Category Archives: Current Affairs

Here for a good time, not a long time: Dublin’s dining scene runs on hype

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Jessica Weld

Over the last few years, the food and drink scene in Dublin has become a quick-moving conveyor belt of sparkly new concept destinations, each trying to win foodies over to be crowned the best in its particular niche in the capital.

One glaringly obvious reoccurrence has been the short-lived nature of most of these ventures. In Dublin these days, it’s feast or famine – miss a beat and due to the extortionately high overheads of rent, labour and utilities and not to mention the ever lingering cost-of-living crisis hampering footfall, your new venture won’t be long going under. 

The Restaurants Association of Ireland reported that in the first three months of 2025, a whopping 150 restaurants closed across the country, citing rising operating costs as the reason for closure. In this report, RAI CEO Adrian Cummins called on the government to reduce the VAT rate on food and beverage sales to 9% in order to prevent further closures.

While many new entrants to the Dublin food scene typically fail after one year, there are some popular spots that stand the test of time and are regularly booked up and thriving. Social media has become an invaluable marketing tool for hospitality startups seeking to make their mark on the Dublin food scene. The reality of the current state of the Dublin hospitality trade is that the entire scene is being determined by online influence and for lack of a better word – “hype”. 

There are a growing number of Dublin based “foodie” influencers that fuel this hype, adhering to a whole range of different tastes and targeting very diverse audiences. From dual-threat DJ and Chef Marcus O’Laoire to the edgy and alternative vibe of former TV presenter Cassie Stokes, representation of the Irish food and drink scene on social media is at an all time high. 

Additionally, the rise of “User Generated Content” attributes to the Dublin foodie hype train. Everyone wants to be credited with finding the next “hidden gem” and gaining their own individual fame from a popular video on TikTok or Instagram.

This influence doesn’t just hit Dublin, shockwaves quickly ripple abroad leaving people from all over Ireland in a state of puzzlement over makeup guru James Charles’ TikTok video review of a Spice Bag from Xi’an Street Food in the centre of the city. The video posted in October 2024 garnered a whopping 6.3 million views and brought the restaurant international acclaim, causing an influx of tourists that were travelling to Dublin specifically to try their newly “viral” Spice Bag.

It’s these “viral” moments that are keeping the lights on in Dublin’s current flavour-of-the-month food spots. Popular steak restaurant Boeuf and Frites cultivated its own social media frenzy ahead of its opening in February 2024. The rapidly expanding restaurant group exploited a gap in the market for a good quality steak in the centre of the city – without paying the steakhouse premium price. 

They struck a very hard-to-find balance in the Dublin hospitality game and a lot of their success can be credited to their strong social media presence, appearing regularly on TikTok and Instagram feeds of Dublin locals through both their own content and masses of User Generated Content. Due to their consistent presence and a well-received “good bang for your buck” offering, Boeuf has continued to thrive in the local market despite the poor economic conditions.

Despite Dublin’s hype economy keeping some of the city’s old and new favourite institutions afloat, this whole situation begs the question of how much more can Dublin’s food and beverage scene really take? 

With an exponential rise in restaurant closures and the industry’s outcry for a VAT decrease being ignored in the latest budget, will our favourite hotspots be able to survive on vibes and hype alone? Or are spoiled dishes and closed doors the price of dining in Dublin?

The Collins Aerospace Cyber Attack – Valuable lessons to be learned in Business Continuity Planning

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Jessica Weld

A recent cyber-attack on aerospace giant Collins Aerospace, has caused widescale outages of its MUSE Software, a check in system used by some of Europe’s largest airports including Dublin Airport and London Heathrow has caused mass disruption, resulting in stranded passengers and endless flight delays, ultimately resulting in mountains of manual work for ground staff.

The EU’s Cybersecurity Agency has since confirmed that this was a malicious ransomware attack. Hackers have deliberately knocked out Collins Aerospace systems for potential monetary gain.

