The activity we proposed in our recent conversation, set out in full for July to December.

Four tracks. Two corporate, two consumer, plus a creative activation built on AI voice.

One deadline. Christmas is the peak, and the media plan for Christmas closes in the autumn. Everything here is timed to be in market before it does.

A quarterly media index built from CleverCards data, and Ireland’s measure of how employers reward, recognise and retain staff.

Not a report. A news engine. One report is a press release. A barometer is a story every quarter, and journalists come back to it without being asked.

The model is the Daft.ie House Price Report. It works because it is consistent, it is repeatable, and the same handful of numbers appear every single time.

Every successful barometer has a few numbers journalists recognise and return to. These stay consistent quarter after quarter, so the media can track change over time.

• ◆Employee Rewards Scale. A quarterly score indexed to 100. The headline figure.
• ◆Average Reward Value. The simplest possible indicator of employer generosity.
• ◆Sector Rankings. Which industries invest most, and who moved this quarter.
• ◆County Rankings. Where employers invest most. Local media write about their own county.
• ◆SME vs Enterprise Index. Whether small employers are falling behind.

This is the one activity that cannot start without you. The key question is simple: what data does CleverCards have that nobody else in Ireland has, and can publish?

Core data. Businesses using CleverCards, employees rewarded, total and average reward values, transaction volumes, quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year comparisons.

Segmentation. Sector, county, and business size (micro, SME, enterprise).

One introduction. A call between your data lead and our team. Anonymised and aggregated throughout, so nothing identifies a customer or an employee.

Position Kealan as a commentator on the workplace, not only on CleverCards.

• ◆Business media. Budget commentary, consumer spending, SME confidence, business sentiment.
• ◆The accountancy conversation. Speaking slots, contributed articles, and engagement with Chartered Accountants Ireland. Accountants are the people small employers actually ask.
• ◆Already in motion. Fintech Week in Lisbon, 6 to 8 October, invited and merit-based.

What this needs from CleverCards. Flexibility in Kealan’s calendar. Journalists work to their deadline, not ours, and the opportunities we turn down are ones we cannot get back.

Third-party research into how appreciated Irish employees actually feel, launched ahead of Christmas.

The inversion. Every other reward story talks to employers. This one talks to employees, which is why it travels further.

• ◆When was the last time your employer thanked you?
• ◆Would recognition matter more than a pay rise?
• ◆Which sectors and professions feel most, and least, appreciated?

Field it in August, not September. To make the Christmas gift guides we need the data in hand before the autumn, and the guides are commissioned earlier every year. Something to own for years, not a one-off, plus real SME case studies that open local media.

Before the ideas, the constraint that decides which of them are possible.

Research calls are permitted. Marketing and sales calls are not.

• ◆We can call a business, ask a question, and publish what we learn.
• ◆We cannot use that same call to sell, to recommend a product, or to follow up with an offer.
• ◆The moment a research call turns into a pitch, it stops being research and becomes illegal.

So every idea here is built as research. That is not a limitation we work around. It is the reason the output is publishable, and the reason a journalist treats it as data rather than as an ad.

How it works. An AI voice agent calls Irish businesses at national scale and asks a single question, not five. Beyond the first, completion rates collapse, so the discipline of asking one thing is what makes the data real.

The question does the work. "Are you giving a staff bonus this Christmas, and is it to the full €1,500 allowance?" An employer who has not thought about it now has, whether or not they ever answer.

The story writes itself. Which sectors give and which do not, which counties, whether small firms are falling behind. And the number that leads: what Irish employers leave unclaimed by not using the full allowance.

Why press cover it. A national number that did not exist before, gathered a way nobody has seen. Both halves are the story.

Beachhut’s Matt Cortland built the AI voice-agent platform behind the Guinndex, which asked pubs across Ireland one question: what does a pint cost? The same engine has run index after index since.

• ◆133,786 calls placed in total, across Ireland, the UK and the United States.
• ◆The Guinndex, a UK price index, a World Cup Index, and US indices on petrol prices and ice-cream parlours.
• ◆Presented on stage at Twilio’s developer conference in Berlin.

The mechanic transfers exactly. Different question, same engine. The Christmas Bonus Index is that platform pointed at Irish employers.

How it works. An inbound number the public ring to talk to Santa, or to a well-known Irish voice cloned with that person’s permission and rights. They are asked what they hope for, or how they would spend a Christmas bonus, and we turn the transcripts into a report on what Ireland actually wants.

Why it is worth doing. Nobody has talked to something like this before. The novelty is the hook, a recognisable voice doubles it, and it is the warm, funny opposite of a fintech press release.

The honest risk. Inbound depends on people choosing to call. Outbound does not. If the marketing lands, this is the campaign people talk about; if it does not, there is no dataset. That is why we would run it alongside the Index, not instead of it.

• ◆Separate scope. This sits outside the retainer and would be scoped and costed on its own.
• ◆A decision on the question. One question, agreed by CleverCards and Beachhut, signed off once.
• ◆Gaurev and Sophie, to make sure the question serves the business and not just the headline.
• ◆A voice, with rights, if we go beyond Santa to a recognisable Irish one.
• ◆Marketing behind it, if we run the inbound line. Inbound only works if people know to call.