[JUDGING] Core
Section: Rising Star Award
Organisation Name: Core
Rising Star Questions
Organisation Name
Core
Name Of Rising Star
Ciara Mc Garry
Structure Of The Team And Their Roles
Ciara is a Senior Social Client Manager at Core, working across paid and organic social as part of an integrated team spanning social, media planning, strategy, creative and client leadership.
Having initially joined Core as a Paid Social Client Manager in 2022, Ciara progressed to Senior Paid Social Client Manager in 2024 before expanding into Social 360 in 2025. Her role now goes well beyond platform execution: she works across the full campaign lifecycle, from audience and platform strategy through creative development, campaign activation, optimisation and post-campaign analysis.
This breadth allows Ciara to bridge disciplines that can often operate separately. She brings together her understanding of content, paid media and platform behaviour to develop social-first solutions for clients.
Alongside client delivery, she plays an important role within the wider team through training and mentoring colleagues, sharing platform developments and contributing to internal innovation and AI initiatives.
How Are Your Measuring Success Reach Links Traffic Etc
Ciara has made a significant contribution to high-performing and award-winning work across clients including the Data Protection Commission, OPW, HSE, An Garda Síochána, BPFI, Three and Mondelez.
Her work on BPFI’s FraudSMART Money Mules campaign included delivering Ireland’s first Snapchat AR lens, generating 27 million impressions, 155,000 swipe-ups and 117,000 organic shares.
For OPW, Ciara originated the creative idea behind the “Don’t Feed the Deer” campaign, using the culturally recognisable “small/far away” reference to communicate safe distance from deer. The campaign generated more than 12 million impressions alongside widespread earned media coverage.
She has also led social strategy and execution across Garda recruitment activity, delivering more than 28 million impressions and exceeding campaign benchmarks by up to 66%.
Her contribution has been recognised through multiple Sockies-winning campaigns, including Gold awards for HSE, BPFI and the Irish Defence Forces.
Give Three Examples Of Recent Updates Or Initiatives That Have Worked Well Link To Them And Give Some Metrics On Them
1. OPW – Don’t Feed the Deer: Ciara originated the social-first creative idea of using the famous “small/far away” reference to demonstrate the safe distance people should maintain from deer. The idea combined humour, cultural relevance and a clear public-information message, helping the campaign generate 12m+ impressions and widespread media coverage.
2. BPFI FraudSMART – Money Mules: Ciara helped deliver Ireland’s first Snapchat AR lens as part of the campaign. It generated 27m impressions, 155,000 swipe-ups and 117,000 organic shares, turning audiences into active campaign advocates.
3. An Garda Síochána – Recruitment: Ciara led social strategy and execution across recruitment campaigns, using her platform and performance expertise to drive 28m+ impressions while exceeding campaign benchmarks by up to 66%.
Together, these projects demonstrate her ability to move between creative ideation, strategic planning and high-quality execution.
Why Are You Deserving Of Team Of The Year
In under 4 years in the media industry, Ciara has progressed from Social Media Executive to Senior Social Client Manager, while developing an unusually broad skillset across content, paid media, strategy, creative and client management.
What distinguishes her is how she applies that breadth. She does not simply execute briefs; she challenges them, identifies opportunities and develops stronger social-first solutions. From originating the creative idea behind OPW’s “Don’t Feed the Deer” campaign to delivering innovative platform executions for BPFI and leading social strategy for major recruitment campaigns, she has already made a measurable contribution to work of significant scale.
Her impact also extends beyond her own campaigns. Ciara leads social training, mentors colleagues, contributes to new business and award submissions, identifies opportunities to grow client relationships and is helping develop internal AI tools and processes.
She combines curiosity and creativity with strong technical platform knowledge and commercial thinking. Her rapid progression reflects the leadership she is already demonstrating and the potential she has to influence both Core’s social offering and the wider industry.
