Rick St. Vincent Ireland was a tough sell It was hard a real challenge convincing Americans to seriously consider doing business in Ireland. Our campaign set out to redress images of Ireland held at that time that Ireland was industrially backward. And potential investors were unable to differentiate between the troubles in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The " Young Europeans " campaign was a breakthrough In the early 1980s, Ireland faced a "brain drain." Young people needed jobs and were leaving the country to find them. The campaign showed a young, well- educated , vibrant work force. No country featured its own people in its advertising. We had been running the "29% Return on Investment" campaign for years . We now had to talk about talent. Ireland has its human resources to sell as well. This is a very powerful message. How did IDA measure or evaluate its success? When we started to run local, all-news radio and outdoor billboards, we were contacted by the KSTS cable TV station in San Jose, California. They wanted to do a story on Irish development. It became a half- hour documentary entitled "The Greening of Ireland." That kind of value is hard to come by. The IDA knew how to leverage their stories. Advertising supports direct sales efforts IDA representatives needed support. We also used 60-second commercials on local Sunday morning TV programs such as Face the Nation and Meet the Press . These can be purchased at a very reasonable cost and beamed locally. In the process, we stretched the advertising funding by concentrating on New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Los Angeles. It made a difference for sales calls. Periodically we sent direct mail. Ireland's advertising activity stimulated competitive regions to also conduct advertising and this raised awareness for the whole category of regional advertising for foreign direct investment and location. The great challenge for regional development agencies marketing in the U.S. In the beginning, IDA identified its primary goal as bringing home more jobs for the local Irish population. With that in mind, they wisely chose McConnells Ltd., a Dublin-based agency, for the initial efforts. They did a great job, too. But when the emphasis switched to reaching American manufacturers, IDA came to our New York agency for planning and creativity. I think the biggest point of all is this: The solution is not to direct the advertising strategy from overseas, but from the region you are advertising in. For example, we had to be sensitive to advertising messages soliciting American business to locate in Ireland when there was high unemployment in the U.S. in the late 1970s and 1980s, as well as be highly selective and creative in our media selections. We put IDA people on the radio and televised interview shows so they could handle questions about the perception of "stealing American jobs." They were able to direct the attention to the job creation in Europe that did not take away from U.S. employment markets. | 
