By Business & Finance 
Pictured at the shortlist announcement were ADFX nominees Niall Phelan, founder of McGargles and Emmet McCaughey board director at Acorn Marketing.
The shortlist for the ADFX Awards, has been announced by The Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI) today.
Campaigns shortlisted for the 2014 ADFX Awards are recognised for being the most effective campaigns in Ireland in the last two years. For the first time, entrants were invited to view the live announcement of the shortlisted campaigns on www.adfx.ie and on the TV3 player.
The IAPI ADFX Awards are widely recognised as some of the toughest in the industry. Taking place every two years, entrants must thoroughly prove how a campaign was effective and how it added to the bottom line. The awards are also unique in celebrating the partnership between client and agency; both must work closely together to demonstrate the effectiveness of a campaign.
The campaigns shortlisted are among the most impactful and memorable campaigns to hit the market in the last two years – all of which proved instrumental in changing consumer behaviour. Amongst the shortlist are; the Electric Ireland ‘Powering Kindness’ campaign which harnessed true altruism from the Irish public, ‘The Gathering’ from Fáilte Ireland for the largest ever Irish tourism initiative, ‘Think Contraception’ campaign for the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme and Liberty Insurance for its use of advertising as a powerful commercial tool to break the Irish market.
The 2012 ADFX Gold Winner for the HSE Quit campaign has again been nominated for Quit#2 featuring the late Gerry Collins. The full shortlist is available here.
According to Tania Banotti CEO IAPI: “We were overwhelmed by the standard of entries we received. In short, the awards are all about proving that advertising works. The public will be familiar with many of the campaigns shortlisted. They have all have been hugely effective in adding to the bottom line for major brands.
“Many of the campaigns shortlisted also played a role in changing consumer behaviour for the better, improving people’s lives and the lives of people around them. All of our shortlisted campaigns are produced by agencies based and operating in Ireland. IAPI supports and commends clients who chose to produce local creative work with Irish agencies. This year a special ADFX award will be awarded to a client on the night to acknowledge their role in the creation of top class work.”
One nominee, Niall Phelan, founder of McGargles says: “We’re delighted to be short listed for an ADFX award, especially as we only launched McGargles beer in November 2013. We always knew it was going to be tough to launch a small Irish craft beer against global alcohol brands with a very small budget. Our background meant we understood the benefits of advertising.
“With our agency, Acorn, we developed a typical dysfunctional Irish family of beers with a great campaign of hand drawn animated characters to represent each member of McGargles family. We worked closely with Acorn to ensure customer engagement and return on investment. It’s thanks to our advertising that less than a year later we’re stocked in all 32 counties; supermarkets, restaurants and pubs. We spent our money on brand advertising, believing the risk would pay off and it did over-achieving our target of units to be sold between November 2013 and March 2014 by 44%.”
