To prove that no one does luxury quite like Chanel, the French fashion powerhouse hosted an over-the-top weekend beginning January 20 at the Wynn Las Vegas for 200 celebrities, V.I.P. clients, and editors. Flown in from New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco on private planes, the guests were invited to the casino capital for the launch of an eight-day installation, “Numéros Privés,” a multifaceted sensory experience in itself.

Every element of the event—which was two years in the making—was custom designed and built under the direction of Chanel and executed on site by production company Prodject. Construction took a week, and the result was an immersive environment filled with subtle and overt references to the luxury brand.

According to a company spokesperson, the invitation-only “Numéros Privés”—or, hidden numbers—was created to “surprise and delight both new and existing clients” and serve as a celebration of Chanel in Las Vegas. “Las Vegas is an extremely significant market for Chanel,” said the spokesperson. “The city is such an important entry point for first-time clients who experience their first Chanel moment here.” The fashion house operates three boutiques in the city, including one at the Bellagio that recently reopened after an eight-month renovation.

In Vegas, a location known for its high stakes, Chanel’s extravagant gamble served as a way for it to reinforce its ties with the community and its burgeoning Asian clientele. The event, timed to open during the Chinese New Year festivities, also emphasized the importance numbers have both in Chinese culture and the history of Chanel. Decorating an array of elements, from the invitation to the floors of the exhibition dinner, Coco Chanel’s lucky numbers—5, 2.55, and 31—were more than conspicuous and fitting, really, given the tie-in with Vegas culture.

“The importance of numbers made this a perfect connection between the two,” the spokesperson said.

Comprised of 10 rooms, the exhibition was an experiential tour through the classic house codes. For instance, one space was filled with Chanel Bearbrick dolls and matching wallpaper, while another displayed jewelry among sculpted topiaries. There was also a recreation of Coco Chanel’s apartment at 31 Rue Cambon, and a carnival room had claw machines, where more than one guests attempted to grab little Chanel gift bags using the mechanical arms.

“It’s like you’re walking into different vibes of Chanel in every room,” said Lily Collins as she toured the space alongside other celebrities like Jessica Alba, Rachel Zoe, Alexa Chung, and Anouck Lepère. “You truly feel like you get an essence of the entire collection, of the entire vibe of the company, and the culture and history of it.”

Other whimsical touches throughout the weekend included chauffeured Escalades branded with the double-C logo and black-and-white goodie bags containing vouchers for a complimentary manicure and pedicure at the hotel space. (The salon’s usual nail polishes were replaced with those by Chanel for the weekend.)

Friday night’s dinner, which followed the exhibit opening, was Asian centric and included an assortment of dim sum—dumplings, pork and shrimp shumai, and pork pot stickers with soy chili dipping sauce—braised sliced prime short rib in Szechuan peppercorn sauce with garlic spinach, and crispy sea bass with sizzling scallions, cilantro, and soy sauce. For dessert, a quartet of confections was served: passion fruit and lemongrass gelee with green apple and pandan mousse as well as three combinations of popsicles, including red bean and chocolate, green tea and white chocolate, and passion fruit and white chocolate.

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Public relations is just one of those things. 

It’s something that every company knows they should do, but only see two ways of making it happen — hire an expensive PR firm or cross their fingers and hope for the best. The latter is, well, not really much of a PR strategy. There is a third option, however.

Bootstrapping.

I’ve written in the past about how to bootstrap your PR efforts, but never really dug into the nitty gritty. It’s a time intensive process, but if you’re up for the challenge, getting coverage in some of the top outlets in the world is possible, and even likely. I’ve tried many methods, failed many times, and ultimately boiled it down to this process.

Here it is, Moz family.

Step 1 – The Mirror Check

The first step is what I like to call the mirror check, something that gets glossed over far too often. You need to put yourself in the mind of a writer. People don’t want to read shit stories, and writers don’t want to write them; it’s a simple relationship. Before you dig into the rest of the process, make sure you’ve got a story that you’d be interested in reading. Honestly. If you can’t look yourself in the mirror and say that you would love to read what you’re pitching, hold off.

