Stop Online Piracy Act

Wikipedia "blacked out" the English version of its website for 24 hours last week in protest of the anti-piracy legislation under consideration in the US Congress. The enactment of this law would be extremely damaging to the internet as we know it as it will eliminate the right for free speech. Some sites thought to be affected include YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia along with hundreds more.

The legislation is designed to crack down pirated US products overseas so if passed it would allow people to launch legal action against websites that allow the unauthorised distribution of material. This means that if people post content online that may not necessarily belong to the them the website can be shut down.

Site founder Jimmy Wales tweeted saying "Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!"

While the main goal is to prevent popular trends involving piracy, critics say it could hurt the technology industry and infringes on free-speech rights. As a result of the protest and the support from many websites, the SOPA act has been stopped.

However, there is now ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) which is an agreement that aims to establish international standards for intellectual property rights enforcement. If this were to get passed it could be detrimental to the Internet and the way it is used today.

While the main goal is to prevent popular trends involving piracy, critics say it could hurt the technology industry and infringes on free-speech rights.

Public Transport in Rural Ireland...

Waiting up to an hour and a half for a bus in Limerick City in the rain is an experience I do not wish upon anyone, but it is one that thousands of the city's residents have to endure every day. Simply put, Ireland's rural public transport system is disgraceful. It is under funded, neglected, and in need of a serious revamp. In comparison to Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann operate limited routes in Limerick, Cork, Waterford and Galway. Not only are the routes poor, but the efficiency of the service is completely unacceptable.

The introduction of waiting times at all the major bus stops in Dublin, as well as the new integrated Leap Card, further highlights the overshadowing that Dublin Bus has over it's Bus Éireann counterparts. The cities of Limerick, Cork, Waterford and Galway need an effective public transport infrastructure, not only to deal with the student population, but to combat the problems of social exclusion and rural isolation for social groups like pensioners and the disabled, for example.

With projects like the Metro North and DART underground services being shelved for the foreseeable future, perhaps the current government could do something to address the issue of public transport in these areas of the country. The current system is completely flawed and almost laughable in comparison to structures that exist in other EU countries.

Women lobby for bald Barbie to help children with cancer

Barbie may be best known for her long blonde hair, but a new campaign that is gaining popularity is pressurising Mattel to manufacture hairless Barbie's on a commercial basis. A Facebook group called “Beautiful and Bald Barbie! Lets see if we can get it made” was created a few days before Christmas, and already has over 114,000 “likes”.

The online movement was launched by Rebecca Sypin and Jane Bingham. Rebecca’s 12 year old daughter lost her hair after undergoing chemotherapy treatment for leukaemia. Rebecca said that children undergoing this treatment “take the hair loss harder than the treatment”. Jane also lost her hair after being treated for lymphoma.

Both women wrote to Mattel about the idea but the company replied saying that it does not accept ideas from outside sources.

I hope that Mattel will eventually turn around. The doll would make younger generations of cancer patients feel less conscious about their hair loss. It would highlight the importance of beauty through difference because beauty comes in all forms, and the production of these dolls would cement this fact in our minds. It is a great campaign that will ultimately raise awareness for the disease. If it ever does happen, lets hope that 100% of the profits go to the charity.

I also hope this encourages Mattel to make a whole range of dolls with different coloured skin and hair.

If you would like to join the efforts of having a Beautiful and Bald Barbie made, please click on the link below to “like” the Facebook page and join the campaign.

Posted By: Ruth

http://www.facebook.com/BeautifulandBaldBarbie

Robert- Courage

I was going to write something about Christmas coming up for this blog entry but I happened across a video that changed my mind. This video concerns a young boy of perhaps about 12-13 years of age. There is no dialogue to the story but instead the tale is given to us through a collection of handwritten flashcards. His name is Jonah Mowry and he has been cutting himself since the 2^nd Grade (8 years old).

As the video progresses we learn that Jonah has been bullied since the 1^st Grade (6-7 years old) and that he will be entering in the 8^th grade next month. Jonah is terrified of returning to school because every day he gets picked on and he is hated by everyone. This doesn’t surprise him because he hates himself too and he has frequently thought of suicide as his only way out.