In a time where large ransomware attacks on vital networks and systems are becoming increasingly common, organisations must not only strengthen cybersecurity measures, but it’s becoming increasingly imperative that they also have adequate plans in place for if and when crises like this arise. 

Industry Specific View – Commercial Aviation

The Commercial Aviation industry operates on a tightly coordinated supply chain which in recent decades, has become heavily automated. An issue with one link in the chain can cause a catastrophic domino effect which can, as a result, affect many flights and thousands of passengers. 

Within the European Union, airline passengers are heavily protected against such delays under EU 261 regulations. These regulations entitle passengers to compensation for events such as delays, cancellations and missing luggage. 

Compensation agency Skycop revealed that in 2024 alone, airlines owed passengers €6 billion under EU 261 regulations. One can only imagine the cost of passenger compensation with the amount of flights and passengers affected by this cyber-attack. Alongside this, airlines will have to factor in staff overtime, the cost of repositioning crews and aircraft and additional airport fees. (EU flight delays in 2024 may cost airlines over €6 billion).

For the airline industry, the financial risks associated with such an attack are far too high to not have a robust contingency plan in place. 

The Airline Response  

The Dublin Airport Authority’s Head of Media Relations, Graeme McQueen, informed RTÉ that both Ryanair and Aer Lingus test their manual check-in processes on one flight per week.

While regular testing is useful to familiarise staff with manual processes, it is not sufficient in testing the airline’s capacity to cope with a wide-scale outage. For if the system were to fail, it’s unlikely that it does so for one flight. More often than not, outages are widescale. 

The system outage caused Aer Lingus to revert to fully manual check-in processes for all scheduled flights. As a result, queues for check-in were taking 30 to 40 minutes at times. This caused multiple flight delays and as many as 13 Aer Lingus flights were cancelled on the second day of the outage, Tuesday, September 23rd. 

Better Business Continuity Planning Practice

A fit-for-purpose business continuity plan first and foremost must require a comprehensive risk assessment of potential threats. The instructions of the business continuity plan should comprehensively respond to all of these potential threats so that the organisation is fully prepared for any eventuality.

Secondly, resilience measures are vital to business operations and must be incorporated into business continuity planning. These are the measures taken to ensure that when an incident like this occurs, the recovery time is as quick as possible. A common resilience measure would be the use of backup systems to ensure downtime is minimised. 

Regular testing of business continuity plans is vital to ensure their success in the event of an incident. Testing is important to raise staff awareness of crisis procedures so that response time is quick. Testing is also beneficial to spot any weaknesses in planning and processes so they can be rectified. 

Capacity planning is very important in business continuity planning. As previously noted, outages are usually widespread and rarely occur in single iterations. Organisations need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario and must ensure that their entire business operation can be supported by the business continuity plan in the event of an incident.

Lessons to be Learned by Airlines 

While it is known that airlines had regularly tested contingency plans in place to deal with an issue like this, it is clear that capacity was an unfortunate downfall of the incident response. This flaw wouldn’t appear in testing as usually conducted by Ryanair and Aer Lingus as they only tested on one flight a week. It is apparent that the airlines didn’t account for manpower requirements to handle manual procedures for all scheduled flights.  

Resilience measures also appear to be lacking as there is no back-up system available to assist the recovery effort. Improvement in backup systems would reduce the risk posed by such incidents and in this particular event, would prevent the enormous financial losses. 

Finally, as it almost goes without saying, tightening of cybersecurity measures should be top priority for the airlines, airports and suppliers like Collins Aerospace. In the current climate, ransomware attacks pose detrimental risks to vital, fast-moving industries like commercial aviation. In an ever developing and increasingly automated world, organisations need to prioritise investment in cybersecurity to reduce risk. 

Ireland in the Crossfire: How Trump’s 2025 Trade Policies May Affect the Irish Economy

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Gabi Svobutaite

US President Donald Trump has roused global economic uncertainty with the announcement of  “reciprocal tariffs” targeting several countries, including Ireland. 

