03 – The ICADS After Pod

Intro

Daryl (Host): So here we are, and welcome to episode three of the Irish Marketing Podcast, powered by IMJ and Tinpot Productions. I’m Daryl from Tinpot, and I think we’d be kind of remiss if we didn’t cover what is an annual high point for many people in the Irish creative community — I’m talking, of course, about the annual ICAD Awards, which this year were held in the National Stadium, and we were there to capture some of the magic, both front of house and behind the scenes. We’re going to bring some of that to you in the second half of the podcast, along with an interview with Neil Rooney, Executive Director of ICAD, recorded prior to the awards during the week. You may also know that TBWA, Publicis, and [studio name uncertain — heard as “On Think”] were amongst the big winners on the night, and you can find a full list of bronze, silver and gold winners on AdWorld. But what we wanted to do was give you a flavour of the event itself — it’s quite a unique awards show in many ways, and we wanted to try and bring that across in the podcast. So here it is: the ICADs after-pod.

On the Awards Floor — Wrestling, Winners, and Crowd Reactions

Sound Engineer: [Mic check]

Martin Steers: My name is Martin Steers. I’m known as the Ballymun Monster, also the Big Fella. I’m from Ballymun, Dublin, Ireland.

Daryl (Host): And you’re here tonight to do what?

Martin Steers: I’m here to wrestle at an awards show — first time wrestling at an award show, so I’m really looking forward to it, very excited.

Daryl (Host): Tell me about other unusual places you’ve wrestled.

Martin Steers: I’ve wrestled in fields, at weddings — now award shows.

Daryl (Host): So what can everybody here tonight expect in terms of entertainment?

Martin Steers: Some high-flying action, and maybe some dancing tonight from the Big Fella himself — you’ll have to stay tuned for that.

MC: [Opening remarks and crowd warm-up] …I think that advertising is a lot like wrestling — there’s just slightly more baby oil in one, I’ll let you decide which. As somebody who works on the other side of things, not usually appearing in ads, it’s amazing to be in a room with all the people who actually make them happen — writing the scripts, putting on the work, getting to do something a little bit different.

MC: Our next award is Branded Social Campaign in the Silver category, and the winner is Forsman & Bodenfors with the Allianz Pet Project. Jerry McBride, Ciaran Walsh, and Neve Murphy — come on up.

Jerry McBride: Ciaran Walsh from Forsman & Bodenfors. I’m Jerry McBride from Forsman & Bodenfors.

Daryl (Host): How do you feel tonight, having picked up an award?

Jerry McBride: Very good indeed — feels nice, feels moreish, I want to go and get a few more.

Daryl (Host): Tell me about the campaign that won.

Jerry McBride: The Allianz Pet Project — we demonstrated the power of pet insurance by finding pets in need of care on crowdfunding sites such as GoFundMe, and in one day, just clearing the totals the owners were looking for, to get their pets healthy again. It’s nice to win awards, but we know we helped a lot of pets up and down the country, and gave a lot of relief to a lot of anxious pet owners. That feels really good.

Ciaran Walsh: It’s lovely — like Jerry was saying, it’s a reward for the hard work, but you get kind of moreish about it, you just want more. It inspires us to do more and more good work.

Daryl (Host): How did your wrestlers fare tonight — were we on the winning team, or how did that go?

Jerry McBride: We were one-for-one on that one. The second gaffer, tequila filly, let us down — he was showboating too much, had easy opportunities to go for the quick one-two-three, but hot-dogged to the crowd too much. He got it in the end.

Daryl (Host): Controversial. There you go — have you enjoyed the wrestling?

Ciaran Walsh: It’s genuinely one of the best experiences of my life, watching that wrestling. I can’t believe it’s been out of my life until tonight — I’ll be getting more into that.

Philip Farmer: Hi, my name is Philip Farmer, lead developer at [studio name uncertain — heard as “On Think”].

Noel Cooper: And my name is Noel Cooper, creative director of [same studio].

Daryl (Host): You guys have had a good night tonight, is that fair to say?

Noel Cooper: It’s surreal, to be honest.

Daryl (Host): How many awards have you picked up so far?

Philip Farmer: I’m not sure, actually — I think we did, yeah.

Noel Cooper: As a small studio, it’s really rewarding in the sense that we put so much heart and soul into everything we do, and it kind of goes unnoticed until these things happen. So for us, it’s really motivating, encouraging, and yeah — it’s just great right now.

Philip Farmer: All that time and effort you put in, as a person, as a studio — everybody does work themselves — and it is nice to actually get the recognition you don’t often look for when the project is finished, but it means a lot to us.

MC: These are the top dogs — the highly coveted Gold ICAD is only given out to groundbreaking work that defines or redefines a field, earning international recognition for Irish creativity. Exceptional work in a league of its own. Our first Gold ICAD for an Earned Media Campaign, and the winner is Publicis, with [names uncertain — heard as “Peter Tobin” / “Ruth McCormick”].

Ger Roe: [Introducing self] Board creative director of Publicis Dublin.

Ger Roe: Creative director of Publicis Dublin.

Ronan Nulty: Ronan Nulty, ECD, Publicis Dublin.

Daryl (Host): I want to get your first impressions — assuming you didn’t know what the setup was going to be tonight — what were your first impressions when you walked in this evening, with the wrestling ring and all the rest of it?

Ger Roe: It was a bit like the GAA had set it up, I’m joking — no, it’s great fun, a lot of fun, away from the norm. I think Neil said it himself — it’s a million miles away from white tablecloths, so it’s as creative as possible. I think the object is to not take ourselves too seriously.

Daryl (Host): Of all the campaigns you’ve worked on, is there any particular standout that’s worn tonight, for yourself?