Save your time, and more importantly, everyone else’s.

Step 2 – Building Your Publication List

Once you’ve got a solid story, it’s time to start building your list of publications. I’ve found it helpful to break it into larger categories, such as tech blogs, mainstream media, local press, niché publications and so on. That’ll give you a good outline to begin digging into the specific publications you’re looking to reach out to.

It’s important to note that PR isn’t a numbers game, as many think. It’s a quality and relevance game, not a shotgun spray. To determine relevance, you really need to engulf yourself in the content of the publication — read at least 5 articles. Without reading the content, you aren’t able to truly understand the writing style and typical news they cover. Once you’ve done this, add only the publications that would be interested in your story, and omit those that wouldn’t. It’ll save you time when we get to the next step.

Step 3 – Finding the Right Contact

This is so important that it deserves its own step. Again, it’s all about relevance, even more so when you’re looking for the right person to pitch your story to. What’s the sweet spot for one writer, may be completely irrelevant to another. If you pitch the wrong one, well, you blew your shot. You’ve got to dig deep on this step. Here’s the info that my list usually contains:

The first three fields are fairly self explanatory, then we get into the meat of it. The “relevance point” refers to the overlap with the writer’s past work. A good way of finding the right person to pitch your story to, is to go to the publication and search for relevant content.

For example, if I’m looking pitch an article on company culture, the best way to find the right person is to search the publication for the term “Company Culture”. Crazy, I know. This will bring up a great list of past content that you can dig through to find the writer that normally covers the type of story you’re pitching.

Once you’ve got the right person, the real investigative work starts happening. Depending on the publication, when you click the author’s name, you’re usually taken to a page with their contact info, bio, social profiles and the like. If you’re not as lucky, you’ll have to resort to a good ol’ Google search (or Bing search to find what you’re looking for.

For each author, I like to make sure I’ve got at least their Twitter handle, Linkedin profile, Facebook profile and personal site (if they have one). What this allows you to do, is not only track down an email address in most cases, but it also allows you to gain a good understanding of their personality. Make note of things they like, what they’ve done recently, where they’re located — it’s all publicly available, and goes a long way in making you stand out. Like anyone else, writers appreciate when you take the time to do it right. Drop these hints of deep research in your pitch.

Finally, if you aren’t able to track down their email address, use tools like Rapportive to help in guessing the right contact address. If it clicks and data appears, you’ve got the right email address.

Step 4 – Crafting Your Pitch and Subject Line

A lot of people mess up on the pitch, the eventual email that gets sent off. They get wordy, dance around the purpose of the email, attach a press release and ultimately fail miserably. Like this kid. The pitch needs to show relevance, be compelling and maintain brevity.

To provide an example, here’s a pitch that I’ve used in the past:

Subject: Introducing Leatherbound, An eBook Search Engine Built in 48-Hours

Hope you’re well, *editor name.*

Wanted to pass this along for a potential post on *publication name,* as I thought it was a good fit after your post on climbing eBook sales.

The Pitch - We’ve been knee-deep in code for the past 48 hours during Rails Rumble, a worldwide developer competition. The result, a beautiful web app called Leatherbound that makes the search for eBooks simple, powerful, and efficient.

The Problem - The reading experience on Kindle, iBook and Nook apps are nearly identical, yet it’s extremely tedious to find the book you’re looking for, at the price you want for each platform. Sometimes the book is cheaper on Kindle, other times iBookstore doesn’t have what you’re looking for, but Nook does. That’s where Leatherbound comes into play.

The site is dead simple, as it should be. Enter any book title or author and Leatherbound pulls book results on the iBookstore, Kindle and Nook in a single click, along with price, availability, description, etc.

Here’s a good example of the site at work – not bad for 48 hours of work, if I do say so myself. ; ) 

Feel free to reach out if you need more info or want to chat, thought it’d be an awesome post for you guys.

Cheers,

There’s a few subtleties to highlight here. First, you’ve really got to take advantage of the subject line, craft it as if you were writing the article yourself — turn the mirror your way. Pull the core “hooks” from your pitch and blend them together for your subject. Make it count, it’s a make or break piece.