Despite the emotional nature of this video it ends positively with Jonah saying that he is not going anywhere and that he has a million different reasons to stay. Upon seeing this video I found myself thinking about my own schooldays. I was lucky enough to never have had any trouble like Jonah but I knew people who were miserable for five days a week throughout their time in primary school and secondary school and I wish I had done more to help them. Even just stop and talk to them and let them know I was there.

Coming from a background in psychology I am very passionate about the emotional health of my friends and colleagues in both the MDP and beyond. I also know from personal experience that one of the simplest and most effective ways of coping with depression or anguish is to talk about it. Jonah felt that he had to turn to the online community for support but even confiding in a friend or someone you trust can have a very positive effect on someone’s wellbeing.

A link to the video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdkNn3Ei-Lg&feature=share

And please remember to share it on either facebook or twitter to spread the story of Jonah Mowry.

For anyone looking for more information on depression or feel the need to talk about themselves or others anonymously, Aware Ireland offers a depression counselling -service.

You can get in touch with them here: http://www.aware.ie/

If you do think someone you know might have depression then the worst thing you can do is ignore it. Far too much grief in this world has been caused by others assuming someone else will solve the problem.

Thank you and good night.

Christy- under the tree at SPAR

The unexpected has happened; SPAR is set to begin featuring in RTE’s Fair City as a new outlet.

The store will become part of the storyline and will essentially create awareness for the brand. In Ireland to date there has never been such an extreme investment in product placement and brand integration of its kind; costing SPAR €900,000 over the next three years.

Christy Phelan, the loser in love, has always put his business as his priority at the Carrigstown corner shop. His corner shop is currently under a transformation into a state-of-the-art SPAR store. Although it is evident that opportunities are there for through the investment, Fair City can also benefit from the opportunity to create new story lines around the Christy Phelan, one of Fair City’s favourite characters.

SPAR has been in the Irish market for over 50 years which places SPAR as a fitting product placement for the Irish soap. RTE’s Fair City reaches over 500,000 viewers across Ireland four times every week, an average of over half a million viewers per episode in 2011

The opportunity for SPAR goes further than product placement because the SPAR brand will be a feature of the story-line on a regular basis which will maximise marketing activity. An on-screen store launch will be aired in December of this year. Although the viewers will now notice the SPAR tree symbol during each episode, they will also notice a “PP” logo to state that the programme contains product placement.

Advertisers are currently faced with an era where viewer can now skip through TV ad breaks at a high speed which allows the viewers to avoid advertisements with the use of SKY+. I feel that SPAR has innovatively established a marketing method which can overcome the current ad avoidance issues and tie with the Irish communities.

Posted By Christine Cullen

A Mo’Ment for thought

As I looked up at the entrance to Dundrum Shopping Centre on a cold Saturday Morning in November I notice something strange. A giant black design on the front of the glass pains. Maybe it’s too early or maybe it’s too cold, or maybe, just maybe, there actually is a giant moustache on the front of Dundrum?

Being November I feel it is fitting to write about one of the most active campaigns that is happening across both the online and offline world. That campaign is Movember.

Things you might know about Movember:
· It’s a month long campaign that encourages men to grow moustaches to promote awareness of Prostate Cancer.
· It happens every November (Hence the Movember…yes, you probably knew that one already.)
· Friends and Family are encouraged to donate to the mo’bros (that’s what participants are called) and all proceeds go towards helping to fight Prostate Cancer.
· Fun events are held at the end of each November to celebrate the end of the campaign, congratulate the participants and help remove moustaches in humorous ways for the purpose of further fundraising activities.

Things you might not know about Movember:
· It started in Melbourne, Australia in 2004.
· News and photos of their moustache-growing movement spread throughout the web, rapidly transforming the campaign into an annual effort involving over 1.1 million (source: Google Chrome )
· Prostate Cancer is the number 1 cancer suffered by Irish Men.
· People can also get involved by ‘adopting a mo’ for €1 a day.

