Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović
A new edition of the B-Report was issued last Friday. It’s the ranking list of the most awarded agencies and advertisers on the regional and national level, prepared by Slovenian Marketing Magazine. We talked about this project, its results and significance for the development of the Balkan advertising industry with Simona Kruhar Gaberšček, director of the project.
Media Marketing: This is B-report’s second edition. How was the idea for the project born, and what are the goals of this project?
Simona Kruhar Gaberšček: We have set three goals. First, advertisers in the region are increasingly present in all markets, so we wanted to help them by presenting the agencies that stand out at national and regional level. Second goal is to speed up and help festivals in the region in raising the profile of their awards and boost entries to the contests – organizers in the region invest a lot of energy, time and money in preparing conferences and their contents, and the contribution of agencies, in terms of number of registrations, began to decline. And, third, agencies that want to stand out will have to invest in their applications.
Two or three years ago, we in Marketing Magazine followed (and reported) with disappointment the news that Slovenian advertising agencies, but also the agencies of the region, don’t apply their works to international advertising competitions such as Epica, not to even mention the Cannes Lions. I understand that in times of economic crisis, advertisers cut their budgets, which, of course, affected the operations of the agencies who therefore cut (what they see as) unnecessary costs such as registration of works to contests and participation of their people at international festivals. I am aware that preparation of a high-quality registration requires a lot of time and extra money. I believe also that the high-tech solutions, which the world’s major agencies present in Cannes, seem like science fiction to many smaller, local agencies, convincing them that they are therefore unfit to compete with their own ideas. To some extent this is probably true, but we think that all this cannot be an excuse for them not to present their agencies to the world.
When we drew up the charts, we were also pleasantly surprised that the region has a great deal of creativity and that many campaigns that competed at local festivals, also won awards at international festivals.
Since our website Marketing Magazine EU is read by the leading media in Europe and the US, our goal is to thus encourage advertising agencies to present their best work, not only in their own country, but also to the rest of the world. We want the agencies to become aware of how important their own promotion is. You know well that only rare agencies in the region are actively using self-promotion. As a media outlet dedicated to marketing, we believe that they could use that possibility much better.
Media Marketing: What are the criteria for the ranking?
Simona Kruhar Gaberšček: Last year, when we launched the project B-report (by the way, ‘B’ refers to the Balkans, so the states of the former Yugoslavia), we decided that we will develop our own methodology. In doing so we used as an example the famous Gunn Report, which, of course, does not reveal the details of their methodology. It is only known that they take into account awards from 45 most important advertising festivals in the world. So with the help of creative directors in the region, we have prepared a list of festivals that they most appreciate. The list also includes the most important global, regional and local festivals and competitions. Then we attributed a certain number of points for each prize – grand prix, gold, silver, bronze. In the most important global festivals we took into account the placement in the shortlist (finals), because it is in itself a great achievement. And, finally, we added up the points and got the final rankings – the most awarded campaigns, agencies and advertisers in the region and per individual countries. In all, therefore, there was no subjective criteria, no “adjustments” all is based on bare figures that can be easily defended.
Media Marketing: You have excluded the socially responsible campaigns for the list of the most-awarded campaigns. Why?
Simona Kruhar Gaberšček: Juries of advertising festivals and competitions very much like to reward campaigns with social responsibility note, with a higher purpose, good intentions – campaigns which in their opinion are changing the world. These campaigns are generally very emotional, they directly affect the emotions of people and change their behavior in the desired direction because deep inside we all want to be good and work for the benefit of mankind. Of course, there’s nothing wrong in that, but in Marketing Magazine, we think that the communications industry first and foremost needs to drive business and contribute to the economy. Therefore, we, as the Gunn Report, rank socially responsible campaigns separately, on the ranking list of special merit.
Media Marketing: Have you upgraded the criteria since last year, or have they remained the same?
Simona Kruhar Gaberšček: This year we haven’t made changes to the criteria. We will add festivals as we go, or rather competitions in which agencies from the region achieve notable results. Those festivals in which no results were made, we will remove from the list.
Media Marketing: How are the results? Who are the best agencies, advertisers and campaigns in 2016?
Simona Kruhar Gaberšček: Results of the B-Report 2016 show that last year at the regional level the most awarded agency was Croatian Imago Ogilvy, whose campaign for Jana, the “Wing of Love”, won practically all the major awards – the first Cannes Lion for Croatia, the first Grand Prix for Croatia at the Golden Drum, Epica award, Eurobest and Sempler award at the Sempl conference. Imago, of course, with these results is also the most awarded agency at the local level, in Croatia.
In the second place at regional level is McCann Belgrade, whose innovative “Lav Popcorn” for beer Lav of the company Carlsberg Serbia was last year’s most awarded campaign in Serbia. In third was the campaign “Laško Dvoboj”, of the Slovenian agency Luna TBWA, which climbed the regional ranking first and foremost thanks to winning the Gold Sempler award.
Among the results per individual countries I would also highlight agency Via Media from Bosnia and Herzegovina, which thanks to the Gold Sempler award for their “Museum of Public Procurement” has taken the top spot of the BiH charts.
You can see all the other results on the website www.b-report.eu.
Media Marketing: What are the reactions to the project? Are you satisfied?
Simona Kruhar Gaberšček: Bearing in mind that we have not yet started with the promotion of the project, we are very pleased with the initial reactions. The most awarded agencies have immediately noticed their ranking in the B-report and boasted with it to their fans on social networks, and have informed the media about it. Thus, the Croatian media have reported on the overwhelming victory of Imago and Jana, Serbian media published the news that McCann Belgrade is the most awarded agency in Serbia and is second at the regional level.
Agencies in informal conversations praised our initiative, but for now we still can’t say whether B-report has really encouraged them to register more works at festivals.
Media Marketing: Plans for future development of the B-Report?
Simona Kruhar Gaberšček: I already talked about the overly modest self-promotion of agencies, and I could say the same for the B-Report. In the first two years we probed the market and reactions of agencies and advertisers, to determine whether they needed such a project at all. Now, after two reports, we can say that we’re going in the right direction and that we will certainly continue this project, and will ensure its greater promotion. In addition to publication in our media, we will present the B-Report, as we did last year, at the Slovenian Advertising Festival in Portorož and at Days of Communication in Rovinj. We are agreeing cooperation with other international festivals and conferences. In the next phase we will connect with global marketing publications and will ensure the publication of the results of B-Report. I want to thank you, Media Marketing, for supporting us and we are very pleased with that because we have the same goals when it comes to the promotion of regional advertising industry!