Meegan Advertising & Copywriting

My name is Patrick (Paddy) Meegan and this site is an introduction to the creative skills that I, together with my team of specialists, can put at your disposal to produce an outstanding advertising campaign that will get your product noticed. Especially in these difficult times.

Over many years in the business I’ve been a copywriter, jingle composer, creative director and/or producer for many Dublin agencies. I’ve written jingles and / or copy for many of the biggest national and international brands in Ireland including McDonalds, Mars, Aer Lingus, Bulmers, Bank of Ireland, Kit-Kat, Cadburys, the ESB etc.

In recent years I’ve tended towards creative consultancy, working directly with a select group of clients including the Odlums Group, the Irish Heart Foundation, Pettitt’s Supermarkets, Albany Home Décor, BIM and others. With a long-established and comprehensive back-up team including designers, recording studios, voice-over artists, singers, musicians, TV production companies and media planners, Meegan Advertising can handle any assignment from a simple copywriting or music brief to a full scale production across a range of media. And because we’re a small business ourselves, we’re very cost-conscious.

Have a look around the site. This is just a small sample of the work I’ve done with the team. If you’d like to know more, drop me a line at Patrick@meeganadvertising.com or call (+353) (0)45 864174. I’ll be happy to have a chat about your requirements – with no obligation.

Advertising is a vital tool. Make it work for you.

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No 1 – Buy A Dog And Bark Yourself

It seems a statement of the obvious to say that the copywriter should always be present when his/her work is presented to the client. But there can hardly be a copywriter alive who hasn’t had the experience at one time or another of an executive arriving back from a client meeting, to which you weren’t invited; but at which some of your work was presented. I remember one such occasion when I was a young copywriter and a big blustery agency exec came into my office and told me the meeting with the chocolate manufacturer had gone very well.

‘They liked your copy …’

‘But?’

‘Just a few small tweaks.’

I looked at the radio script in his hand. It was covered with pencil scribbles. There was hardly a single line of the original intact. I looked at him incredulously.

‘A few small tweaks?’

Well, we talked, argued back and forth for half an hour about the rights and wrongs of each individual sentence and word. In fact, it looked worse than it was. I was actually able to salvage most of my script. But eventually we came to a sticking point. The phrase ‘The key to the goodness are the gallons of full cream dairy milk we use’ had come back from the client meeting. But that’s not what I originally wrote.

The exec – lets call him Peter – said he and the client had taken a long time to arrive at this particular form of words. I said ‘well it’s up to you but, as a professional copywriter I should point out that it’s grammatically incorrect.’

‘What? No it’s not!’

Well this started another round of buy a dog and bark yourself. He’d say what about if we say this, and I’d go how about we say that. Round and round. Eventually I said, ‘look, how about we say:

We use only full cream dairy milk. The goodness is guaranteed.’

He looked at me. Considered for a moment.

‘Okay. I think we’ve got it. That’s the best version so far.’

‘Are you sure now Peter?’

He considered again, like a sommelier sampling a new wine. He said the line out loud to get the feel of it on his tongue.

‘Yes, definitely. The best version we’ve had.’

I shook my head and held out the over-scribbled text that arrived back from the meeting.

‘Because that’s what’s in the original script.’