6 July 2021
By Mary Bermingham
mary@TheCork.ie
It’s generally accepted that men and women are, on average, of equal intellect, but there’s a trend in advertising toward showing men as idiots. Some advertisers now portray men the way they portrayed women in the 1950s: as either dumb or pretty. Men are made to be the butt of a joke, but if it’s done in good fun it can be okay? After all, comedy is always subjective, and the ground is always shifting. Advertising is a difficult business.
Currys PC World Ireland has launched the first in its series of comedic ‘kitchen appliance disaster’ themed adverts and Cork actress Áine Ni Laoghaire is the star of the show.
In the first ad in the series, we meet the couple who are dealing with a fridge-freezer breakdown. Manus’s character is handling the situation by eating all the frozen food in the until his partner, “bemused at his behaviour”, recommends they head to Currys PC World.
The production values are high. The ad was created by Core Creative, produced by Pull the Trigger and directed by Chris Cottom runs across terrestrial, VOD and social this July.
Cork Actress features in the new advert
Actress Áine who is originally from Cork and is a native Irish speaker, has a BA in Acting Studies from The Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College and trained as a screen actor in Bow Street. Áine is accustomed to the screen with credits including the BBC Starz series, Dublin Murders, Vico Films/ BBC series The Young Offenders, IFB feature film Mo Ghrá Buan, along with web series Long Dark Twenties, Ripper Street, Ros na Run and more.
Speaking about the campaign launch, Pauline Browne, Marketing and E-commerce Director at Currys PC World Ireland said,
“We’re delighted to launch the first in our series of new, creative ads. We used the consumer insight which showed the vast majority of new appliance purchases are due to the old one breaking down to devise the concept. Our ad series looks at various imagined scenarios occurring in a household when a major appliance breaks down. This is the first time we have created a live action commercial, solely focused on the domestic appliances category and bespoke for the Irish market. The ad goes way beyond the standard price and item style which has become the norm in the electrical appliances industry. We’re really excited to see the reaction to the ad series.”
She added:
“For this campaign, we were looking for actors who had a distinctive regional accent and could bring the ‘kitchen appliance disasters’ theme to life in an engaging manner. From the offset it was clear Áine was a perfect cast. She did an excellent job of bringing warmth and personality to the role. She also worked very well with co-star Manus Halligan, acting as the voice of reason in the on-screen couple.”