Ireland’s position as a small, open economy means that we are largely affected by fiscal  developments in the US, the world’s largest economy. Exposure to global  macroeconomic disruptions is further amplified by Ireland’s dependence on the US as both an export market and on US foreign direct investment (FDI). With an astounding €73bn of Irish goods, totaling to almost a third of the country’s aggregate exports having been distributed to the US in 2024, Ireland is forecasted to be among the hardest hit countries after President Trump’s new round of tariffs earlier last week. But what exactly could this mean for Ireland, and which sectors  can we expect to see bearing the largest brunt of these trade policies? 

Tariffs: Why These Tools of International Trade Matter

Simply put, tariffs are taxes imposed on goods being imported from one country to another. Such  taxes are applied to the importer and are calculated as a percentage of the total value of the goods  in question. The aim of tariffs is to encourage corporations within a country to source their  materials and labor domestically, rather than relying on international aid.  

Our Taoiseach, Micheál Martin has expressed a fear of the rise of US tariffs as being “a very  grave and serious threat”. Additionally, a joint analysis of the situation by Ireland’s Department  of Finance and the ESRI Irish Think Tank pointed to a potential loss of approximately €18bn in  trade for Ireland as a direct result of these tariffs. This analysis also suggested that a prolonged  trade conflict between the EU and US may endanger Ireland’s public finances.  

Since Ireland is a key financial hub in Europe, with many US-based financial institutions having  put down roots in Dublin, any tariffs affecting the financial services sector such as limitations on  US institutions offering services in the EU can harm Ireland’s finances. Furthermore, trade  barriers, or at least shifts in international trade patterns caused by Trump’s tariffs, will likely lead  to market volatility and increased costs for Irish businesses, creating a knock-on effect on  Ireland’s financial services landscape. This is likely to manifest through fluctuations in the value  of the euro or Irish stocks. 

Brexit and Trump: Double Trouble

One potential upside of the recent US tariffs in relation to Ireland’s financial services industry,  however, is the possible benefit from some companies shifting operations from the UK to Ireland 

post-Brexit, as the EU-US monetary relationship becomes increasingly complicated. An action  like this one could be extremely beneficial given the compounded difficulty of Trump’s new  tariffs and our closest neighbor being outside of the EU. To put it plainly, Ireland’s trade with the  UK and US could now face dual barriers; if the US imposes tariffs on products entering from the EU, Irish products that pass through the UK before heading to the US might face additional tariffs, increasing costs and reducing competitiveness. 

Key Sectors at Stake

A whopping 20% blanket tariff has been imposed on Ireland, covering key export areas of  aluminum and steel, foreign-made cars and most regrettably, Irish whiskey and dairy products.  The Irish Whiskey Association has cautioned that such tariffs are likely to leave long-lasting and  severe effects on the Irish drinks industry, with the US accounting for a remarkable 41% of  aggregate Irish drink exports, valued at €865 million annually. The association furthermore  emphasized a noteworthy growth of 450% in the joint EU and US spirits sector under a tariff free system between the years of 1997 and 2018. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has expressed his  disappointment in such developments, quoting that there was “no justification” for such tariffs  and that Ireland will now take combined action with the EU to determine steps moving forward. 

Pharma Under Pressure

Another Irish industry hanging in the balance of a budding trade war is pharma. With President  Trump yet again singling out the Irish pharmaceutical industry as prey for his tariffs, stating that  “all of a sudden Ireland has our pharmaceutical companies, this beautiful island of five million  people has got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasp”. It is of utmost importance that  Ireland establishes domestic policies to increase competitiveness such as infrastructure investments, helping Irish pharma companies to diversify into new markets. In 2023, the US  consumed around €36bn of Irish pharmaceutical and chemical product exports, showcasing  Ireland’s role as a key offshore manufacturing hub for US pharmaceutical companies. Although  pharma products have thus far been excluded from Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff  announcement, it may likely be a temporary reprieve. The threat of a global trade war still holds  strong, and the EU and its Asian comrades prepare countermeasures in the likely event that  negotiations are unsuccessful.  