Next, you’ve got to keep it brief and call out the important parts. I usually like to clearly call out (in bold) the problem that the product is solving, the pitch, and aquick way to see what you’re pitching in action. With the number of emails that a writer gets each day, you’ve got a second or two to grab their attention, this tells them exactly where to look for the info they need.

Finally, I try and add a little personality to it that matches up well with the personality of the writer (as I learn from their social profiles) — no one wants to cover dull. Have fun with it, and allow them to find more info on you with your signature.

Step 5 – Let it Rip

Or, you could make it rain. Whichever you prefer.

This is the culmination of all the work you’ve put in. Obviously, you can’t always time your news in the case of product launches and breaking news, but I’ve found that Sunday evening is a great time to put it out there. Most folks are lazy, and they aren’t willing to put in the time on a Sunday, this leaves a nice window for your pitch and a Monday release date in most cases. It’s not a necessity, but it may give you the best odds.

Also, this sounds obvious, but make sure you’re ready for responses to your pitch. If the writer is interested, you’ll hear back and they’ll want more info. Respect their time and get back to them as soon as you can.

The rest is out of your hands.

Some General Don’ts

Before we wrap this up, I want to go over some general don’ts with PR. By no means is this list comprehensive, but it’ll steer you away from the big screw-ups.

• Avoid the Embargo - Generally speaking, writers don’t like embargoes. It’s a liability and a pain in the ass that many would like to avoid. Send your news out when it’s ready and available for consumption.
• Lose the Press Release  - In my mind, the press release is dead. They’re bloated, impersonal and a thing of the past. If you just want links on Yahoo! news, sure, go for it. It’s not going to give you the coverage that’s really valuable, though. At the very least, make sure not to attach a press release to your pitch. Do it for me, please.
• Don’t Double Pitch - Don’t send the same pitch to multiple people at the same publication. It shows that you’re just firing off as many emails as you can, and it’s a sure way to get you ignored.
• Skip the General Address - Most publications recommend that you send to a generic email address like news@publication.com, it’s the catch-all for poor pitches. People that don’t want to see success usually go this route, it’s the easy way to spray the shotgun, but it rarely yields results. Use it as your last option, but not the default.
• Put Down the Phone - This may be unconventional for most folks that do PR, but I believe that we live in a digital age, where phones are a secondary thing. Sure, if there’s interest, hop on a call by all means. But don’t do your pitching via a phone call. It catches folks off guard, and makes the encounter confrontational, with only a few seconds to tell them what they want to hear.
• Don’t Suck - Most importantly, don’t suck. Be a good person, not someone that’s just on the hunt for links. Provide the writer with value, help them do their job and be awesome. It’s amazing what good intent can do.

Conclusion

Executing on a PR push is time intensive, and demanding of finesse. It’s why PR firms demand upwards of $15,000/month, with no guarantee on output. I’m not a public relations pro. By no means is this the end all be all of PR processes, but it’s what I’ve found to be successful in landing press — earning coverage in Wired, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Mashable and many more.  That said, what worked for me, may not work for all.

As with everything in tech, iterate, iterate, iterate.

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Apple is the king of the PC heap, as long as you consider the iPad among those devices. Research firm Canalys does, and its most recent look at client PC sales, focusing on the fourth calendar quarter of 2011, shows the PC market growing, but mostly as a result of strong iPad sales for the year.

With Apple’s more than 15 million iPads shipped during the quarter, the worldwide PC market grew 16 percent year over year. Not counting tablets, of which the iPad is easily the most successful, the PC market actually shrank by 0.4 percent worldwide when compared to the same period a year ago, according to the Canalys data.

Apple’s success both with the iPad and its Mac computers allowed it to take top honors for the quarter, knocking HP to second place overall. Canalys says the lack of a valid HP tablet competitor, now that the TouchPad is shelved, will mean that HP will continue to struggle against Apple’s success.

The iPad wasn’t the only tablet to do well during the quarter, however. Canalys says that the Amazon Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet also helped contribute to the success of tablets in the U.S. Amazon ranked as the second strongest tablet manufacturer worldwide, while Barnes & Noble took the fourth place spot.

