Photo: Katarina Kotlareska and Kristina Ercegović
14TH BUSINESS CAFÉ HELD IN SKOPJE
Guests of Katarina Kotlareska, owner of the license of Business Café for Macedonia, were Petar Ninovski, author of an online platform for offline education, Elizabeta Planinić, originally from Macedonia and currently the best microentrepreneur in Croatia, and Goran Antevski.
All the guests emphasized that it’s important for them to choose the people they work with and that what they do and with whom they do it makes them happy. All have commented that the presence in the local market is not enough and that the Balkans are a sufficiently large market for business and testing ideas, as well as further business expansion. They emphasized that it’s important who you surround yourself with, that we all need each other, and that it’s important to build partnerships.
As a winning formula they underlined: a good idea + the right people + at the right time + a lot of work.
In the end, they all agreed that the greatest challenge is to change the mentalities in this region.
The next Business Café is scheduled for 9 February, in Dubrovnik, and then on 25 February in Podgorica.
FUTURA CREATES FIRST SLOVENIAN AD FOR MCDONALD’S
For the first time, after more than 20 years in the Slovenian market, McDonald’s Slovenia decided to film a local TV ad. So far they’ve always used the adaptation of foreign productions. The first spot, created and recorded in Slovenia, was done by the agency Futura DDB. It was created in collaboration with director Nejc Pohar, director of photography Aleksandar Pavlović and was produced by Pakt Media.
“After a long period in which communication activities monitored primarily short-term sales targets, which in the long-term left implications for the brand, two years ago a strategic decision was made that all communication efforts will be aimed at refreshing and strengthening the brand in the local market. We refreshed and consolidated visual image of communication materials and at the beginning of the year, together with the client, we made the decision to do the first Slovenian corporate McDonald’s TV ad. The ad is based on McDonald’s I’m lovin ‘it melody, which we have included in the daily situations (clips from life) of our consumers,” said Dragana Josipović, executive director of the Futura DDB.
WORLD’S LARGEST BEER PORTAL DECLARES MEDVEDGRAD WORLD’S BEST BREWERY FOR THE SECOND TIME
The world’s largest beer portal, RateBeer, has declared the brewery and pub Medvedgrad the best in the world for the second time in a row.
This Croatian independent brewery at one point offered ten styles of beer, and this year in total they have brewed 13 styles. This is the result of ongoing investment in capacities. Last year they upgraded their plants with eight new tanks of 15,000 liters, thus doubling capacities. They made the tanks themselves, so the investment was only 30 per cent of the market value.
“At the beginning, we covered most of the investment from current operations, and after some time banks and leasing companies started to recognize our potential and kept track of us. There is also a new storage area, which is almost entirely refrigerated, which allows us long-term preservation of the quality of beer,” said Ivan Nauković from the Medvedgrad Brewery. He adds that they have made the device for dry hopping and that they are considering new investments in similar devices.
Thus equipped, last year they managed to produce 1.2 million liters of beer, of which they sold 1,050,000. This year they plan to produce 1.5 million liters, and to increase sales to 1,400,000.
APPLE’S VIEW-MASTER REACHES ONLINE STORES
Apple’s VR headset View-Master has been included in the offer of Apple’s online store. This is the first VR product from Apple that they have made in collaboration with the toy company Mattel.
View-Master products were first presented in 1939, and older readers will surely remember cardboard reels with views of toys, scenes from cartoons and the like. View-Master has now been brought into the digital age with a special app that runs on your phone, which is then placed in the View-Master headset to watch the content. This result of collaboration between Apple and Mattel will cost $ 30.
HEAD OF VERIZON CONFIRMS THEY ARE EYEING A BID FOR YAHOO
Verizon’s chief executive Lowell McAdam admitted that this house is considering buying the troubled internet giant Yahoo. Verizon had previously hinted interest in buying Yahoo, but this is the first time McAdam was a bit more outspoken on the subject, stating that it wouldn’t be bad to marry some of the Yahoo’s assets with resources of AOL that Verizon bought in May 2015 for $ 4.4 billion.
LG FORMS A SOCIAL MEDIA WAR ROOM OF 30-40 PEOPLE FOR THE SUPER BOWL
For this year’s Super Bowl LG is staffing a social media war room, with about 30 to 40 people from LG, Mindshare, iCrossing, HG Ad and Twitter. The team is to work on the social channels of this electronics manufacturer on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube during the game, and to monitor and respond to chatter on the social networks in real time.
PREMIER LEAGUE OFFICIALS WANT TO PUT AN END TO ILLEGAL STREAMING
Officials of the English Premier League have begun discussions with cyber security companies to find a way to put an end to illegal streaming of matches online. Premiership has previously tried to solve this problem through partnerships with companies such as Net Result, Irdeto and ID Inquires, and so far have managed to block around 45,000 illegal streams. Citing as source one of the “industry insiders”, The Times revealed that illegal streams are watched by up to one million people each week.