Moving Forward

President Trump’s recent tariffs likely signal the start of a prolonged period of economic  uncertainty surrounding international trade and tariff policies, an issue of a multi-continental  degree. Conor O’Toole, a researcher at the ESRI Irish Think Tank states that “while the Irish  economy entered 2025 in a relatively positive position, the outlook is clouded by international 

developments. Changes in US tariffs and policy will have a notable impact on Ireland and could  hurt key sectors such as pharmaceuticals.” While we do not yet know the full extent of what  Trump’s tariffs mean for the Irish economy, we can be sure that impacts will partly depend on  proceeding responses from UK and European governments. It is imperative that leaders remain  level-headed in the near term, making sure that the various complexities and results of the  upcoming bilateral negotiations are considered in any medium to long-term trade and investment  decisions made by Irish companies and the government alike.

What Anna Delvey’s Ankle Monitor Can Teach Us About Marketing Strategies

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Chloé Asconi Feldman

At this stage, it is unlikely that one is active online or in the pop culture sphere without knowledge of the convicted con-artist-turned-socialite Anna Delvey. Recently making her debut on Dancing with the Stars with her bedazzled ankle monitor, Anna Sorokin, known familiarly as Anna Delvey, is known for posing as an upper-class heiress to the New York elite and swindling hundreds of thousands of dollars, eventually finding herself in jail for almost four years on the charge of grand larceny. Despite her criminality, Anna Delvey has been taken on by the general public as a new socialite, featuring on magazine covers and even gaining support from the “Eat the Rich” movement. The narrative surrounding Delvey is fascinating in itself, but her recent rebrand from con to dancer can also offer valuable insights into effective marketing strategies.

Scheming to Streaming: Swindling Scarcity

I had never given much thought to the television series Dancing with the Stars, but upon learning that Delvey would feature in the upcoming season, I found myself suddenly intrigued. This is because Delvey holds an air of alluring exclusivity; with her jail time and limited public appearances, seeing her on a television series increases the appeal of tuning in and engaging with show material. This phenomenon resembles the scarcity principle of marketing, a strategy where marketers urge customers to engage with a good or service based on its finite nature, whether numerically limited or seasonal. 

A brand notorious for its scarcity marketing is Hermès and its infamous Birkin bag. Social media frequently showcases celebrities carrying their Birkins as everyday bags; however, if one tries to buy one in a Hermès store they are met with a waiting list with an indefinite length. This scarcity of the product is what makes the Birkin so notorious, compared to other high-end designer bags – consumers are willing and able to wait to obtain a status indicator. This technique encourages customers to buy a product or service because it feels exclusive. In the case of Delvey and her limited public appearances, this comes in the form of television viewership.

Influencer Marketing: Controversy or Commonality? 

As controversial as she may be, Delvey proves once again how successful influencer marketing can be. Reaching just over a million followers on Instagram, the brands that Delvey partners with inevitably reach a wide audience. Yet what differentiates Delvey from other influencers is her status as an ex-con artist and her blurry public image. What makes influencer marketing especially differentiable is when an influencer with an indefinable allure posts about a product, compared to the typical state of the influencer world, which is plagued with fast-fashion and superficiality. 

As a brand, choosing Delvey to promote your product may seem controversial and ill-advised as she is an ex-con artist, but there is no denying the reach and influence that her posting about products would have. By simply bedazzling her ankle monitor, the concept has gone viral on social media with many claiming Delvey as their Halloween costume inspiration. By crafting a sensationalist, American-dream presenting image, Delvey stands out among influencers and those interested will seemingly follow along. 

Embracing Infamy: Brand Personas

Another marketing strategy that Delvey has executed to improve her personal brand is by embracing her controversy rather than ignoring it. While her story went viral when she was arrested in 2017, the Netflix series Inventing Anna, which documented the story of Delvey and her arrest, made it practically impossible to know about Delvey without associating her with scamming, scandal and fraud. Instead of shying away from this track record, Delvey’s Instagram bio states, “this is not financial advice”, and her bedazzled ankle monitor seems to embrace her criminal past rather than sweeping it under the rug. 

