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TV3 Rebranding – Now on hold

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
TV3 Rebranding – Now on hold

I am definitely not a branding expert and while I am currently trying to learn a little more about the intricacies of branding, I will still guess and interpret my way through this This is Odd piece. ;-) It is about TV3s rebranding.

TV3 was bought in July 2015 by Virgin Media for EUR 80mio. Before that TV3 started in 2008 and was a struggling commercial competitor to RTE’s tax-payer-funded semi-state TV empire. In 2014, TV3 had losses of 7mio and in 2015 of 17mio, so things could have been better for them, but Virgin Media’s buyout of the TV station changed the picture.

Virgin Media has an even more illustrious past: There were originally NTL and Telewest in the UK. They merged and then bought Virgin Mobile UK. The three companies then signed a deal with Richard Branson that gave them the right to use Branson’s brand “Virgin”. So Branson doesn’t own any part of the company, but gets money for his name (a license deal) but when the Cable TV company UPC in Ireland became Virgin Media, Richard Branson was paraded around like he was the boss. Virgin Media, however is owned by Liberty Global, a huge American TV and telecommunications company. UPC also was owned by Liberty Global, hence the deal to merge the Irish UPC into the Virgin Media brand. So Virgin Media provides Telecommunications services, Cable TV and then bought TV3 to add TV services to their Irish portfolio. In 2015 TV3 bought the UTV TV channel, which was created only a very small number of years before and had failed miserably. (I could make it more complicated by explaining how TV3 had licensed ITV content, but lost that to UTV, when UTV’s channel launched in Ireland. ironic that it all came back to TV3 when TV3 bought UTV. But I don’t want to make it tooo difficult to follow. :-) )

That bought UTV channel was renamed into “Be3” in January 2017 to create the three stations TV3, 3e and Be3. A somewhat odd and inconsistent branding mess, one could say and Virgin Media wanted to sort it out by rebranding all of them to VM1, VM2 and VM3. In autumn of 2018 all the new names were meant to be adopted. But this week (08 March) TV3 declared that a rebranding was not the highest priority right now.

The new mother company and the available money and TV3s new confidence meant that TV3 successfully won broadcasting rights to all Six Nations Rugby Games from 2018-2021 in addition they still have broadcasting rights for UEFA Champions League and a number of other football tournaments. And then there are the drama series that TV3 has access to.

All these successes are linked to TV3 and it took a good bit of an effort to create the brand link of series and sports events with TV3. And if everything got renamed (probably for a high cost) now the branding would have to be created from scratch.

So does it make sense or does it not make sense to postpone the rebranding? I think it probably makes sense, but remember that I said that I am no expert! ;-)

Media, , , , , ,

Phoenix Park is NOT the biggest City Park in Europe

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Phoenix Park is NOT the biggest City Park in Europe

Have you ever heard someone saying that Phoenix Park is the biggest city park in Europe? I heard that a long time ago and for many years, I said it to every visitor who came to see me in Ireland. But one day I looked into it and found out that this is actually not true!

Phoenix Park has 707 hectares (1,750 acres) and the largest city Park in Europe is the Lee Valley Park in London with 4,046 hectares.
Then I read that it was the largest city park in a capital of Europe. But Lee Valley Park is in a capital and even if you don’t count that one, then Richmond Park in London with 955 hectares is still bigger.
I kept searching and found that Phoenix Park is allegedly the largest ENCLOSED park in Europe. But that is not true either, because Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley in France has 5,440 hectares and is therefore much larger than our little Phoenix Park.

So, what is the “trick”? …here it comes:
Phoenix Park is the largest ENCLOSED PUBLIC park in a CAPITAL city in Europe.

Isn’t this as if you said Dublin Airport is the biggest airport in the world … out of all the airports that are in a city that starts with D, uses Euro for currency and has a Spire.

Trickery!!

Dublin, Odd, Tourism, , , , ,

Bread – The drama!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Bread – The drama!

I never thought I would write a “This is Odd!” piece about bread, but this week’s events certainly warrant a story about odd behaviour and bread and more,

When this week the end of the world was announced because there could be a storm and snow, people went into panic mode. The Red weather alarm is flagged up the second time. The first time, Dublin wasn’t really hit by Storm Ophelia in the way it was predicted and the snow and “live-threatening Blizzard conditions” this time? I wouldn’t say it was a RED condition, but, hey, I am no expert on bad weather.

Back to the bread though: As soon as Yellow and then Red warnings were announced, people RUSHED to super markets and bought bread like there will be no tomorrow. First it was only bread, but then it also spread to ALL sorts of meat and eggs (!!) and bananas!

Interestingly, the tins and pasta and all other durable foods, that are normally suggested for disaster preparation, weren’t in the same demand. It either suggests that people were not thinking OR that they didn’t really expect the weather apocalypse to last THAT long. The “not thinking” part refers to the quite short shelf life of bread. Unless you freeze it (Just lop it into a bucket in the backyard in weather like this!?) you will not enjoy the bread for long. But there is also the other question WHY do they all want to eat sooooo much bread? I don’t eat that much bread, so I wouldn’t know, but do people think that bread is the most important nutritional item in the home? They MIGHT not be able to buy it for one or two days. If they consequently buy three loafs to make up for it, does that mean they buy bread normally EVERY single day? Wow!

I think the best “get rich quick” scheme in Ireland might be to open a bakery! ;-)

Irish, Odd, , ,

Clontarf Seawater Baths to open

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Clontarf Seawater Baths to open

I was surprised reading that because a “Seawater Bath” is not the thing that I would have expected to open for business in cold February. Well and then there also is the big question if a sea water swimming pool makes sense at any time in Ireland. But David Cullen (Publican, Hotelier and owner of Seafield Hotel and Spa in Co. Wexford and of Turk’s Head in Dublin) is clearly of a different opinion.

He is leasing the baths for EUR 25k per year from Dublin City and has invested a whopping amount of 2.4mio in renovating the baths. And if you still question his sanity, I can tell you that he is not relying on the attractiveness and weather-compatibility of the baths alone, but a possibly bigger attraction and revenue generator is the fact that he has a pub license for the building that is next to he baths and where he will run a bar and restaurant. So even if nobody will ever enter the water, he will have a business.

Find out some more information, including a picture in this RTE News article.

Dublin,

Rabo Direct Ireland is closing shop and leaving us behind

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Rabo Direct Ireland is closing shop and leaving us behind

There was a time when the Rabo Direct bank was the new and cheeky kid on the block. A bank that didn’t have complicated and sneaky rules and that gave customers what they really wanted from a bank. 90,000 people became (or are still) customers but over the last few years it got quiet around Rabo Direct. No more advertisement, no new attractive offers, just quiet. This week we found out why: Rabobank lost interest in Ireland and on Wednesday they announced the final chapter, which is their closure and departure from Ireland by 16 May.

Surprisingly only 31 employees will be let go, but 90,000 customers and sizeable 3 billion of deposits are affected.

The bank explained that the reason for the departure is a decision by their Dutch parent Rabobank Group to simplify the business model across the world and reduce costs, but you can’t help it and think that Ireland was just not interesting enough anymore. Will we end up again with just the “old style” banks like AIB, BoI, Ulster Bank and Permanent TSB. The bunch that was always here and that doesn’t know what innovative services and customer focus means? :-O

More details of this story is on this RTE News website.

Economy, Irish, , , , , , ,
 
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