The Ideas Campaign was designed to harness citizens’ ideas for Irish economic recovery and renewal.
Almost 5,300 ideas were submitted to the Ideas Campaign websit
It was initiated by Aileen O’Toole, managing director of AMAS, which funded the voluntary grassroots campaign.
It was established in response to the significant economic problems faced by Ireland and the overwhelming negative media coverage which Ireland was attracting, both domestically and overseas.
Launched on 5 March 2009, the campaign set a challenge to people in Ireland to be innovative and creative and to play their part in planning this country’s economic recovery.
Campaigning using Web 2.0
Social media proved to be a powerful engagement tool during the campaign, which drew upon the expertise of AMAS staff in this area.
With no advertising budget, the campaign put the Barack Obama campaign toolkit – PR, volunteerism and online – to the test in an Irish context.
Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter and an enthusiastic blogosphere carried the campaign messages and enlisted supporters, contributors and opinion formers.
Chinese bloggers discuss the Ideas Campaign
This in turn helped to create a network of support and generate media interest, not only in Ireland but around the world. Besides driving traffic and action on the campaign website, IdeasCampaign.ie, social media also helped to stimulate debate on the campaign theme of seeking solutions
to our economic problems.
The website attracted close on 48,000 visits during that period, with 17% of traffic coming from outside of Ireland and primarily from the Irish diaspora.
While the UK and the US dominated, traffic was recorded from 116 countries including China, where bloggers commented enthusiastically on the campaign.
Media interest
Besides extensive Irish coverage, the campaign was featured on TV, radio, print and online in Australia, the US and many European countries, including the UK, Sweden and Belgium.
Social media played a key role in fostering international media interest about the campaign.
“The Ideas Campaign showed that social media can be an important part of the communications mix,” said Aileen O’Toole. “It helped us reach audiences that would have proven difficult, or very expensive, to reach through other channels.
“Social media involves an investment in time, rather than money. When combined with PR, it can be a potent and effective communications channel,” she said.
The Action Plan
The Action Plan of the campaign was published in May 2009
The campaign set itself very tight deadlines. The ideas submission phase lasted until 31 March 2009, during which time 5,284 ideas were logged on the campaign website.
During Phase 2 the ideas were reviewed, analysed and shortlisted by an Expert Group into an action plan for Government, groups and individuals.
Among the shortlisted ideas were:
- A new Volunteer Corps to engage the unemployed in community and voluntary work in Ireland and overseas, without loss of unemployment benefits
- A discount scheme to companies and individuals who pay their taxes in advance, providing revenue to government at lower than borrowing costs
- The replacement of prefabricated classroom buildings with permanent structures funded by local communities at no net cost to the State
- The extension of planning permission under certain conditions to stimulate construction activity
The results
In July 2009 the Government announced that it planned to immediately implement 17 of the 44 ideas in the Action Plan, in areas such as active citizenship, the knowledge economy, tourism and government finances.
In the December 2009 Budget the Government also implemented a tourism idea proposed in the Action Plan, offering off-peak free travel for tourists as a means of generating overseas revenues.
With the publication of the Action Plan, the Ideas Campaign is drawing to a close. However, those involved hope that its spirit, the debate it has generated and indeed the implementation of some of the ideas will carry the campaign forward.
Aileen O’Toole, Campaign Director, said: “The enormous response we received to this campaign, and the quality of the ideas received, shows that citizens are creative and resourceful. They also welcomed the debate which this campaign helped stimulate on the need to focus on solutions to Ireland’s economic problems.”
Find out more about the campaign and read its final report at IdeasCampaign.ie