All told, iPads accounted for 22 percent of all worldwide PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2011, as measured by Canalys. It’ll be interesting to see what effect a new iPad launch in the coming months might have on the worldwide momentum of tablets, and the larger PC industry.

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Marketing and PR Manager
6 month contract.

To be responsible for maintaining a creative, fresh and successful marketing function. Reporting to the Practice Manager.

The Marketing and PR Manager is responsible for assisting in the development and execution of marketing and PR plans and programs to achieve the management of the Seapoint Brand both short and long term

Responsibilities include:
• Brand strategy development
• Projecting brand volume/profit/market shares
• Planning and analysing consumer promotions
• Issuing press releases to gain media coverage (good relationships and contacts are essential)
• Assessing customer requirements and addressing needs in marketing strategy
• Strong evidence of analytical, strategic thinking applied within a brand management environment
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in teams
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to present to a large group
• Some experience at working effectively with external agencies
• Entrepreneurial spirit
• Experience in the analysis of marketplace data
• Ability to balance numerous projects and issues and prioritise effectively
• To continuously present new ideas and marketing drives
• To work to budgets and achieve targets
• Website management – ensuring the website id kept fresh and up to date.
• Designing on-line promotions and competitions
• People management, the role will encompass management of customer services and treatment co-ordinators.

Preferred skills / attributes desired
• Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing
• 3+ years work experience in both marketing and PR role
• Previous experience in a senior marketing position.
• Previous experience of people management
• Public Relations – previous experience in PR and evidence of good contacts in Dublin/Ireland.
• Strong Microsoft and Excel skills
• Familiarity with Search Engine Optimisation and Social Media management
• Good organisation and administrative skills
• Accuracy, flexibility, good team player, self-motivated and attention to detail
• Ability to demonstrate good problem solving and work on own initiative
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

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Oracle Developer
Position:

Quest Computing Ltd a leading software development company based in Dublin and established 22 years ago, is looking for an Oracle Developer to join its team.

The ideal candidate should have:
At least 2 years good experience in Oracle Forms and Reports
In-depth knowledge of PL/SQL and SQL in Oracle 10g
Oracle Busines Intelligence knowledge and skills
Analysis and Design skills
Strong commitment to excellence
Drive and enthusiasm
Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
Ability to work as part of a team
Ability to handle pressure and meet deadlines
This is an excellent opportunity to join a long-established software development company using a wide variety of technologies.

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Java Developer
Accenture Technology Services offers a ‘start-to-finish’ approach to technology challenges. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Accenture, the team is made up of IT enthusiasts who focus on application development, systems administration and software maintenance – the accent, though, is always on practical, workable solutions

What we can offer you:

Application Development:

• Working with Business users to agree on requirements and specifications
• Documenting functional and technical designs for your area of work
• Developing key components in Java and Flex according to a project plan
• Experience with requirements gathering and system design would be desirable.
• Quite close interaction with business users is required and as such a desire to be customer facing along with the appropriate soft skills is necessary.
• Building of prototypes, development of applications and build of interfaces with legacy, enterprise resource planning and other enterprise systems

Application Maintenance:

• Responding to incident support tickets & identifying the causes behind any application failure.
• Following the identification of these root causes, identify an immediate quick fix, or work around. These quick fixes may involve the manipulation of XML messages and/or database fields. Where possible long term code fixes for these failures should be made, tested and included in an appropriate build.
• Other duties – the role will also involve taking full responsibility for maintaining and versioning code bases, and providing valid and tested application builds for deployment to all environments including production.

What you can offer us:

• Third level computer qualification and/or relevant industry experience
• Two to three years experience in full life-cycle development, including design, coding, testing, rollout and support
• Java J2EE Experience
• Flex development experience is desirable
• Strong creative problem solving and analytical skills
• Team player
• Strong oral and written communications skills
• Strong client service skills

Accenture is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all sections of society and does not discriminate on grounds of race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

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Java Developer
Java Developer’s (Graduate level – 3 years experience)

I am currently sourcing Java developers for a number of role’s exclusive to Cpl Recruitment. My client is a software company based in Dublin. An ambitious growth plan and new offices in Europe have lead to a demand for additional software developers. My client is keen to meet with developers with strong OOP programming skills, problem solvers and developers who are interested in research and development.

