The latest episode of The Irish Marketing Podcast has dropped and this week we talk to the Grand Prix winners and the Sales Team of the Year winner.
Kicking off the podcast is Kat Wolinska, commercial partnerships manager, RTE Media Sales and Dan Hickey, business director, Essence Mediacom, part of WPP Media, who discuss the winning entry “In Dublin’s Fair City, Where Lidl’s So Pretty”. Described as product placement on steroids, this picked up the Grand Prix for its three year deal with retailer Lidl which sees a Lidl store embedded within the Carrigstown community.
In the second part of the podcast, Daryl sits down with Tara Moran, head of commercial with Virgin Media Television which won the Sales Team of the Year award at the Media Awards, probably the most hotly contested category of the awards.
Tara attributes their success to a collaborative, client-first approach. During times of market uncertainty and shifting tariffs, the team proactively reached out to agencies and clients simply to ask, “How can we help?” This curiosity and willingness to go the extra mile unlocked new briefs and award-winning campaigns that would not have surfaced otherwise.
Tara also talks about the work Virgin Media Television team did with Diageo and PHD to make the 2026 Six Nations rugby tournament more inclusive. By providing live streams with Irish Sign Language and audio descriptions, the initiative successfully opened up premium sports content to an estimated 500,000 people with hearing and visual impairments, changing industry standards in the process.
In addition, she also talks about life beyond the 30 second ad spot and the creative opportunites for brands to stay close to the content without interrupting it. This, she says,challenges media sales teams to think creatively and act more like content programmers than traditional ad sellers.
The Irish Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the teams at IMJ/Adworld.ie and Tinpot Studios and his hosted by Daryl Moorhouse.
