By: Ekrem Dupanović
Recently we have had record-breaking numbers of visits to the portal thanks to the texts on Mikser Sarajevo and Sarajevska Pivara brewery. If we were to emulate the practice of other media that, when they get their hands on topics that stir so much interest, we would stretch this soap opera like a chewing gum, for days. But we don’t want that. We don’t care about attracting readers with such articles.
We don’t sell clicks to our advertisers, but the integrity of the most relevant portal in the regional advertising industry. At the PR DAYS MOSTARIENSIS conference, which was held less than two months ago in Mostar, Professor Božo Skoko had an excellent lecture on this topic. His advice to advertisers is not to advertise on the most visited portals, but on the portals that are relevant to their target group, no matter what their visit ratings are. In his presentation, Skoko has listed several examples of how to achieve huge amounts of clicks on texts, and to say nothing in those articles along the way. First and foremost, he noted the headlines that have nothing to do with the content of the text. We do not need this.
Our mission is to contribute to the development of the advertising industry in the Adriatic region, to promote creativity, successful campaigns and successful advertising people. Slowly but surely, we have built our position of the most relevant media in the advertising industry over the past six years, and we do not want to ruin that.
Every day we receive news which could increase our readership five-fold with the right title, but that wouldn’t be us then. Nor would we keep about five thousand readers who regularly follow content on our portal and whose number is slowly but surely growing. They are not interested in sensational hearsays.
While writing this text, I received a call from Almir Kurt Kugla, Art Director of the now closed Mikser House in Sarajevo, and asked if I would do an interview with Ivan Lalić, director of the former Mikser House. I said I would do it very gladly, to clarify everything that happened to Mikser in Sarajevo, and find out who was guilty of what happened. Our goal is the truth and only the truth, nothing else. If Sarajevo and Sarajevans are to blame, let’s see how we can fix it. So the title of this Diary may not be correct. We might write some more about Mikser. As for the Sarajevska Pivara, it also may not be a closed story, if the Sarajevo Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office still makes the decision to press criminal proceedings against me and bring me to court.
Over the last few days, I’ve received dozens of messages of support and readiness of people to help me if it comes to trial. Robert Petković offered to do the analytics and everything else I need in that sense. Kamilo Antolović offered to appear in court as an authorized court expert for advertising in Croatia, to prove to the court that in this case there were acts that warrant punishing, but not on my side. My friend Edvin Jurin also offered help … I received most messages of support from people I don’t even know. Thanks everyone. But I have to say that all this seems like a bad prank to me, but still, it’s nice to know you have friends. Friends in need are friends indeed.
In addition to Mikser and Pivara, these days we had very well read articles about the most successful campaigns in the past year, Croatia je Hrvatska as the most successful event of 2017, and the texts about the ranking of the most successful agencies and advertisers. That is what we are particularly pleased about. For the first time we dared to make the rankings of campaigns, agencies, and advertisers based on their performance at festivals. We were aware that these are very serious matters, and that we are taking on enormous responsibility. Still, the risk was reduced to a minimum because we had all the results from the national, regional and international festivals. We ranked the festivals by value, and then we ranked awards that festivals, and finally assigned ranking points. In some cases we also included a bit of common sense, because maths doesn’t always produce accurate results. I was expecting there would be reactions and resentments that we made a mistake somewhere, but we didn’t receive any remarks – none. The fact that there were no objections tells us we did a good job and that 15 days of intense work was not in vain. At the Slovenian Advertising Festival, to be held in Portorož on April 12th and 13th, Slovenian Marketing Magazine will announce its B-Report, its list of most successful campaigns, agencies and advertisers in the Adriatic region for 2017. I’m impatiently looking forward to see their ranking list and whether we agree or disagree in some things.
And again, as I was writing this text, I received news that Brigada has won yet another international award for their exhibition Croatia je Hrvatska, which will be handed to them on Saturday in Paris. I can’t say anything else on that matter at this time, but on Saturday or Sunday you can expect some breaking news.
17 January 2018
