Martin Koprek, Media Director at Ascanius Media (Croatia), has for years successfully navigated the complex world of Croatian and regional media markets. As a passionate marketing enthusiast, he built his career on a combination of analytical thinking, strategic approach, and hands-on experience in all aspects of media planning and buying. His work is characterized by proactivity, precision, and the ability to find optimal solutions that deliver results in a dynamic environment.
Martin focuses particularly on developing effective media plans that stand out in a sea of content, skillfully responding to challenges such as shorter audience attention spans and increasing media fragmentation. He believes a good media strategist must be involved in all stages of campaign planning and execution, because only then can strategy stay connected with practice.
Ahead of his lecture at the SEMPL conference, where he will speak about attention, content quality, and the future of media influence, we talked with Martin about communication channels, message quality, good campaigns, and future trends.
The topic of your panel addresses attention, content quality, and the future of media influence. In your opinion, what is more important today – audience attention or the quality of the message we use to attract it?
A small percentage of messages are relevant to a larger number of people and interesting enough to capture the audience’s attention. That’s why we focus on those moments, media, and formats where audience attention is sufficient for even an average message to have an effect.
It seems there is no longer a “main channel” of communication – everything has been reduced to a combination of micro-moments and different formats. How can a consistent and recognizable brand be built in such an environment?
In media planning, there still is, and should be, a main communication channel. That channel, within the given budget, provides the highest chance of achieving campaign goals. Campaigns that try to cover all media are not visible or effective enough in any of them. However, a brand can still be consistent and recognizable within the broadest media mix, but that requires coordination between the marketing department and the creative agency.
How willing are clients today to invest in strategic media planning, and not just “campaign by campaign”?
From my experience, they are very willing to invest in strategic media planning because it helps them respond more easily to unforeseen business challenges during the year. A well-defined annual media strategy allows for quick evaluation of new media (if they align with the strategy, we know which old channels to cut; if not, we have a solid argument for rejecting them) and easier budget redistribution across brands and campaigns. These are some of the reasons – but perhaps the most important one is that such investment is often not financial; it is usually in-scope within media agencies.
How do you define a good campaign – by numbers, brand impact, or what the audience feels?
A good campaign is one that achieved a higher numerical result than expected.
What frustrates you most in today’s marketing practice, and what keeps you in this industry?
Many things frustrate me daily. I will leave the industry when I stop caring.
What kind of media landscape do you see in the next 3-5 years in the region? Which trends will have the biggest impact?
I assume that in that period we will be in a serious recession, and I hope at least 10% of media budgets will go to true non-skippable pre/mid/post-roll advertising on platforms such as Netflix, HBO Max, or DAZN.