So why moustaches you might ask? Well the purpose of Movember and its hair raising antics is to raise awareness to get regular health checks and prevent prostate cancer related deaths, and after all ‘What is manlier than a moustache?’ What is important to note is that this is no ordinary health charity appeal, instead it is one which utilizes all that digital media has to offer brilliantly and showcases how an entire global community can get involved in a good cause. The proof is there that this works and to date Movember has raised €21,296,255 for its cause. That can buy you a lot of moustache combs! From an Irish perspective Movember’s success is as tangible with 12,506 registrations to pledge to grow a moustache having raised €216,865 so far and its support base on its Irish Facebook boasting 10,252 likes. The below video demonstrates how involved the global community has been in the success of the campaign to date.

Youtube Link

Movember has further heightened its engagement with people by creating links with many commercial organisations such as Golden Disks, Marshall Amps, Swatch and Heineken. From a marketers perspective this is very clever collaborating on the commercial organisations behalf as it showcases their social responsibility whilst also appealing primarily to their target market, most of whom are adult males. Personally, I am a big fan of the Movember Goods offered by the Irish Online Clothing Store HairyBaby.ie. Novelty tshirts and mugs are on sale with Hairy Baby promising to donate €10 from the sale of every Movember themed t-shirt and €2.50 from every Movember Mug. These mugs allow even the moustache growing unabled to produly sport a tashe for the month at every given opportunity. Great!

Posted by: Paula

Your Favourite Chocolate Bar in Phone Form

Cadbury Dairy Milk has announced the launch of a Cadbury Dairy Milk Smartphone App for the Irish Market. This app promises to transfer your smartphone into a Dairy Milk bar and will have dual-functionality with the two main features being the ‘Unwrap and Snap’ interactive feature and the ‘Share a Square’ feature. The purpose of the campaign is to entice people to become more actively involved with the classic Cadbury Dairy Milk eight-square bar and incorporate social media into Cadbury’s ever increasingly marketing presence.

The app will be free to download by accessing it via a Cadbury inspired QR code on promotional packages and various forms of print media. This QR code, which has been created using blocks of Dairy Milk, is incredibly tactful and clever. Not only does it tie the brand brilliantly into the usually ordinary QR code, but it also shows the actual chocolate block rather than the traditional fully wrapped product. This is very effective in heightening awareness of the Dairy Milk Product and not just the Cadbury Brand, not to mention that it looks pretty tasty too! Personally I wish this QR code was for some sort of Pac Man style game where one must eat all the chocolate blocks to succeed and you win the amounts of blocks eaten in real chocolate. Sign me up please!

Cadbury's chocolaty QR code

The Unwrap and Snap element of the app is not only fun to say but fun to play with too. It allows users to unwrap a Dairy Milk bar by sliding their finger across their phone’s ‘wrapper’. The bar can then be snapped into eight pieces (Remember this is only virtually snapping, don’t go breaking your phone into eight pieces.) which can then be sent to friends online using the Share a Square function. This function encourages users to share virtual squares on Facebook to their friends and once they have collected eight squares these can be traded in for a real bar of Dairy Milk in any participating Centra store.

Quite frankly I think this concept is genius! Not only because Diary Milk is arguably the nicest chocolate bar on the market (and I am prepared to argue this) and are finally getting some of the much deserved media attention the Cadbury brand attracts, but also it encompasses terrific elements of social media marketing into their IMC. The popularity of sending cows or trees and what-not through Farmville and similar Facebook virtual worlds is huge and so the opportunity to send something tangible is a recipe for success. Another promising element of this campaign is that in order to claim your free bar you must collect eight pieces. Eight is a small enough number that customers won’t lose interest in the campaign, but large enough that Cadbury are not at damaging risk for give-aways. It has the potential for generating great word-of-mouth interest from Facebook users interacting with one another through the brand as well as showcasing its technological advancement in QR design. What was noted by Aideen Murphy, brand manager for Cadbury Dairy Milk is that ‘The size, shape and weight of a standard Smartphone is similar to a bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk providing us with an opportunity to tempt consumers with the ‘Unwrap & Snap' and ‘Share a Square' features’. This is yet another interesting element to this already very remarkable campaign.

Posted by Paula