Ballymaloe Foods has been named the winner of The Love Irish Food Brand Development Award for 2018 and awarded a fully funded €85,000 advertising campaign. The award is run in conjunction with Exterion Media and Owens DDB Advertising.
The award win will provide Ballymaloe Foods with €75,000 in advertising space, scheduled across Exterion Media’s Retail portfolio and Retail digital network. The extensive out-of-home campaign will appear nationally for two weeks and includes print production and digital animation. Additionally, Owens DDB Advertising Agency will provide the winner with up to €10,000 creative bursary to create and develop the outdoor advertising campaign.
This year’s Brand Development Award also marks a €1million investment over the past 7 years from Love Irish Food to support Irish food and drink brands with their media and creative content – making it the biggest national food award of its type in the Irish food industry.
Ballymaloe Foods, a family-owned and run Irish business based in Cork, started from a family relish recipe being made for local shops and restaurants. The Irish brand has quickly grown and now produces a range of versatile relishes, chutneys and sauces from locally sourced ingredients which can be found in kitchens throughout the country and abroad.
According to Maxine Hyde, Marketing Manager and granddaughter to Ballymaloe Foods recipe creator Myrtle Allen: “Winning the Love Irish Food Brand Development Award means the world to us. As a family-owned Irish business it is very important for our brand to be aligned with Love Irish Food and the work they do to support and highlight local food brands that are made in Ireland.
“The award win will give us the opportunity to reach a broader audience and help highlight our Irish heritage and local ingredients to drive brand awareness and sales. We are currently in a very competitive marketspace with the amount of imported produce coming into Ireland. We want to encourage people to support local brands knowing that these products have been locally produced and contribute so much to local communities throughout Ireland.”
According to Executive Director of Love Irish Food, Kieran Rumley: “2018 marked a €1million investment through the Brand Development Award and we at Love Irish Food are very proud to have helped Love Irish Food brands increase their brand exposure and drive sales. We had the greatest amount of entries to the award this year since the formation of the award and the quality of the shortlist brands was exceptionally high. This is a reflection of the importance of the award and the benefit to Love Irish Food members, especially as we approch Brexit. Ballymaloe Foods has continued to actively develop its brand and extend its product range in recent years and we look forward to seeing how the advertising campaign will help them further develop the brand and drive sales.”
Antoinette O’Callaghan, Marketing Manager, Exterion Media, adds: “The Brand Development Award is hugely important to us at Exterion Media and it’s always a fantastic opportunity for an Irish brand to increase their promotional efforts. Ballymaloe Foods have an amazing local brand story to share and we are excited to see the campaign come to life early next year.”
The Brand Development Award was launched by Love Irish Food in 2012 at a time when Ireland and its food industry was under threat with unemployment at 15% and up to 70,000 people emigrating per annum. The award was established to help locally produced brands establish and distinguish themselves in the Irish market.