The successful candidate will be a driven individual, you will be able to structure your own day, set your own targets and liaise with additional offices in Europe and the USA. Ideal candidates will also be able to work under pressure, make quick decisions and develop strong code first time every time. You will be a positive team player, hard worker, career motivated and willing to travel on occasion with your job.

Technical Skills Required:
• Java, C, C++, C#, .Net, CSS, JavaScript, XML, HTML, XHTML
• Relational Database Experience
• Experience working in an AGILE environment, full SDLC experience preferred
• Experience working on multiple projects or a large scale project

Additional Skills:
• Excellent written and communication skills
• Ability to turn problems in to a solutions
• Team Player
• Tenacious

Why Apply?
• Genuine opportunity to join a great company
• Fantastic career progression
• Very competitive package (rated one of the best graduate packages on the Irish market)
• Opportunity to travel with your job

If you are interested in this role or would simply like to know more, please send on your CV to Marian.Garvey (at) cpl.ie or please call (003531 614 6044)

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Marketing and Social Media Intern required for DocMorris/Unicarepharmacy

DocMorris/ Unicarepharmacy is currently recruiting a Marketing and Social media Intern to join our Marketing team for a 3 month unpaid Internship. The successful candidate will gain experience working in a dynamic Marketing environment with a key focus on implementation of a Marketing strategy, online and social media and PR.

Some of the main duties will include the following:

Marketing administration duties to include design, print, implementation and management of trade marketing as led by the Trade Marketing Executive

Knowledge and Experience required:

Ideally suited to a recent marketing or business graduate

The successful candidate will:

Have excellent communication skills, both written and oral
Have excellent attention to detail
Have excellent organisation skills
Have an ability to prioritise and work to deadlines
Have a positive, proactive ‘can do’ attitude
Be a Team Player and willing to step outside the role when required

DocMorris/ Unicarepharmacy is Ireland’s leading pharmacy retail group. We currently employ over 800 people and have 72 pharmacies throughout Ireland. 2011 is a year of great change and progression for our people as we have begun the rebranding process of our pharmacies to DocMorris. DocMorris is an international pharmacy brand that provides customers with excellent value for money, innovation and tailored services to meet all their healthcare needs.

The success of DocMorris/ Unicarepharmacy is due to our dedicated teams of colleagues. Our people are our business and this is reflected in our many colleague incentive schemes and investment in each colleague’s learning and development. We are looking for motivated, enthusiastic individuals who have a genuine interest in providing outstanding customer care and meeting our customers’ healthcare and beauty needs.

Over the years we have achieved a number of people awards, some of our most recent awards
include the following;

2011 – One of the Best Large Workplaces in Ireland Award
2011 – Top 25 Best Large Workplaces in Europe Award
2011/2010 – Ruban d’Honneur in the European Business Awards
2010 – Best Workplace in Ireland Retail Sector Award
2010 – Top 6 of the 20 Best Large Workplaces in Ireland Award
2010 – European Best Workplaces ‘Speaking the Truth’ Award for our credible communication
practices
2010 – Top 50 Best Large Workplaces in Europe Award
2009 – Retail Excellence Ireland Best Employer Award
2007/2008 – Best Workplace in Ireland Award, 500 – 1,000 employees
2007 – Top 10 Best Companies to Work for in Ireland Award
2007 – Top 100 Best Workplaces in Europe Award
DocMorris/ Unicarepharmacy is an equal opportunities employer. Please be advised that we do
not require the assistance of recruitment agencies at this time

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Online Marketing and Sales Representative – Dublin 7
If you would like to forward your C.V. to us, we will be contacting applicants after the 04th January 2012.

