A group of Irish brands has announced the launch of the 2020 Double Up Awards, which is offering five Irish food producing companies a €200,000 in radio airtime.

This is being done with Love Irish Food in partnership with Core and Media Central.

These three organisations have come together to help Irish produced food and drink brands deliver a strong presence across national media.

As part of the ongoing effort to support, and to help safeguard the future of food and drink brands throughout Ireland, Love Irish Food is offering five Irish food producing companies a Double Up of €200,000 in radio airtime.

This means that the selected companies will have their radio advertising spend doubled in 2021.

Winners will have their bought radio spend of €40,000 in the first quarter of 2021 doubled by €40,000 in free air time in the second quarter.

This will be across their selected nine Media Central radio stations - to include Newstalk and Today FM - and to a weekly audience of two million listeners.

The three groups will work with the winners to plan the optimum campaign for their brand objectives.

This award is open to both Love Irish Food members and non-members.

Love Irish Food is inviting all qualifying Irish produced food and drink brands to enter, detailing in 1,500
words or less, why this campaign should be awarded to their brand.

Entrants will need to present a sound business and marketing case, with the winners being the brands deemed to benefit most from the award.

Love Irish Food member brands support 12,000 jobs in the Irish food industry.

Kieran Rumley, executive director of Love Irish Food, said: "Love Irish Food has always been a strong supporter of Irish manufactured food and drink brands.

"At a time when COVID-19 and Brexit have added much uncertainty to the market, this Double Up award allows the winners the certainty of knowing that they have an increased advertising campaign for their brand in their plans for 2021.

"It is now critical to support locally owned and operated food businesses and this award will give brands a huge opportunity to connect with their target audience and double their voice to the market."

Managing director of Media Central, Gavin Deans, said: "This is a very difficult time for Irish retail, Irish food producers and Irish food manufacturing and it is hugely important that we support this Irish industry and other locally owned businesses in every way that we can.

"We hope this initiative can do just that by allowing the winners to reach a much wider audience, over a longer period, across our network of stations than might otherwise been possible and provide a base to build on in 2021."

The competition entry is a two-phase process where terms and conditions are outlined.

Firstly, to register, brands must submit the basic details of their company and brand here before 5:30pm Friday July 24th.

Secondly, brands must submit their completed entry form online here before 5:30pm on Friday August 28th.

The judging panel includes Kieran Rumley, Love Irish Food, Eddie O’ Mahony, Core and Gavin Deans, Media Central.

The five winners to be notified on Monday, September 28th.