The latest episode of The Irish Marketing Podcast has dropped and this week we look at what happens when a car brand swaps conventional advertising for something altogether more tactile, time-consuming and unmistakably human.
Our guests are Jessie Newman of Boys + Girls and textile artist Eileen McNulty, who join Daryl to discuss the thinking and craft behind Škoda Ireland’s striking “We’re All Woven into the Fabric of Ireland” campaign — a three-metre-long, hand-sewn tapestry celebrating the journeys, places and moments that make up modern Irish life.
Created as a follow-up to Škoda’s award-winning “Legends” installation at Dublin Airport, the tapestry took around 18 months to bring from brief to finished work, including 637 hours of painstaking handiwork. Featuring more than 48 fabrics, 7.5 kilometres of thread and 48 individual stories, it brings together everything from GAA and wind turbines to the Škoda cars themselves.
Jessie and Eileen talk about the unusual creative process behind the project, including the challenge of bringing agency and client feedback into the working practice of an independent artist while still protecting the integrity of the work. They also discuss the decision to deliberately embrace traditional craft at a time when so much advertising production is becoming faster, more digital and increasingly influenced by AI.
The conversation also explores the commercial courage involved in creating something that looks and feels more like a piece of art than an advertisement — and why that gamble paid off when the finished tapestry was installed on Dublin Airport’s busy skybridge, stopping passengers in their tracks and giving Škoda a distinctive place within a very Irish story.
The Irish Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the teams at Adworld.ie/IMJ and Tinpot Productions and is hosted by Daryl Moorhouse.
