PHD team wins Newsbrands’ Power of Planning competition
Winners commended for their ‘passion’, ‘creativity’ and ‘detailed plan’
A team of media planners from PHD Media have been crowned this year’s NewsBrands Ireland ‘Power of Planning’ competition winners.
The team members, Roisin Walsh, Nicola White, Billy Cronin, Oleksandra Yaklyushyna, and Alexandra Kearns created a media plan for a fictitious electric car brand, Motus, using the various print and digital platforms of NewsBrands Ireland’s member publishers.
The team’s brief was to position Motus as the number one electric car range in Ireland and to dispel ‘range anxiety’ fears among consumers. PHD’s winning plan stood out for its clear strategy and publisher selection, and creative use of news brands platforms which included high impact full page inserts, dynamic digital display, a native content series, bespoke high impact video scroller skins, and a video, interactive, and content series news publisher partnership.
The Power of Planning competition took place yesterday in the Morrison Hotel, Dublin. Some 11 teams from agencies Mindshare, MediaCom, Zenith, Spark Foundry, Dentsu Aegis, OMD, Starcom, PHD, and MediaWorks, were invited to attend the NewsBrands Engage event.
The event was hosted by Kevin Doyle, group head of news at Mediahuis Ireland, and saw a packed room of advertising professionals and publishers hear research and case studies on the power of advertising as well as discussion on journalism’s enduring value to society.
Each team in the Media Planning Competition was given a brief and just four hours to create a media plan with their teammates. At the end of the day each team made a five minute presentation to the judging panel: Aoife Hofler, director, Javelin, Christine Matthews, head of customer success, TGI, and Lisa Buckley, communications director with NewsBrands Ireland. Teams were judged on the basis of five criteria: interpretation of the brief; strategic thinking; best use of the medium; use of budget; and presentation skills.
“The winning team had a very clear strategy, approach and rational, they demonstrated passion, creativity and presented a super detailed plan,” Aoife Hofler said.
Fellow judge, Christine Matthews, added: “PHD demonstrated a well thought out strategy . . . Their overall presentation was clear and concise, with attention to detail on media plan construction and a great use of the Newsbrands media mix with creative print and digital formats and concluded with a clever activation idea.”
