When a global initiative moves onto a regional stage for the first time, it is interesting to see whose work will gain greater visibility there. At the first Women in Marketing CEE Awards, held on October 1 in Bucharest, those names included four professionals from Serbia, representing the creative industry, academia and corporate marketing.
Svetlana Ćopić, founder and creative director of No Agency, won The Special Award for Outstanding Contribution to Marketing, a special recognition for contribution to marketing.
Vesna Damnjanović, professor at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, was the winner of the Marketing Scientist Award category. For Jana Savić Rastovac, creative director of McCann Beograd, the recognition came through a campaign that has already moved beyond the framework of a usual communications task. The jury awarded her a Highly Commended recognition in the WiM Social Impact Award category for the campaign Until Death Do Us Part / Dok nas smrt ne rastavi.
The campaign by McCann Beograd and Autonomous Women’s Center addresses violence against women and the prevention of femicide. At its center is a black wedding dress, a symbol through which the familiar phrase “until death do us part” is transformed into a warning about violence that, for some women, begins or continues within an intimate partner relationship. This work had already received recognition at regional festivals, and has now also been recognized on a platform that brings together professionals from across Central and Eastern Europe.
The fourth recognition went to Nataša Šarčević, marketing and innovation director at Atlantic Štark. She received a Commended recognition in the Creative Marketer of the Year Award category.
The first edition of the Women in Marketing CEE Awards is part of the expansion of the Women in Marketing initiative, launched in London in 2004, into the markets of Central and Eastern Europe. The regional platform today covers 18 markets and professionals from different areas of marketing, communications, the creative industry, business and academia.
The shortlist for this year’s edition also included Nađa Lutvikadić-Fočo from BH Telecom, the only representative from Bosnia and Herzegovina to reach the final stage of the selection process. In a competition that, for the first time, sought to place the work of women from across the CEE region on the same stage, the four recognitions from Serbia thus became one of the most notable results from our region.
