Samhain Festival of Food & Culture is a celebration of all things Irish food and culture in Kells, Co.Meath aka the heart of Ireland’s Ancient East. 2025 was the seventh installment of the festival celebrating the very best of Irish food and culture, bringing visitors together for a celebration of community and connection before heading into the darker Winter months, as inspired by our ancestors. Samhain Festival of Food & Culture has been brought to life by the Centre of Food Culture Ireland, a social enterprise that believes in preserving and celebrating our food culture, past, present and future.
Photo Credit: Kevin Dooher (@thewildatlantictraveller)
Working with a fresh brand designed by Lisa Gildea, OCM created a content plan for the digital marketing and ads campaign which ran from August-November 2025. Working alongside the team from the Centre of Food Culture Ireland, we decided to announce the 2025 festival to chosen media and influencers with the ‘Samhain Sampler’ box.
The Samhain Sampler included products from Irish producers who were going to be in Kells for the weekend of Samhain Festival 2025 along with invites to all the action in Eureka House including the Sheridan’s Irish Food Fair.
We opted for a mixture of traditional and modern advertising, placing ads with local papers along with radio ads, which could be heard on RTÉ Radio 1, LMFM & the Tune In Radio app along with a competition with RTÉ 2FM to win tickets to the acclaimed Long Table Supper. Choosing to advertise on radio, in print media and via social media gave us the opportunity to target different segments of the Samhain Festival audience.
Results:
Over the length of the campaign, we grew the social media following by +930% and +1,500% on Instagram and Facebook respectively.
The OCM team covered the on-site activities on the Samhain social media across the busy festival weekend, garnering a total of 97,200 story views over the course of the 3-day festival weekend.
Total PR Reach:17 million viewers
Total PR Value: €198,215
Total Ads Campaign performance (Meta & Google Ads): 789,681 Impressions & 33,117 Clicks
