Dublin Journal EntriesSaturday 1/3/15Traveling to Dublin, Bus Tour (day off from entries)

Sunday 1/4/15 Croke Park

Today we went to our first sports stadium in Ireland, Croke Park. Croke Park is the home of the Gaelic games including sports like hurling and football. Our tour guide mentioned that they look after six sports in the association. To start our tour, we watched a background video on hurling titled “A Sunday in September.” We learned that September is one of the busiest months for Croke Park that that in September 2014 they had over 300,000 spectators come to watch the various events. Later on in the tour we got to visit the museum and experience hurling in the interactive museum. I found that I am absolutely terrible at it, and I had a newfound respect for the men and women who play. One of the things our tour guide focused on was that each player plays for the city in which they are from. There are no trades, most people stick to their roots.

Going along with the roots, people are taught these sports at a very young age and become involved with the association in the early days of their lives. This relates back to the tradition and involvement aspect of the Elusive Fan reading. People become aware of these sports at a very young age, which means that they probably see or view the events regularly, they follow or play the sport, and they integrate the sport into a part of their life. Hurling, specifically, has an image that relates back to how the Pittsburgh Steelers were branded early in their career. Our tour guide actually described the sport as a mixture of hockey and murder. This reminded me of how the Steelers had their tough guy image. This image is reflected with these sports as well.

Another interesting aspect of the tour was learning about the air space above one of their sections. Since part of their stadium runs over a railway, they actually have to pay for the 10,000 seats that are above that railway in air space. I don’t know if that railway was built before the stadium, or if the stadium started to overhang because of expansion, but that was a sweet marketing deal for the railway company. They are going to be making money on that airspace for the rest of their career.

The combination of learning about new sports and seeing the beauty of Ireland from the top of the stadium made visiting Croke Park a worthwhile adventure. I would love to go and watch a game on one of those Sundays in September.

Ad #1One of the advertisements I saw for the day was for Opel Auto, and it was just

outside of Croke Park. This advertisement was unique because they showed themselves as sponsors of the Gaelic Athletic Association but had an entire car enclosed in a display case. The car said, “Say hello to Adam!” I’m not sure what sort of advertising strategy they were going with, but the advertisement stuck out based on the size of it. I’m assuming that Adam is one of the players on a team. If so, I can

relate this advertisement back to the lowercase culture. This advertisement meshes with what the Irish culture likes and tries to involve itself into people’s interests. I thought the advertisement was effective and I think it would be cool to see advertisements like this in the United States.

Ad #2The second advertisement I saw was for a Santa experience at Croke Park.

This seems like a great way to bring potential customers and current customers into the stadium during the sporting off season. It also relates back to building the ethos with their audience. This advertisement and promotion shows that Croke Park is not just a sports stadium; it’s a place for people to go for multiple experiences. The impression that I already had about Croke was that it was a great place to watch a sporting event. It didn’t seem like a greedy establishment what so ever. I think this because the stadium was built by sponsorships and the players don’t get paid to play the sport. This concept of ethos relates back to trust. I honestly trust Croke Park and the Gaelic Athletic Association more than the NFL. The way they promote themselves seems genuine and fantastic and I think the people of Ireland would agree.

Monday 1/5/15 Glendalough and County Wicklow (had the day off from entries)

Tueaday 1/6/15 Irish National Stud, Celtic Night Music and Dance Show

Coming from Chicago, the Irish National Stud was definitely an experience. Before attending college in Kentucky, I didn’t know what the Derby was. I didn’t know what the Triple Crown was until I was 20 years old. Needless to say, anything to do with horses is a little out of my element. I’m actually afraid of horses. I think they’re beautiful but I don’t feel comfortable when I’m on the same side of the fence as them. To my surprise, I loved how clean and interesting this stud farm was. I was also blown away at the fact that these horses were worth so much money! One criticism I have as a non-horse lover is that the packets we received in the beginning had far too much text to keep my attention. This packet could have been summarized with a few sentences and a lot more pictures of what the packet was trying to convey.

Although I thought this stud farm wasn’t as much about advertising as other places we visited, I thought it related to the books concept of reliability. If you put your horse into the farm, you are going to get quality. Reliability can be defined as The extent to which the techniques used for research were accurate, whether in a survey or whatnot, the questions were asked in the same way by all people; it is all about consistency. This consistency is shown in the horse breeding, the horse caretaking, and the facility as a whole.

