Ben & Jerry's added to its green credentials recently with the launch of Fairtrade friendly Chocolate Macadamia. The handpicked collection of Fairtrade certified ingredients include cocoa from the Dominican Republic, vanilla from India, and sustainably produced Macadamia Nuts from Malawi, and Caring Dairy from the Netherlands. Everything used is certified Fairtrade which means those involved in production gets a fair price for their harvest. Chocolate Macadamia is available in a freezer near you right now and is the fourth addition to Ben & Jerry's Fairtrade flavour family that also includes Vanilla, Chunky Monkey and Vanilla Toffee Crunch. Is there anything more delicious than a clear conscious and a full belly?
Ben & Jerry’s are looking for thoughts on this new treat – Whoever writes most interesting review of the Fairtrade flavour will win a year’s supply of Ben & Jerry’s, yum! Just log onto ‘Ben & Jerry’s Ireland’ on Facebook to write a review and be in for a chance to win.
It's Friday and we are all pumped for the weekend. There are heaps of great things to look forward too, WAR in Spy tonight, climaXXX in the Sth William tomorrow, local dance heroes Dancepig and Mano are in Andrews Lane tomorrow too and then on Sunday you can unwind at the Flea Market.
Here is a nice tune to get you in the mood. It's from Frankmusik and is called 3 Little Words. Frankmusik has been knocking round the London scene for a while now but recently hooked up with Stuart Price to record his new album. If Stuart Price sounds familiar that's because he is the, let's face it, genius behind 3 of Madonna’s tours, one of her albums and his own work under the monikers Les Rhythmes Digitales, Thin White Duke and Jacques lu Cont. With Stuart on the case, we have no doubt Frank is set for big things.
We always knew our friends at MUZU were on the up, right back from when Thinkhouse helped their launch in 2008. Good to see the people at Sunday Times Style magazine think so too (MUZU listed as ‘Going Up’ in Sunday’s lifestyle bible ). With the rapid decline in quality music available on YouTube thanks to disputes over rights and ownership of copyright material now is Muzu’s time to shine.
You may remember this fantastic video from last year, Daft hands has had nearly 30 million hits since then. Well another Daft Punk wonder has just popped up on our radar in the form of this neat gadget from www.najle.com. Hours of amusement can be had with this, play it over another song to create your own mash-up or tinker with incessantly to annoy colleagues. Winner!
"Today’s youth are more inclined to keep on spending than any other demographic group." Check out the article, by Thinkhouse’s very own Jane McDaid, published in yesterdays Sunday Business Post here.
Friday's joyful tune of the week comes courtesy of a renewed interest from the office in 'Summer Heights High'.
Based on the lives of three very different characters in a public school in Oz, no one could ever imagine how amazing the musical in the last episode could have been.
This track, 'Naughty Girl' is by Mr G, the teacher and has recently been released on iTunes. Brilliant.
One positive to come from all this recession carry on is the 'do- it-yourself attitude' that seems to be gathering pace. Garage sales, the ideas campaign and even knitting circles are all lovely examples of sisters (and brothers) doing it for themselves. It's also still very much the case that one man’s junk is another’s treasure, with all this in mind there has never been a better time to have a look round the house and start turning that unwanted clutter into cash.
The massively popular online auction site eBay.ie has just made it easier than ever to get started. It’s now free to list items up to €1.49 on eBay.ie and you pay 10% Final Value Fee only when the item sells - if it doesn’t sell, there’s no fee at all. eBay has just released figures that show that savvy Irish sellers are making as much as a tenner a week from selling unwanted items so join the ranks and climb aboard the good ship eBay to cast off your unwanted booty, turning it to gold! www.ebay.ie
Facebook's changes to updates and newsfeed functions can definitely be seen as a sign of the times. No doubt a bit shaken by Twitter’s rapid growth Zuckerberg and Co. were quick to make changes to how users 'follow' and interact with each other. Whereas before what you got in your newsfeed was dependent on who you were interacting with (your friends), in the future you will be able to 'follow' specific people directly- friends, brands and public figures (see Obama, Oprah etc..). Sounds familiar doesn't it? It's a fast moving world out there and people are fickle when it comes to social networking, always looking for the next craze, with the massive value placed on Facebook it's imperative they don't miss a beat less they be the first major casualty in a Web 2.0 burst.