An opportunity has arisen for an online marketing and sales representative, to join our company Menuplease.ie. As Ireland’s largest online dining directory, we aim to strengthen awareness of our business, increase sales and rank at the top of Google’s listings. The chosen candidate will work as an Online Marketer and Sales Representative, working closely with the Managing Directors, to drive the development of our business. The successful candidate will be involved in the development of new sales channels for our online business and generate awareness through online activity. They will be an integral part of the sales team, directly responsible for selling listings and exceeding targets as the business expands and grows rapidly.

The role will comprise of developing, implementing and delivering comprehensive online sales and marketing strategies. In addition to developing strategic marketing and sales campaigns, they will carry out all online activity, such as managing social media platforms, help with the development of our website, SEO and carry out tasks such as digital marketing campaigns, online promotions and new business creation. As a Sales Representative, they will focus on driving revenues by identifying new business opportunities through telephone, e-mail and web prospecting. This role will build relationships with clients and pinpoint new sales opportunities. We are looking for a marketing and sales professional that can make a direct and immediate impact with a growing online business.

Duties

Our website and business are constantly evolving. As such, duties may alter over time to suit the website and nature of the business.
Reporting directly to the managing directors.
Increasing sales by developing and implementing unique sales and marketing strategies that will maximise visitors and drive online promotions.
Communicating with new and existing customers and members.
Analysing Google AdWords Campaigns.
Enhance brand awareness and promotion.
Database upkeep and development.
Identify new business developments.
Design marketing materials for all aspects of the marketing and sales division.
General administrative duties and customer service as required.
Develop and cultivate leads for the sales pipeline.
Liaise with new and existing customers via telephone email and face to face, to discuss services, promotions and competitive advantages of using our website.
Maintain effective, revenue-generating relationships with clients, members, media and creative agencies within territory.
Meet quarterly and annual revenue goals according to sales plan.
Listen to, identify and understand prospects’ viewpoint and tailor communication to meet prospect needs and expectations.
Display a thorough understanding of assigned accounts’ business needs and revenue potential.

Role Responsibilities:
Develop and implement Sales and Marketing strategies.
Liaise with managing directors to discuss the development of our website and social media.
Extensive use of analytical tools to measure and improve performance.
Manage SEO activity.
Develop campaigns to drive sales and increase customer base.
Produce content.
Deliver exceptional customer experience.
Support overall marketing and sales strategy.
Ensure online PR is optimised.
- Producing all marketing materials and content for the online channel.
- Managing mailing lists and co-ordinating promotional emails.
- Continually introducing new and creative methods to promote the company’s services.
- Managing, tracking and producing daily, weekly and monthly reports on our online activity, prospects, calls, future pipeline and daily / weekly closes.
Sourcing and management of potential leads, using multiple sources, including online.
Proactively hunting, finding, negotiating and closing deals, both face to face and over the phone.
Assessing and negotiating online sales agreements with business owners or managers in their local environment.
Ongoing customer account management and insuring a high level of service to clients.
Achieve and over exceed monthly, quarterly and annual sales goals.

Key Requirements
The candidate must have a minimum of 5 years commercial experience in online marketing, sales and business development; preferably online advertising, group/daily deals or direct marketing. Furthermore, field sales experience, either selling to businesses or alternatively selling online services would be an advantage.
Experience in direct sales, canvassing and cold calling.
Excellent written, verbal communication and presentation skills, with the ability to sell at all decision-making levels.
Good knowledge/experience of the internet as a commercial tool and interest in social media.
Proficient in online marketing & social media. Experience must focus primarily on digital media based technology solutions.
Excellent knowledge of the latest SEO, SEM, PPC, SMO and affiliate marketing techniques.
A third level qualification in Business, Marketing and Sales, Digital Marketing or relevant area.
Competent in Google analytics and computer proficiency.
Website design experience or consultancy would be an advantage.
Good commercial sense.
Proven track record of sales success with high close ratio.
Solid understanding of Digital Marketing and advertising.
Motivated team player who consistently strives to exceed goals and push revenue.
Ability to work with minimal supervision while maintaining focus and productivity to meet deadline expectations.
Must have a full, clean driving license and be willing to travel to client businesses.

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