Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović
She is consider the first lady of the Slovenian marketing scene. The entire regional industry respects her as a top professional and research specialist. Her high ethical and professional standards have provided her with a reputation in international research circles and organizations. She has achieved great successes in the past quarter of the century, since she ventured into entrepreneurial waters. There were also major crises because of dishonest attitude of people towards her. She pushed through all the crises, keeping to the motto “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Not even for a moment did she allow the problems she faced compromise the quality of research Mediana delivered to its clients.
She is Janja Božič Marolt, President of the Institute for market and media research Mediana, based in Ljubljana. Today we are talking amid the 25 years since the founding of Mediana. Twenty-five years is a long period, so this interview is long as well. That’s why we decided to publish it in two parts, with the second part coming to you on Monday
MM: You started your career in research at the Studio Marketing Delo, agency which unlike others paid more attention to research as the foundation of all campaigns. How do you see those beginnings from where you stand now?
Janja Božić Marolt: Today I have even more admiration for the then Studio Marketing Delo, and I have great respect for Jernej Repovš and his team. They were all world-class professionals, they created new products, and even back then they were creating brands that are still powerful thirty years later. I dare to argue that they mastered not only advertising, but marketing in general. Their work was based on deep and time-consuming research. They were a source of knowledge and a spring of ideas.
I came to Studio Marketing Delo looking for literature for my graduation thesis, because there was no literature on the subject of advertising at the University or at the University Library. They first offered me a survey across the whole of Yugoslavia. I remember that these were clients like Meblo, Union, Fructal, Radenska, etc. Then Zlatko Jančič offered me a job that I refused on the grounds that I would join them in half a year. To my last vacation I packed seven of their books on media planning into my backpack, diving into the glossary which, after that, I first began to introduce. I’m not sure, but it seems to me that in 1987 I had the first presentation in Yugoslavia on the topic of GRP, TRP, PUT, etc. Five people were involved in the technical preparation: typist Mira, designer and photographer Vine, then Stane who developed the slides, a translator and proofreader of the Serbo-Croatian language, the then correspondent of Sarajevo’s Oslobodjenje from Slovenia. And the final content was confirmed by Jernej Repovš.
MM: 25 years ago you decided to launch your own company. You founded the Institute for market and media research Mediana. Why did you opt for such a step? Why did you leave the security of one of the best – if not the best – agency in Yugoslavia, and ventured into the unsteady waters of entrepreneurship? Slovenia had just gained its independence, it lost the market, wars were being waged…
Janja Božić Marolt: I was bursting with knowledge about the use of media research. Twice a year I was sent abroad for education, and the people there were amazed that we, in a communist country, have TV channels that showed advertisements along with other content. I rose to the position of the media director and from this position I was persuading the media that they needed independent research in line with international standards, and that there shouldn’t be a situation where everyone is presenting themselves as the best of their own accord. Little more than five years after that, when I was getting attractive job offers twice a week, and when I did not manage to convince a single media to enable us full professionalism with independent research in the agency, I was attracted by the idea of Janez Damjan to collaborate on the first independent media research in Slovenia, and Studio Marketing, in return, would get the right to free use of data. The Mediana BGP sucked me in. At the same time, I unconditionally believed that transparency was good for society, the economy and the state, so I jumped on this new challenge. I was pregnant. I admit, I had no idea what an enterprise is. When it came to balance, I only knew the one on a bike, but not in financial reports. The largest group I led before that was a scouts unit. And despite all that, Jure Apih trusted me and became my first client.
Shopping malls, brands, e-commerce, online banking services, virtual means of payment, food supplements, eco awareness, long-term development, population aging and many more things, all the way to populism in politics, these are all subjects of Mediana’s research in recent times
MM: Would you do the same thing today?
Janja Božić Marolt: I was completely unaware of what’s in store for me. Three weeks after I gave birth to my first child, I went to the first meeting with my baby, and later I found someone to look after her in between breastfeeding. Fortunately I was able to leave her with the grandma. I would not have decided to have the second child if my daughter hadn’t been persuading me, and she succeeded in that after seven years. At the Slovenian Media Summit, which I organized for the then 70 media directors, and on which we proclaimed media figures for the third millennium, I went with a nanny who was in the hotel next to ours to look after my son, so I could breastfeed him during breaks. It was not easy, but I never complained or sought sympathy. I enjoyed while we were climbing, I cried when we had an occasional fall. While they were smaller, the children often told me they would never have their own company.
