Client: O'Donnells Hand Cooked Crisps

Project: Grey's Anatomy Sponsorship

Primary Platform: RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player

Objective 

In 2017, O'Donnells was the #1 hand cooked crisp brand in Ireland, and had been for the past five years*. With six award-winning flavours, they were also the joint 3rd biggest crisp brand on the market. They mainly marketed their product through consumer shows, with a combined footfall of 500,000, and glossy magazines.

Brand awareness was low**, the was no new product development in the pipeline and yet there were high growth expectations. Their objective was two-fold:

• O'Donnells needed to grow brand awareness.
• They, in turn, needed to grow purchase consideration for O'Donnells crisps.
• They wanted to reach a mass audience.
• And, they wanted to be able amplify any activity on social media.

Additional marketing budget was allocated to allow them to target a broader audience.

What was the opportunity?  

O'Donnells work on their brand profile told them that 71% of their customers were 25-44, 80% were ABC1, 57% were female and they had a slight bias to Munster, Dublin and the rest of Leinster***. In terms of media consumption, their brand profile was active on social media, consumed glossy magazines and would be aware of brands that advertised on TV, in cinemas and outdoor****.

The opportunity to sponsor a "big brand" property like Grey's Anatomy allowed them to target a similar audience to their brand profile, with 25-44-year-old women being the main audience for this show. It allowed them to reach a mass audience quickly, which was one of their key campaign objectives, and it was within the budget available to broaden their audience. Sponsorship also gives an opportunity for a brand to activate the partnership on social media with new content to share with their audience.

Why RTÉ?

O'Donnells wanted to create stings that were fun, informal and that would make the viewer take notice of the sting. They also needed the stings to fit in with the Grey's Anatomy theme and adapted them so that they fitted seamlessly. The stings needed to be something that the viewer would want to see again and again so humour was an essential element of the sings.

The RTÉ Creative team was able to bring the sponsorship to life by creating a series of sponsorship stings set in a hospital featuring a unique central character, Gráinne. Gráinne was a 30-year-old Resident Surgeon at Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital in Seattle. Having survived her intern year, she was well on the way to fully qualifying in her surgical speciality.

But Gráinne already had another speciality that she brought over with her from Ireland when she came to work in the USA: a deep and abiding love of O’Donnells Crisps, and an obsession with Taste Above All Else.

The stings fitted perfectly with the show in terms of setting and tone, with McMoody (the attending surgeon and other main character) delivering the drama. Gráinne's reactions brought the humour which gave the stings great rewatchability. The creative team were able to create a number of variations (4 x 10" and 6 x 7") which prevented wear out.