The Office of Public Works and Ardal O’Hanlon Share an Important Message on Deer Safety

This week saw the release of the first of two videos produced by Core on behalf of the Office of Public Works. It is part of their Protect Our Park campaign which was launched this summer, asking people to keep a 50 metre distance from the deer and to never feed them.

The videos feature actor Ardal O’Hanlon taking on a twist to the famous Father Ted sketch 'Small and far away' in a bid to educate visitors to the Phoenix Park on safety around the wild fallow deer. The campaign is also backed up with new signage around the park, social messaging throughout the summer in English and Irish, and some OOH.

The campaign is not the first of its kind as the OPW have to continually tell visitors not to feed the deer. However, UCD have produced research showing the problem has escalated so a fresh campaign was needed.

Speaking on the campaign approach, Stacey Wright, social strategy director in Core said, “The park has always had signage telling people not to feed the deer, but visitors are ignoring it. The media budget was modest, so we knew we had to be creative in how we got the word out that people are having a detrimental affect on the deer. Leaning on the famous sketch that was first shot 30 years ago, meant we could entertain and educate people all at once”.