Dairy Crest’s Smith says: ‘If you don’t believe in your brands how can you expect consumers to,’

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Magazines Ireland has announced the Irish Magazine Awards for 2009.Magazines Ireland now represents over 220 magazines throughout Ireland and the Awards, now in their ninth year, are aimed at rewarding the best Irish magazines and the people behind them. The Irish Magazine Awards 2009 will include awards for Consumer, Business to Business, Customer and Annual Magazines as well as awards for Designers, Editors, Websites and Publishing Company of the Year. Some of the new categories added in this year include Journalist; Photographer; Lifetime Achievement Award; Printer; Retailer and Magazine Front Cover of the Year.A panel of independent expert judges chaired by Ian Locks, former Chief Executive of PPA UK, will judge the awards. The announcement of winners will take place at a black tie ceremony in the Four Seasons Hotel on Thursday December 3, 2009. “The Irish Magazine Awards has become a major media event attended by the entire Irish magazine industry and are a real badge of honour for the winners. The Awards are open to all Irish magazine publishers, not just Magazines Ireland members, and as such they represent the accolade of the entire industry,” said John Mullins, chairman, Magazines Ireland.The entry forms are available on www.magazinesireland.ie and the closing date for entries is October 2, 2009.For further information on the Irish Magazine Awards, please contact Grace Aungier, Chief Executive, Magazines Ireland, tel 01 667 55 79 or grace@magazinesireland.ie.

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