Irish Independent Sculpts Racehorse From Past Paper Editions To Promote Its Galway Races Coverage & Partnership

To promote The Irish Independent’s sponsorship of the 2022 Galway Races Summer Festival (Rásaí na Gaillimhe) and its coverage of the meeting, the Republic Of Ireland media stalwart sculpted a life-sized racehorse out of past editions of the newspaper’s The Galway Punter racing supplement.

For this ambient strand of the newspaper’s multi-channel campaign, the Irish Independent linked with Dublin based creative agency The Public House and Sculp and to build the paper racehorse.

Running within the Belgium based Mediahuis media brand’s ongoing ‘We’re All Over It’ marketing campaign – which debuted in summer 2021 across press, outdoor, digital and radio platforms – the new sculptural campaign seeks to demonstrate just how passionate the organisation is about horse racing in Ireland.

For the 25 to 31 July meeting, the 2.7m high horse statue was placed outside the Champagne Bar at the Ballybrit Racecourse (in Galway, Ireland) on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of the festival, before it was moved to a new location at the racecourse on Thursday.

Another related strand of the Irish Independent’s festival campaign saw it run a social media based competition challenging readers to name the horse in order to be in with a chance to win a weekend break at The Galmont Hotel & Spa.

“As Official Media Partner of the Galway Races Summer Festival, we are delighted to see the ‘We’re all over it’ campaign roll-out again this year with an added activation of the life-size horse to coincide with the return of crowds to Ballybrit. We hope it’s well received,” commented Mediahuis Ireland Senior Marketing Manager Cliona O’Reilly.

The Public House’s Production Lead on the project Trevor Nolan explained: “Having the opportunity to take last year’s successful campaign concept into the real world and create a striking display piece was both a fun and challenging project. It’s great when a client such as Mediahuis shares the enthusiasm for wanting to grow an already solid idea into something more, and the final result we achieved working with Sculp is certainly something all three parties can be proud of.”

Sculp Creative Director Marc Kelly added: “The opportunity for the team to bring this unique sculpture to life was something we relished and embraced. The enthusiasm for the brief presented to us by The Public House was evident from day one and we really wanted to reflect this through an impactful, professionally detailed piece. We pushed our experience with design, making and engineering to the limit and everyone is really delighted with the end result.”

The activation was created for parent company client Mediahuis Ireland’s Head Of Marketing & Promotion Lee Martin and Senior Marketing Manager Cliona O’Reilly by a team at agency The Public House which included Executive Creative Director Colin Hart, Senior Art Director Sam Caren, Art Director / Production Lead Trevor Nolan, Designer Molly Devlin, Senior Copywriter Mikey Curran, Copywriter Karl Graham, Junior Copywriter Jack O’Brien, Producer Steve Battle, Managing Director Catriona Campbell, Strategy Head Sarah Walsh, Account Director Terri Turner and Senior Account Executive Divya Mathias.

Production was handled by Sculp with Creative Director/Sculptor Marc Kelly, Accounts Manager Helen Power, Production Assistant Luke Kelly and Paint/Graphics Lead Dara James.

Comment

The Irish Independent is owned by Mediahuis: a newspaper and magazine publishing, distribution, printing, TV, radio and online media company founded in 2014 with brands spread across Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg.

As well as the Irish Independent, The Public House also boasts a strong set of flagship clients including EPIC, FBD, Jameson and Paddy Power. We will leave it up to you to decide whether this activation brings to life the independent creative agency’s principle that ‘Boring Doesn’t Sell’.