Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
I thought I could disconnect more fully, but no dice. Seems I will have to pack up my bags and get lost in the mountains for a week or two. There’s no other way around it.
What Davor, Sašo and Žarko say
When we launched the English version of our portal on the first day of December, we did it first of all because of the increasing number of visits from Slovenia and Macedonia. Young Slovenes and Macedonians do not understand ‘our’ language. We therefore adjusted the portal so that whoever comes to it outside the region where this ‘our’ language is spoken (Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin), they are automatically presented with the English version. And it turned out to be a good move. Visits to the website have doubled and are now growing by the day.
We couldn’t even imagine some of the other things that happened immediately afterwards. In his first interview after being elected President of the Croatian Association of Communication Agencies, HURA (December 17), Davor Bruketa said that one of HURA’s strategic plans is to enable Croatian agencies access to the world market, especially the markets in Europe and North America, and then Asia. A few days later, Sašo Pešev, director of New Moment New Ideas Company Skopje, wrote in his column for the portal that some of the Macedonian agencies are too big for the small Macedonian market, and that their only chance for survival lies in the international market. Immediately after, Žarko Sakan, President of New Moment, said one of his great desires is that Balkan’s creativity ‘conquers’ the world. It was as if we knew (and perhaps we did) that the English version of the portal is the best way to show the world the advertising industry in the Adriatic region – its creativity and its ability to work with clients from all over the world.
In mid-December we launched the second portal, Art&Business, whose mission is to change relationships towards culture and the arts by promoting sponsorship as a long-term communication tool. Bullseye again! After only three weeks, Art&Business has reached the readership which took Media Marketing an entire two years to reach. And it’s growing by the day.
The first half of last year I invested in forming a team. There were only two of us. Not enough for everything we were doing and were planning to do. Amir Sipović and me. I asked for recommendations, brought in young people, and soon fired those who did not have the same passion for work as Amir and I. What the two of us are doing is a job for a team of at least eight to ten very hard-working people.
So people came and went, and in early autumn Amir and I were alone again. Then we began with the promotion of young leaders. For fifty working days, day after day, we presented one young leader per day. In late October, we organized a meeting in Mokrin, Serbia, called Leaders with Leaders, where we brought several experienced business people who transferred their knowledge to young, talented people. It was fantastic. In their statements after returning from Mokrin, all 27 future leaders of the communications industry said that those three days in Mokrin were the most beautiful thing that had happened to them. As a New Year present, everyone who was in Mokrin received two copies of the book by Seth Godin, WHAT TO DO WHEN – IT’S YOUR TURN, from Branimir Brkljač, owner of the House on the Flat Hill and their host in Mokrin. One book was for them, and one to give to someone. They’ll know whom to give it. At the end of the letter that Bane sent along with the books, he wrote: “This is your time. Embrace it. It’s your turn. IT’S YOUR TURN.”
After three days in Mokrin, the young leaders returned to their teams and their large agencies, while Amir and I sat in the car and returned to our little empire. On the way to Sarajevo we talked about launching the portal in English, the creation of Art&Business, and some other ideas for 2016. We talked about it as if a team of at least ten to fifteen top associates were waiting for us in Sarajevo, eager to be given tasks and to start grinding. Upon recommendation, I established a collaboration with Adnan Arnautlija, who at the time was working in a Sarajevo news agency as a translator. We agreed that from 1 December he would transfer to us and take care of the English translations. This proved to be an excellent decision. Adnan is an excellent translator, but also much more than that. He’s a diligent man who shares Amir’s and my passion for the job, and enjoys working. On 1 January I received an email from him telling me he would long remember New Year’s night and the 15 texts he received from me for both portals, and how much it amused him. On another recommendation, we hired Gina Landor to be our proof-reader and editor for the English language. An excellent editor who is also committed to the job. Since we have two portals, Gina daily reads an average of ten to fifteen pages of text. I have not received a single negative remark about the texts in English, which is what I feared the most. In the early days of December we were joined by Ada (Advija Kubura), a young economist who has become our Junior Project Manager. The same passion, the same will to work and the same ambition as the rest of the team. With Ada, we made an excellent choice. In the very first tasks she fulfilled you could see her knowledge, talent and desire for success. So we started 2016 as a team of five, who can win against twenty.
The rewards also started coming. On the first of December, when the portal in English went online, we achieved a record attendance since we started the publication of our portal. Even on the first working day after the holidays (4 January) we nearly reached that record number of readers, which greatly surprised me. It was the first working day after the New Year. Didn’t people have much smarter things to do than read the MM portal? Besides, Serbs are out of work nearly the entire first half of January. Be that as it may, our readership still almost reached record numbers. When we looked at the Google Analytics, we realized that we should finally get used to the fact that, because of the English language, we are no longer read only from Vardar to Triglav, but all over the world. The whole first week of January readership constantly grew on a daily basis.
AD Woman of the Year
We launched another thing in December – the AD Woman section, dedicated to women in the communication industries. It’s very well read, but since we didn’t manage to prepare these texts for early January, I didn’t expect the volume of readership I mentioned earlier. Had our ladies been there, there would have been no stopping us.
In honour of women in the communication industries, on 19 May at the Belgrade hotel Hyatt, we will organize a gala ceremony for the award of AD WOMAN OF THE YEAR. We have entrusted the entertainment and hosting of the event to the art duo, and married couple, Sandra Bakarić and Darko Domitrović from Zagreb.
While I’m talking about projects in 2016, in addition to Ad Woman of the Year, there will be several other things.
Creative Portfolio, Cannes Lions in Sarajevo, The Best of AD Photography, Art&Business Awards…
In February we will publish Creative Portfolio, a book of about 250 pages, where we will present all the awarded works at national festivals in the Adriatic region, 25 best works from BalCannes, and awards from regional festivals (Golden Drum and Sempl).
On the first Thursday in March, at Sarajevo’s Vijećnica, we will organize a one-day conference, Cannes Lions in Sarajevo, where creative directors from the region who have won Lions in Cannes will talk about their winning campaigns, how they came to be, and what it means to win in the world’s biggest festival of creativity in advertising.
In April in Sarajevo we will organize an awards ceremony, The Best of Advertising Photography, in order to honour the authors of the best photos in advertising. We believe photography is very important in the transmission of communication messages, and at the same time very underestimated, and with this project we want to give it the place it rightfully deserves.
In November, we will organize a two-day conference on sponsorship in culture and the arts, with a presentation of awards for the best sponsorship strategies.
Be our friend
We will seek the greatest inspiration throughout the year through young talented artists. Two days ago on the Art&Business portal we launched a section on young talented artists, with the idea that every Tuesday we will present one young artist. In addition to this media attention, we also want to provide them with every other kind of support in our power, including financing the purchase of instruments and equipment, funding of participation in competitions around the world, trips to concerts, shows, exhibitions … Media Marketing is not Vogue, nor am I Bill Gates, but we have friends! And with the help of our friends we intend to collect money to help young artists. Step by step, friend by friend. And all of our friends have their own friends, so they can make a recommendation, and connect us. When we saw the first article on Taja Košir Popovič on Tuesday on Art&Business, we realized that this is what we all want. We immediately gathered for a quick cup of coffee and agreed on how to proceed.
Be our friend!
The young artists need us!