Media Works

Henry Deals Adland a €34.5m Blow - 23.11.2009

This article is currently on Adworld.ie

The Irish advertising and marketing industry can blame Thierry Henry’s act of tricherie for the loss of up to €34.5m in revenues next year according to the leading media agency MediaWorks.

According to Paul Moran, managing director of MediaWorks, Irish agencies could have benefitted from a huge one-off windfall as brands scrambled to become involved in Ireland’s participation in the World Cup in South Africa.

Moran says that media revenues could easily have been in the order of €25m while associated production and creative revenues could have weighed in at around €5.5m. An additional €4m could have been generated through various direct marketing initiatives, according to Moran.

The wider economic impact of Ireland qualifying for the World Cup could also have been significant. Ireland’s participation in Italia’90, for example, has been linked by some economists as one of the starting points for the Celtic Tiger years and it contributed significantly towards the “feel good factor” that was evident for much of the early and mid-1990s.

Meanwhile the controversial match on Wednesday night was a roaring success for RTE. According to the national broadcaster, the match overtook Ireland’s Grand Slam victory over Wales and Ryan Tubridy’s first night as host of the Late Late Show as the most watched TV programme of the year. For all adults the match and coverage on RTE2 rated an average of 27.7 TVRS or 956,000 viewers while at its peak it hit 1.40m. This compares with 25.2 TVRS for the Grand Slam match and 25.41 for the Late Late Show.