Centre Stage

This year, Vodafone Centre Stage is all about comedy, and we were tasked with using comedy to build brand affinity among young people in Ireland. This gave us a challenge: while “the yoof” love comedy as much as the rest of us (slightly) older fogies, they don’t attend live comedy in large numbers - preferring to get their laughs from YouTube and social media.
So, how do we merge the two worlds of traditional live comedy and online comedy? And how do we make it relevant to our target audience?
We created Ireland’s Funniest Fecker, a nationwide search to find Ireland’s next comedy star from the online world. Partnering up with comedian Kevin McGahern, we put a call out to the people of Ireland to send in a funny video they made for a chance to be famous.
We then engaged existing online comedy stars to further promote the competition on their channels, giving the campaign a broader reach.
What better way to build affinity with young people than by creating a hero from their own ranks? And what better way to promote comedy among this target age group than getting involved in their unique comedy culture?
So this summer, we’ll be hitting towns and timelines throughout the country with Kevin, unearthing Irish comedy gems as we build up to the crowing of Ireland’s Funniest Fecker live at the Vodafone Comedy Festival.