Ronan Nulty: I think that was a standout, but no — I think we did very well with our Heineken clients. We picked up recognition globally, and that was recognised again tonight — got a gold, and that’s the standard, that a gold is international standard. And that was proven with Heineken picking up so many wins.

MC: More than anything, give a round of applause for yourselves — the sense of community in this room, you’re all cheering for each other and backing each other, and that’s what an industry should be, especially now more than ever. So that’s the awards section — let’s go and have a couple of drinks.

Daryl (Host): And that was how the 2025 ICAD Awards, or at least the presentation part of the awards, concluded. I wanted to say to all the people who were happy to be our interviewees on-site, who were kind enough to give their time — a big thank you, and of course to the ICAD team, who facilitated us on pretty short notice, so thanks to them as well.

Neil Rooney — Executive Director, ICAD

Daryl (Host): And speaking of the team — Neil Rooney is Executive Director at ICAD, and he joined us in studio to give us some background on the ICAD ethos and the awards. For context, this interview was recorded prior to the awards.

Daryl (Host): I’m hearing this will be a fairly formal black-tie affair — no sneakers, no…

Neil Rooney: No Metallica t-shirts — it’s on the invitation. No, we’re trying to be the antithesis of all the other awards programmes. We’re a creative organisation made up of the best creatives working in Ireland, so we want to be as creative as possible, staying true to our own community. So no, it’s very casual — everything we do is trying casual. The whole event is designed to be a community event. There’s very few times the creative community gets together, especially because we bridge production, design and advertising. We take our work very seriously, but not ourselves seriously — well, we don’t take ourselves seriously, but the awards programme itself is run to the very highest standards, and that’s taken very seriously.

Daryl (Host): In terms of judging, it’s clearly about creativity — but how do you judge creativity, because it’s quite a subjective thing, isn’t it? What’s the brief you give your judging panel around how to assess things?

Neil Rooney: It is, and that’s one of the most difficult parts of the entire process — assembling the best judges we possibly can. We spend months on it — there’s a management committee at ICAD dedicated to working on these awards, and they spend months trying to find the very best creatives, not just the best Irish creatives, but each jury has an international creative flown in too, to make sure we uphold the highest standards.

Daryl (Host): Do people get emotional on the night? Not just in terms of victory — there’s obviously disappointment in some cases too. I’ve been to other awards where I’ve seen people get very emotional in all kinds of circumstances, and there’s the drink involved as well.

Neil Rooney: Absolutely — for every high there’s a low. You put your creativity out there to be judged, and sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t. Creatives are somewhat thick-skinned, they’re used to that rejection quite a lot. But — not to go too far off subject — we did a lot of mental health research last year and found that creatives suffer disproportionately when it comes to mental health, stress, anxiety, and depression. Irish creatives are at double the national average when it comes to depression — especially people working in small offices, designers by themselves, freelancers. It’s great to give them an opportunity to get together, almost like an office Christmas party.

Daryl (Host): You’ve been working on this for months, at least, I’m guessing?

Neil Rooney: Yeah, I think we launched in February or April. It feels like I’ve been working on this forever — we get about a month or two off between award cycles.

Daryl (Host): What time do you clock off, then? At what point do you feel like, okay, this has been delivered, I can relax — not that the night is over, just that you feel like you’ve delivered?

Neil Rooney: I’d say it takes a week, honestly — after my speech, I’ll have a couple of cocktails, but there’s a lot to do the next day.

Daryl (Host): So it’s not like, “I’m delegating everything from 10pm onwards, I’m out of the game”?

Neil Rooney: You got me a little bit — a couple of cocktails — but yeah, there’s plenty to do, and plenty of people celebrating around me.

Daryl (Host): So where’s the best after-party? We need to know, for the coach home.

Neil Rooney: We’re having the after-party there on the night now — previously it was always, “okay, we’re in some hotel, and the hotel says everyone out by 9 or 10,” but no, this time we’re asking everybody to stick around, we have the venue till midnight, so plenty of opportunity to get stuck in. We have Marcus O’Leary hosting, and he’ll also DJ afterwards — he’s a great DJ, so we’ll be rocking it till midnight at least.

Daryl (Host): So obviously the ethos is creativity, informality, community — people relax and enjoy themselves. And to enhance the atmosphere, you’ve decided to go with Mexican wrestling, which is obviously something you don’t see at the Oscars.

Neil Rooney: No, you don’t see that at the Oscars, and I don’t know of any other Irish awards programme built around Mexican wrestling bouts. But that’s what we should be doing — we’re a creative community, we want to do things other people don’t. If Red Bull were running an awards programme, I don’t think they’d sit everyone down at white tables for a chat — it’d be DJs, bands, fireworks, explosives. And that’s kind of what we’re doing, just with Mexican wrestling thrown in.

Daryl (Host): And you’re confirming fireworks and explosives as well, just to be clear?

Neil Rooney: Not fireworks exactly — we became known for sparkle cannons the past couple of years, I don’t know if we’re allowed use the confetti ones this year, but there’ll be safe pyrotechnics, let’s say — sparks will fly. We want it to be a surprise for people, to walk in and go, “what on earth is going on here?”

Daryl (Host): That’s always a good reaction.

Neil Rooney: Yeah, yeah.

Daryl (Host): So, “what’s going on” — you’re happy with that?

Neil Rooney: That’s job done.

Daryl (Host): Job done, indeed. That’s it for this week’s Irish Marketing Podcast, recorded, edited and mixed at Tinpot Production Studios. If you’ve got a story you’d like to hear featured on this podcast, get in touch — contact details are in the show notes. Back next Friday, wherever you pick your pods. Thank you for listening.