This strategy is nothing new to the world of brand management; in recent times, companies are more willing to face their criticism head-on. Ryanair for instance is a champion in the social media sphere for being bold and abrasive when considering promotion and CRM. However, this has only augmented the attention the airline receives over social media, as their cavalier remarks are in line with the brand’s persona – bare, no-frills and to the point. For Delvey, the choice to lean into and accept her criminal past creates a more authentic personal brand that invites discussion and publicity, whether good or bad. Whether talking about a convicted conwoman or an airline, there is truth in the effectiveness of using humour and marketing to address criticism rather than sugarcoating it.

Overall, Delvey’s rebrand –and her ankle monitor– offer insights into contemporary marketing strategies. She has been able to maintain the spotlight while capitalising on her controversial past and creating a personal brand, whether you love it or hate it. By using influencer partnerships, the principle of scarcity, and embracing her past, Delvey has demonstrated that even the most unexpected elements may play a significant role in the marketing narrative, including a bedazzled ankle monitor and a dance routine.

Leveraging AI in Digital Marketing

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Anirudh Singh

As technological and social advancements sweep the globe, the digital marketing industry is expanding rapidly. Every day new developments in the industry appear, and artificial intelligence is no exception. AI has revolutionised the path for digital marketers; by leveraging AI in digital marketing, professionals can employ data-driven strategies, enhanced personalisation and customer targeting, improved efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, gaining real-time data insights for campaigns. Therefore, understanding the role of AI in digital marketing has become incredibly significant not only for marketing professionals but also for firms to gain a competitive edge.

Artificial Intelligence: A Background

Before delving into the application of AI in digital marketing, it is first important to highlight its history. Putting it in very colloquial terminology as many know, AI is a form of technology that has the potential to think and act like humans and complete assigned tasks in mere seconds– those which humans may take hours to complete. The evolution of AI in digital marketing is not an earth-shattering development; the phenomenon can be dated back to the 1950s when researchers applied linear programming and game theory concepts to predict consumer trends, transforming into neural networks in the 1970s. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the boom of the Internet and E-Commerce opened the door for online marketing and advertising. From 2010 onwards, the advancement of machine learning, big data, the Internet of Things, and SAAS have changed digital marketing algorithms completely; now, marketers can leverage AI such as Chat GPT, Copilot, and many other AI-driven tools to complete tasks that would previously require many hours of labour.

Impact of AI in Digital Marketing

The impact of AI in digital marketing is very profound and visible in nearly every corner of the industry. For instance, AI has impacted the process of social listening and target marketing, especially using software like Emplify where marketers garner insights and data under one roof to streamline data management. Similarly, for search engine optimisation and content creation, AI can extract metrics from search engine databases in turn helping in the creation of content for target audiences. To enhance effectivity, AI also has a profound impact on email marketing and paid Google, Meta, Instagram and LinkedIn advertisements by formulating crafted content to audiences via optimisation of ad bidding strategies based on factors like behaviour, device type, and location. 

Benefits of Using AI in Digital Marketing

Before discussing the challenges and ethical considerations of the technology, it’s important to discuss the benefits of using AI in digital marketing. As much of the industry is aware, AI has many benefits for digital marketing; some of the most significant, however, are as follows. All of these benefits need to be properly acknowledged before a deeper discussion on the topic moves forward.

Prediction of Client Behaviour

For any business to grow, it is incredibly important to understand the behaviour of its client. Here, AI plays a vital role by making these efforts simpler and more cost-effective for marketers. AI tools can use statistical decision trees to understand customer behaviour, review past data, and suggest the best marketing strategy for marketers to better understand current and potential consumer patterns .

