Des Kavanagh

Bloomsday June 16th is a hugely important day in the cultural life of Dublin.

A celebration of the geography of the city and the geography of the mind.

Unfortunately, the day is not as joyful for all our city’s residents. There are hundreds of children begging on the streets of Dublin every day. They all have different stories. They all share one thing in common. They are vulnerable. And they are voiceless.

We do pro bono work for the children’s charity the ISPCC. They are actively involved in working with these children. We try to help whenever we can.

This ad depicts the thoughts of a child begging on the streets of Dublin on Bloomsday . It gives him a voice. It asks the reader to look and see and hear again. To recognise that, even in the midst of celebration, there is another city. One that cannot be overlooked. That needs our urgent attention.

Click to enlarge

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Emma Fielding & Laurence O’Byrne

The latest ad for Deep RiverRock goes on air this week. Directed by Richie Smyth, the ad involved taking over the town of Tinahely in Wicklow for 2 surprisingly sunny days. There was a diverse cast on set from an old age pensioner with a mohawk, ballet bikers, a 100% irish pig and the kind of road workers that the Corpo would be proud of. The catchy track for the ad is ‘Science Tree’ by song writer Jessica Grace off her ‘Asleep on the Good Foot album’.

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Sometimes you get approached in the street by somebody with a clipboard. Sometimes you notice the coin-box at the till when you’re queuing. And sometimes someone you know is affected by a tragedy that draws your attention. The fact of the mater remains that there are a lot of charities out there vying for your attention and it’s getting increasingly difficult to have their voice heard.

Charities that work with children are always going to be close to people’s hearts, but the Make-A-Wish foundation was a veritable no-brainer to support for Ogilvy & Mather Ireland (in conjunction with MediaEdge CIA). They have one simple aim – to grant the wishes of children aged between 3 and 18 years living with a life-threatening illness. A wish granted is true magic for the child providing respite from their normal routines of hospitals, doctors and treatment.

It’s one thing to support a cause, but it’s quite another to convince world-class Irish & international illustrators, TV production companies, animators, television networks, media owners, printers, ordinary joe-soaps and no less than John Hurt to chip in all their time and services free, gratis and for nothin’. The press, outdoor & TV that resulted is something we should all be very proud of.

Kudos to all involved, but special hat-tip has to go to Laurence O’Byrne & Emma Fielding who’s tireless burning of the midnight oil on top of an already heavy workload was quite something to behold. Well done you two.

Please visit makeawish.ie for more.

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Des Kavanagh, Ogilvy & Mather

(a few thoughts on what’s to come after all that’s happened)

It was, 5O year’s after it’s first brilliant dawning, the last dying of the space age light. Suddenly the bright promise of tomorrow was dimmed and silenced by the brutal crashing of just about everything. And, oh, how most of us raged against that dying light. All of a sudden, all our tomorrows were looking less than rosy. We weren’t happy. We who had been brought up to believe one very simple truism “The future is always better”. Better Technology. Increased leisure-time. Less Work. Blah. Blah. Blah.

All of a horrible sudden the naivety and dishonesty of that truism was carved into stark relief. And fear crept inside so many of us, corrupting and controlling our every thought. The future was scary. Unpredictable. Out of control. What were we all to expect? At this point let me add some boo hoo hoos to my earlier chorus of blah blah blahs.

The future, you see, does not exist. It cannot give us sustenance. Or provide us with hope. The future does not exist. We make the future. We are the parent and it is the child. So. The future has every right to expect us to work hard to ensure it’s success. We must take responsibility for all that may happen. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the future. To give it a chance. Technologically. Ecologically. Every kind of logically you can imagine. Forget fear. Stop asking the banal question, what can we expect from the future. Be liberated by this supposed catastrophe.

Create something. Whatever space or area you want to work in, do so.
New Media. Old media. This channel. That channel. Just labels. They define nothing. They certainly cannot define the future. Because, remember? The Future does not exist. Now, let’s make sure we live to its expectations.

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What on earth is this?

And this?

And this? Answers at bottom of page.

How do you get people to cook meat and chicken for the right amount of time and to wash hands and utensils properly while preparing food?

Well, if you’re Safefood, you scare them. Preferably half to death.

To do this, go to Ardmore studios for three days. Spend 16 hours a day with a high speed photosonic camera and lenses longer than Wicklow.

This allows you to enter a hitherto unseen world of bacteria that awaits the unsuspecting household cook.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Alternatively just do what the ads tell you and you’ll be fine.

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