This weeks choice was pretty much unanimous, an absolute classic from the amazing Talking Heads. Released in 1983 (what a great year for music) by David Byrne & Co. on the Speaking in Tongues album, this track also weirdly enough featured on the Wallstreet soundtrack - which also included two other Byrne & Eno tracks. You can also find it on the excellent The Best Of collection available from towerrecords.ie for just €9.99.
Talking Heads - This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
Those schemers over at Paddy Power are at it again with probably the most disturbing advert we have ever seen. Carlton Palmer (90’s football icon with go go gadget legs) suddenly appears in the bath to give one unsuspecting punter a Money Back Special…. It’s the ‘Sshhh’ that gets us. Don’t have nightmares, kids!
Travelling on Ryanair may not be the stuff of jet setting dreams but one thing you can’t fault them on is their headline grabbing tactics. Yesterday, Ryanair launched a competition offering €1,000 to whoever can come up with the best new charge in lieu of the recent uproar over the potential toilet charge. You have to admire their chutzpah and ability to turn around a little bit of controversy to their advantage. Accompanying the press release on their news page is a viral that travelled round the interweb mocking their money making ways. Bloggers are always calling on companies to listen to what the masses are saying… perhaps we should be careful what we wish for?
Google ran a competition for schools recently (Doodle For Google) to choose a special St Patrick's Day logo to appear on their homepage in Ireland on Paddies Day. The winner has been chosen, 'My Irish Roots' pretty much speaks for its self. One that didn't make the grade but in our opinion was streets ahead was this little doozie 'Slán go deo, Tíogar beo' from the talented Aoife O'Leary of Mount Mercy College Cork featuring a 'caught in usual dapper pose' Cowen and a Celtic Tiger who has packed his bags. Here it is in all its glory.
We have just added ebay.ie to our brand base here at Thinkhouse and we are excited! In just a few short days we’ve met tons of other regular eBay users, proving the nation’s appetite for a serious bargain.
We are currently hunting down some juicy stories for eBay – basically case-studies of ‘eBayers’ who have interesting stories to tell. If you, or someone you know, has an interesting eBay story to tell (maybe you sold your soul or put your kids through college?) we want to hear about it... So drop us a line at ebay@thinkhousepr.com
eBay.ie was launched in 2005 expanding the company to 38 markets including the U.S., eBay is both a fixed price and auction site where practically anyone can trade practically anything, with deals worth talking about. www.eBay.ie
It’s a knowledge economy and thankfully, our economy celebrates and strongly acknowledges creativity. It’s our time to shine (yay!). That’s why we at Thinkhouse love, and are supporting,www.theideascampaign.ie - a campaign that is ‘by the people, for the people.’
The campaign encourages Irish people to log on to ideascampaign.ie with their various different business ideas. From Manufacturing, construction and technology to retail, education and biosciences – after initial screening - the business ideas will be framed into an action plan that will be presented to Government this April. The campaign strongly encourages business owners and managers contribute possible ideas for economic recovery and to propose solutions to policy or other issues which they believe are impeding on business growth. This allows us, the people of Ireland, steer economic growth. In fairness, if we were leaving it up to BIFFO and his cronies, we’d be waiting..
The Creative Circle awards took place across the pond recently. All the results are up here, you will notice that one particular campaign cleaned up. DDB London's Harvey Nichols Bristol Store Opening won gold honours in all catagories in Poster and Press including best newspaper campaign. It was a great idea to utilise Bristol's 'favourite son' for this campaign and the end result looks fantastic.
It's that special day of the week again and we are packed full of that Friday feeling. This may come across in our choice for this weeks TOTW. It comes from Lonely Island (the same peeps behind Dick In A Box which also had help from JT) and is called Jizz In My Pants. 'Nuff Said.
The number of mystical importance to the Celts, of truth to the Jews, and the perfect number to the Chinese, 3 is now Irish Golf’s magic number. 3, Ireland’s fastest growing network, has demonstrated hope in restoring the Irish Open‘s glory days with the announcement of its title sponsorship of the country’s flagship Golf Championships for the next three years. The 3 Irish Open takes place at Baltray on May 14th -17th and aims to attract some of the world’s top players to Co. Louth with sweeteners such as a private plane at their disposal. A new prize fund of €3million was also announced yesterday, half a million up on last year, quite the magic number.
