You’ve met Jasna Stokić far more often than you think. Whether you’re shopping for home appliances, buying chocolate, taking a course at a language school, or planning a visit to a shopping mall, you will see this marketing specialist. Jasna will also offer you money on behalf of three different banks, and only in the Serbian market she advertises more than 10 brands! Jasna is a face people trust.
But who is Jasna, actually?
Jasna is one of the most popular stock models in the world, with over 150,000 photos on various platforms by 2025. She currently has more than 50,500 photos on Shutterstock, 53,586 photos on Adobe Stock, and 48,184 photos on Dreamstime. Stock platforms promote what gets downloaded the most, so Jasna became a trusted face almost automatically – the algorithm trusts the data, brands trust the algorithm, and consumers trust the face. In such a system, the choice is no longer aesthetic or intentional, but a technical consequence of inertia.
What is the secret of her success?
To answer this question, employees of the creative agency SIVO gave this woman without an identity a name, a surname, and the profession of marketing specialist. With the aim of drawing attention to the growing problem of using generic advertising solutions, which brands increasingly rely on, they created a LinkedIn profile under the name Jasna Stokić. The profile received connection requests from professionals in the advertising industry, while posts about campaigns she “participated” in gained significant impressions.
“The idea of the campaign was to highlight the fact that using Jasna’s image for brands is what we could call a ‘safe’ option that resonates with everyone. However, such solutions barely trigger an emotional response from the audience because they don’t address anyone in particular,” said Jelena Brajović Dobrijević, deputy general director of the SIVO agency.
How can we trust Jasna?
Marketing that plays it safe, which Jasna advocates, has become a symptom of the growing amount of generic content in the media space. In brand communication, everything that is mass-produced and speaks to everyone essentially speaks to no one individually. Such uniformity undermines healthy competition, blurs the differences between brands, and contributes to creating a passive and oversaturated audience. Trust weakens and real connections between brands and people break down. Brands can buy ad space, but creativity is what wins and keeps trust. Have you seen Jasna on billboards in your city or in your LinkedIn feed?
Read more about Jasna and the campaign on the SIVO agency website.