In a certain sense, we could compare the effects of an entrepreneur on the family, if it is not fully involved in the business, with the effect of a person in the initial state of dementia – they totally occupy them, everyone takes care of them, and everyone helps in their own way. Such person is unpredictable, you never know when they will stray away, and everyone is happy and cheerful when they go in the right direction.
When I look back, I only remember the good things: every year new projects, expansion to other markets, recognition of the global industry at the Esomar Conference, Advertising Personality of the Year, I remember satisfied clients, associates, even collaborators who worked on the surveys. With the knowledge and experience I have today, I would probably have seen too many fears in that adventure. I respect everyone who today establishes their own company, primarily because of the courage and willingness to risk. The market is increasingly demanding and more complex, and it is showing rapid changes along with reasonable preservation of best practices.
MM: Mediana today is one of the most relevant companies in the field of research in the Adriatic region. What guided you through all these 25 years to reach such reputation in this very demanding industry, in which everything is constantly changing? Research goals are changing, as we are no longer talking about target groups but target individuals. The media industry has drastically changed in this quarter of a century.
Janja Božić Marolt: Thank you for the compliment. Several factors had to be met. First and foremost, continuous learning, learning and learning, so we could always be a step ahead of others. Good results, research that clients trusted, even when they showed them that they were neither first nor the best. We did not sell out to politics, we remained objective. We did not sell out to any client so they could be the best trader, the best pate or the best TV channel. We have preserved quality at all levels of research, despite great and constant pressure on prices. We introduced every new method of research even before they hit the mainstream, thus retaining the advantage it had from its own experiences. We are constantly learning, we are members of the most renowned world associations Esomar, Emro, Win. We are a reliable partner and, when necessary, we are a trusted implementer. After a year, Kantar Opinion ranked us among its best partners. We have been working with Kantar Media for 17 years, with AGB Nielsen a year longer than that. We have a great core of top associates, and in the last year we boosted our staff with young people who have fresh ideas and are ready for new challenges. Market diversification and consumer fragmentation is greater than ever, not only in the media industry but also in other areas. Shopping malls, brands, e-commerce, online banking services, virtual means of payment, food supplements, eco awareness, long-term development, population aging and many more things, all the way to populism in politics, these are all subjects of Mediana’s research in recent times.
I admit, I had no idea what an enterprise is. When it came to balance, I only knew the one on a bike, but not in financial reports. The largest group I led before that was a scouts unit. And despite all that, Jure Apih trusted me and became my first client
MM: TGI presented – if I’m right – the flagship in the previous growth and development of Mediana, as the most attractive product you offered to the market. Is this still true today?
Janja Božić Marolt: That’s correct, the Mediana TGI is our most recognizable product and our most useful service for media and advertising agencies in the region. You, the Media Marketing, undoubtedly contributed to this, and thank you for that. Also thank you Mitja Tuškej, who is our great ambassador. With his rich knowledge of specific examples directly from the Mediana TGI, he wrote a large portion of his book No Friends, No Brands. His greatest success is the contribution he has made, also from Mediana TGI data, to the first WARC award in the region for Spar Slovenija’s Start it Up Slovenia campaign, for. As far as revenues are concerned, TGI has never represented the bulk of Mediana’s revenues, nor were the public opinion surveys and accurate forecasts on comparative elections that we are most recognizable for in Slovenia. At the beginning, the main elements were research of readership, viewership and audience, the Mediana BGP, which was copied in all markets of the former Yugoslavia. In Macedonia they even did it with our own logo, and even today some in Slovenia are boasting with “original” research, which is, in fact, a copy of ours. An important development moment was the research Mediana IBO – investment of brands in advertising. In Croatia, we named it adex, although it was also known there as IBO. All these studies have greatly influenced our image, among other things because we invest in them ourselves, and then sell them to all potential customers. Our main trump cards are studies in which we seek solutions for traders, food manufacturers, automotive industry, banking and insurance providers, content research for the media, social research, the environment, etc.
Read more in the second part of the interview, Monday.