3 MD, Robert Finnegan said it was his intention during 3’s sponsorship, from now until 2011, to turn the tournament he referred to as ‘a sleeping giant’ into one of the PGA European Tours flagship championships. We for one are excited. www.three.ie
It's been well documented that Twittter has been first to hear of major news stories recently, plane crashes, Gaza updates and lots of entertainment news. Never ones to miss a technology opportunity, Sky News (whose TV channel is becoming more and more web based) have appointed a dedicated ‘Twitter Correspondent’ to scour Twitter for potentially breaking news stories. Tech Crunch has the full story today.
The Memo from Sky News: THE POWER OF TWITTER: The Twitter phenomenon continues to explode. A phono with an eyewitness in Lahore yesterday came to us through Twitter. Last night’s breaking story on the death of a Briton in the Alps came to us from Twitter. The first phone on the Buffalo plane crash came from Twitter. The first photo of the Hudson River rescue came from Twitter. Convinced? The Online team is using Ruth Barnett as a “Twitter correspondent” - scouring Twitter for stories and feeding back, giving Sky News a presence in the Twittersphere. If you don’t understand Twitter and would like a demonstration of its power as a newsgathering tool, the Grand Master of Twitter, Jon Gripton, is running a session in Meeting Room 5 next Tuesday at 1400.
Follow Sky News' Ruth Barnett on Twitter here. Follow Thinkhouse on Twitter here.
Twitter was a flutter last night with news of the Choice Music Prize and who took the much respected title home. We were only delighted to hear the honor went to one of our favourite artists Jape for his Ritual album. The 10 tracker gets serious air time in THHQ and we have always been big fans of his live shows (his Picnic performance last year was nothing short of epic) so despite our love of Fight Like Apes, Messiah J and The Expert, Openheimer and the very talented R.S.A.G we were still chuffed for the little fella who is, it has to be said, as charming as he is talented.
Ritual is available from Tower Records stores and towerrecords.ie for just €11.99
We’ve been fans of Tower Records for ages. Now we can be fans in cyberspace too…lucky. The Tower Facebook Fan Page has just gone live packed with video’s, pics and the latest news and free gig listings from the store as well as RSS feeds for some of the best music sites out there. There will be reviews going on there soon too, from the muso staff and music fans alike! Do it. Become a fan… you know you want to. Tower Records Ireland Fanpage Tower Records on Youtube Towerrecords.ie
We have long had a deep love for all things 80’s in Thinkhouse, so when we got the news from Paramount that Dynasty was making its debut on DVD, the shoulder pad quotient in the office rose considerably.
Exploring the conflicts, passions, motives and tensions of the Carrington family, the show’s immensely entertaining plot lines follow the scheming and conniving members of the oil-rich clan as they seek to maintain their positions of wealth and power and destroy their enemies in the process.
With a cast including Joan Collins as our style icon Alexis Carrington Colby, Linda Evans as her nemesis Krystle Carrington (is this where the inspiration came for the Dublin nightclub?) and Heather Locklear as Krystle’s niece Sammy Jo and a producer of the legends in the form of Aaron Spelling what’s not to love.
Seasons 1 & 2 are out this Friday, 6th March and available from Tower Records Stores, towerrecords.ie, and all good DVD retailers nationwide.
Thinkhouse is a Dublin based PR company specialising in youth communications. Keep up to date with all of our latest news and see what's currently floating our collective boat on the World Wide Web.
Ben & Jerry's added to its green credentials recently with the launch of Fairtrade friendly Chocolate Macadamia. The handpicked collection of Fairtrade certified ingredients include cocoa from the Dominican Republic, vanilla from India, and sustainably produced Macadamia Nuts from Malawi, and Caring Dairy from the Netherlands. Everything used is certified Fairtrade which means those involved in production gets a fair price for their harvest. Chocolate Macadamia is available in a freezer near you right now and is the fourth addition to Ben & Jerry's Fairtrade flavour family that also includes Vanilla, Chunky Monkey and Vanilla Toffee Crunch. Is there anything more delicious than a clear conscious and a full belly?
