Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović
Photo: Ivana Mišerić, Barcaffè ambassador, Andrej Bele, director and Lejla Dautović Čaić, marketing director of the Strategic business segment of coffee, Atlantic Grupa
This year, the program of the Weekend Media Festival was significantly expanded. The organizers found some new corners in the Old Tobacco Factory and installed improvised lecture and panel spaces. In my opinion it was unnecessary. The program was so overwhelming that some very interesting and useful themes overlapped, and since we can’t yet clone ourselves or send robots that will inform us later, all of us had to miss something that we really wanted to hear and see. The headlines of some panels were very attractive and appealing, but when I went to listen, I would leave them in ten minutes. Either moderators failed to keep control of things, or the participants were uninteresting. The organizers have obviously shifted to quantity, not always to quality.
And there was no main topic. There wasn’t a speaker or a panel that would “carry” the entire Weekend. Among the panels that I went to and stayed to the end, I was impressed by the panel Life after the era of Digitel and Unex. Vedran Vereš was great at steering the whole discussion, and participants gave us a lot of concrete information on which we could get a complete picture of the media market in Croatia. The only thing missing was the story of the title, because Digitel and Unex were not even mentioned, if I heard them well, so the younger people who filled the hall probably had no idea what it’s all about.
But all in all, this was another good Weekend that was worthy of visit.
After coming out of BalCannes, I met Darko Aleksić, CEO of Program Plus, who told me a huge news – Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina suspended the investigation in Gibraltar case, and thereby put an end to the affair that has caused great damage to the advertising and media industry of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That was a great cause for the one and only beer that I had during the Weekend.
Traditionally, as almost every year, I ran into Ivan Stanković, Bane Brkljač, Robert Čoban, Kristijan Gregorić, Alida Žorž Miketek and many of my friends from all over the region. I would have loved to talk to everyone longer, but the time was the biggest problem for both them and me. Every morning I met Bane at breakfast at Lone, and each time we would agree to have a longer coffee one of these days, but it constantly eluded us. We had one that was just a tad longer at the promotion of Barcafe. In the end, it turned out I spent the longest time with Zvezdana Žujo from Communis Sarajevo. While others were having fun, the two of us were talking (and creating) business.
On Friday, I had lunch with Zdenka Milanović, Marketing Director of the Local Alcoholic Beverages at Coca-Cola Hellenic, and Jovana Tufegčić, head of PR for Coca-Cola Hellenic. Zdenka will chair this year’s Sempler jury, so we mostly talked about SEMPL. I quickly found a common ground with Jovana because the PR agency of Coca-Cola Hellenic is the Represent Communications, with which we have excellent cooperation. Anyway, we spent an hour-and-a-half in pleasant conversation, and then hurried to the panel we did not want to miss, and the naming of the 25 best BalCannes campaigns.
I was a member of the BalCannes jury and I’m glad that among the best campaigns are mostly those which I gave the highest marks. In general, my impression from the jury sessions, and now from the award ceremony, is that the agencies haven’t invested enough effort into their three-minute case studies that they send along with the entries. BalCannes is usually announced late May or early June, and the deadline for entries is September 1. Because of their seasonal vacations, agencies are not working at full force. Even the creative teams are not full, and all this leads to the situation where decision on which campaign to send is made last minute. I think a couple of campaigns paid dearly for their lackluster case studies. Three juries voted at BalCannes: a jury of agencies, a jury of advertisers, and a jury of journalists that follow the advertising industry. When you look at each of the rankings, and compare that to the overall result, it turns out that the jury of journalists was most accurate. Of the 25 campaigns on the final list, jury of journalists had 21 on theirs, and the other two rankings had two less each.
On Saturday morning, while I was waiting for Ivana Timotijević (Atlantic Grupa) and Zvezdana Žujo in front of the entrance to the Old Factory, I was approached by Tomaž Paškulin and Jernej Franetić from the SmartAD marketing agency, Ljubljana. They invited me for a coffee and I was happy to accept, because I really liked the guys from the get-go. They introduced their agency. They are planning to expand their activities to Bulgaria and Romania soon. They asked me if I could help them with contacts. Since I’m called the Chef Connecting Officer, I gave them the contacts of Neša Lozović, CEO of New Moment Sofia and Teodora Migdalovici, Ambassador of the Cannes Lions Festival in Romania. Bosnia and Herzegovina is not in the EU anyway, so the GDPR won’t come back to slap me. Very interesting guys and a good model of renting media space on mobile apps, social networks and the web.
Zvezdana and Ivana arrived. They worked for some time together at the New Moment New Ideas Company and since then have had a great friendship. I’ve been working with Ivana for a long time on the PR of the Atlantic Grupa. We talked about business cooperation, promotion of Atlantic Grupa’s brands and content marketing on our portal. We have a lot of ideas on how to do it the best. Now it’s up to me to turn all that we talked about into a concrete proposal.
After noon, Ivana and I went to the first presentation of Barcaffè’s Turkish coffee in pods. Barcaffè is the sponsor of this year’s Weekend. Excellently organized event. We first had the privilege of trying out the new cafe that Andrej Bele, head of strategic segment of coffees at Atlantic Grupa, described as coffee that originated from the desire to make the region’s favorite “Turkish coffee” more available to a greater number of consumers. Lejla Dautović Čaić, Marketing Director of the strategic business area of coffee at Atlantic Grupa, talked about how the idea of a “Turkish” coffee in a pod came about.
After the coffee, Vedrana and I moved to olive oil. We went to Bale, to Grubić oil factory to buy olive oil. Next time we will be in Rovinj will be next April, for the Days of Communication, and oil supplies had to be replenished until then.
Then two more panels and the end of the Weekend. The last coffee I drank was with Zvezdana, Ivana and Bane. We sat and watched the promenade. A river of satisfied people passed in front of us. This meant that this Weekend was a success.
In the evening, we went to dinner that has been traditionally organized for third consecutive year by Direct Media for the media and its clients. Restaurant Sidro was packed – excellent food, a wide selection of drinks, and a great atmosphere. It was an opportunity to talk to Mitja Tuškej, a novice grandfather, and to pass on some of my own experiences as a grandpa with ten-year-long experience.