Later in that day we went to the Celtic night music and dance show. The Irish dancing and Irish drinking music made me feel at home. This was the night that solidified the fact that I was in love with Ireland. Coming from Irish roots, I have been to a number of Irish music and dance shows. This was my first time I was old enough to appreciate the experience as a whole. The Irish dancers were fantastic, but the band impressed me even more. The woman who was playing the flute was memorizing. I actually ended up downloading some of the songs later in the night because they were really catchy. The songs lyrics were hilarious, with songs like Finnegan’s Wake and Seven Drunken Nights. Their music is upbeat and the fact that people can interact with the band makes for an experience in itself. I felt unified with every person in the room, regardless of if I knew them or not. I thought that was great branding for Ireland in itself.

Ad #1One of the advertisements I was repeatedly seeing in both London and

Dublin was for Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran is an up and coming artist in the United States, but it seemed as if he was a huge deal in Europe. I thought these advertisements were effective because they are consistent across a number of platforms. This poster shown below is the album cover for that particular album. This helps for people to have that brand recognition when going to purchase the CD or a song from the CD. The amount of ads shown for this particular CD also helps with top of the mind brand recognition. I see this ad or this album cover everywhere now. This

just goes to show that a consistent advertisement doesn’t go unnoticed by consumers.

Wednesday 1/7/15Guinness Storehouse Museum

The Guinness Storehouse Museum was a great last adventure in Dublin. Despite getting lost before the tour, I had a great time and learned a lot about the Guinness brand. First we learned a bit about the history of Guinness and how each batch of Guinness is brewed. I found it fascinating that the same culture of yeast has been used since the 1800’s to keep with the consistency of taste. After that we learned that they used to use barrels to transport all of the beer and each barrel was hand made. The combination of consistency in the brewing to the constant preparation of barrels shows the great attention to detail Guinness had in the beginning of their years. They valued their brand so other people also valued and respected their brand. While making our way up the giant pint-sized building, we learned about their new advertising campaign. The slogan for it is “made of more.” This shows that the more you put into a product, the more you get out. It’s over 250 years of history that people are drinking. We also learned about an early branding strategy Guinness had involving the harp. They decided to put that on their beer so people could recognize their brand, because a lot of people couldn’t read at the time.

Another advertising campaign we learned about was the toucan campaign. This is where the slogan was “My goodness, my Guinness!” It was about a zookeeper who was trying to have a beer and all of the animals kept drinking it and taking it from him. In addition to that, we learned about the bar man’s handbook. This eventually turned into the Guinness Book of Records, but it started as a marketing strategy for beer. To me, this is what really sold me on the Guinness brand. I have been looking at the Guinness Book of Records since I was in elementary school, and I never knew that Guinness Brewery branded the book. To draw in children to your brand before they even realize what it is, is really impressive.

This isn’t all that Guinness does with their consumers. They are constantly pulling people’s tweets and posts about Guinness from their social media and displaying it in the Storehouse. This shows that they are listening on social media and really care about their consumer. They also pick awesome people to represent their company, one being Paul Rudd. Heck, they brand themselves so well that the queen even paid them a visit. This is no easy thing to do. Guinness as a whole really sells an experience. I felt important when I was there and I would honestly go back and visit that museum each week because I loved it that much.

Ad #1On our way into the Guinness Storehouse, I saw

an advertisement for Budweiser. This advertisement is definitely different than the advertisements we see in America. In the United States, they tend to focus on the “America,” aspect within the advertisement. With this, they had to use the slogan “Born Fresh.” I don’t think I’m a fan. Going along with brand consistency, this is not consistent to what I see in the United States. The entire

advertising campaign has to be different for this beer while in a different country. I didn’t see one person drinking an American domestic beer the entire duration of the trip. This kind of proves that people in the United States drink this beer for the value rather than the taste. In England, it seems as if people don’t care as much about the cost, and they drink something they’re going to enjoy. After all, the American domestic beer is just as expensive as everything else. Overall, I don’t think this advertising is effective and I think that Budweiser needs to blend into the Irish culture before it sees sales.

Ad #2While shopping for souvenirs, I saw this ad for VIP e-cigs on the wall of the

mall complex. I love it. I think it is absolutely brilliant. This advertisement was on the outskirts of the mall that was surrounded by pubs making this the perfect placement for the advertisement. One of the common ways for people to introduce themselves after drinking is outside while smoking cigarettes. Although I don’t smoke I could relate this directly to the pop culture society we live in today. I think this advertisement would be just as effective in the United States because this seems as if this is a universal pattern. I may be bias though, because any advertisement that adds humor is automatically better in my book.

Thursday 1/8/15Traveling home (no entries)