Team of media planners from PHD win NewsBrands Ireland Power of Planning competition 2022

A team of media planners from PHD 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 to position Motus as the number one electric car range in Ireland and to dispel ‘range anxiety’ issues amongst 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 (May 31^st)  in the Morrison Hotel, Dublin.  11 teams from agencies Mindshare, MediaCom, Zenith, Spark Foundry, Dentsu Aegis, OMD, Starcom, PHD, and MediaWorks, were invited to immerse themselves in all things news brands by attending the morning NewsBrands Engage event and then networking with publisher advertising teams.

Engage Event

The NewsBrands Engage event was hosted by award winning journalist Kevin Doyle 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.

Highlights of the event included:

Presentation from Christine Matthews from TGI who invited the audience to ‘get up close & personal to the news media audience’ using latest TGI Data which revealed our nation’s passion for news with 82% of people reading a print or digital news title every week

An Post case study with Alice Grant, Marketing Lead, An Post Retail and Caroline Hughes, Board Director, Mediaworks, who discussed the benefit of including news brands print and digital platforms in their comms planning in order to connect with the An Post audience and deliver impactful and effective communications strategies

‘Journalism Matters’ panel discussion with award winning journalists Nicola Tallant (Sunday World crime correspondent and winner of Podcast of the Year for Crime World), Jack Horgan-Jones, (former Business Journalist of the Year, bestselling author, and Irish Times journalist), and Investigative Journalist of the Year Mostafa Darwish ( Reach Ireland).

Media Planning Competition

Each team was then given a brief and just 4 hours to create a media plan with their teammates. At the end of the day each team made a 5 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.

Speaking about the competition, judging panel member Aoife Hofler, said,

“Presenting a response to a brief in just under four hours to a room full of industry suppliers and three judges is no mean feat. The teams all did very well. The winning team had a very clear strategy, approach and rational, they demonstrated passion, creativity and presented a super detailed plan. So well done to PHD!”

Fellow judge, Christine Matthews, added: “PHD demonstrated a well thought out strategy, shaped with learnings from earlier An Post presentation that day. 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. They had a strong team dynamic and presentation style was very natural. Very impressive output for such a speedy turnaround.”

Lisa Buckley, NewsBrands Ireland Communications & Programmes Director, said: “Congratulations to ‘TEAM PHD’ and to all the teams who took part in our annual education day and media planning competition. Great to be back doing physical events and getting to meet the next generation of talented media planners.”

ENDS