Customer Engagement

Understanding customer engagement is a challenging task for any marketer or agency;  it is frequently said that customer acquisition cost is far more than retention cost. Using AI-driven tools, marketers can scope out which customer segments they have to target to get the maximum acquisition. AI can also help them to track what each customer wants based on behavioural patterns, thus providing a blueprint for effective engagement that appeals to emotions.

Target Audiences

Selling a good or service to an unknown consumer is a very challenging and frustrating task. Traditional marketing saw the analysis of data and consumer preferences manually to target customers and sell their products; however, with the advancement of AI targeting customers and strategically segmenting them has become less time-consuming and more cost effective. Seemingly, all marketers need to do is feed their consumer data into AI which in turn generates tailored content, preferences and strategies to target the different segments who are interested in buying the product, thus broadening possibilities for marketers to strategise. 

Automation of Repetitive Tasks 

AI not only helps marketers and companies to engage the customer and target audiences but also helps to automate repetitive tasks. Through AI, marketers now automate pay-per-click (PPC), content for email marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO) and potentially social media content, which could have been traditionally laboursome and repetitive prior to AI’s initiation.

Customer Relations

Customer Relationships are all about loyalty and customer support, and AI has proven itself a strong candidate in maintaining these relationships. With AI assistance companies can gauge customer relationships that would require human capital traditionally. For instance, many companies have employed AI as the preliminary feature for aiding consumer queries in a format similar to texting. Although beneficial for cutting costs in many regards, employing AI for managing customer relations must be dealt with in a conscientious manner, as consumers often prefer human contact and possess queries that go beyond the scope of artificial means.

Overcoming Challenges and Ethical Considerations

One of the biggest challenges with AI’s use in marketing is the issue of transparency. In 2018, Amazon came under backlash when its AI recruitment platform collected the details of male and female candidates and favoured male candidates. Later on, Amazon relinquished that particular AI tool, but its use raises questions about transparency and bias in recruitment. If companies are using AI to collect data, they should remain transparent and inform people well ahead in advance about the purpose and application of their data collection.

Another challenge of using AI is privacy. Before collecting data to be used by AI, customers have the right to know how their data will be used and if they want to step out from this data collection. For instance, in 2020 Google was under attack when it collected the details of children under the age of 13 from YouTube without their parental consent and was fined 170 million dollars from the Federal Trade Commission. For marketers to employ AI, they must do so in a way that promotes accountability and ethical practices.

Bias is another common limitation to artificial intelligence. For instance, AI can be biassed if a marketer feeds the biassed data into it, which in turn yields untrue results which may be employed in a misconstrued way. Additionally, creators of AI software may possess inherent biases which in turn is implemented into the behaviour of their platform. For instance, AI’s use in creating photographs has perpetuated stereotypes, as seen in advertisements from EPIC museum in Dublin. Fact hallucination, reasoning errors, and use in creative sectors less driven by numeric data are all considerations that must be addressed and accounted for by marketers employing AI effectively. As such, knowledge of the technology’s limitations at the same level of its strengths is paramount to leveraging its use in marketing successfully. 

Future Trends and Challenges of AI in Digital Marketing

To conceptualise the future for AI and digital marketing, one can turn to the words of a key researcher in its field. “When it comes to how AI is shaping the future of digital marketing we need to understand its current role in digital marketing. AI not only helps us to understand consumer behaviour or enables tailored content, it’s also a great tool that enables marketers like us to anticipate future trends and needs.  But challenges are always there and will always remain there such as data privacy and biases and therefore to strike a balance between them and to ensure we remain on the right path is the hour of need for every digital marketer”, says Dr. Eamonn O’ Raghallaigh, PhD and Digital Strategist at Trinity College Dublin. As such, employing AI in a way that keeps the consumer at the heart of operations in an ethical manner can be extremely beneficial for garnering a competitive edge in the evolving marketing landscape. By employing its usage in relevant and ethical spheres while acknowledging and diverting its disadvantages, marketers can improve ROIs, provide valuable insights, and better target their consumers.

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