Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović
On Friday morning on the Slovenian portal Marketing Magazin I read the announcement that “Marketing Magazin has a brother – a new regional marketing portal.” I was thrilled, because we’re bored of competing with ourselves. During the day I followed the portal. It was being filled with news published earlier in the Slovenian version, so I don’t know when the portal was launched precisely. (I thought it was Friday when the news was announced on the Marketing Magazin website, but I see that the portal has news published with a February date so I’m not actually sure when the portal launched, but if it was two months ago, why was the news only made public now?) In any case, it doesn’t matter when it started, what is essential is that it is here, and that people in the industry can now get more information.
Marketingmagazin.eu is a regional variant of the Slovenian Marketing Magazin and is entirely dedicated to original news, commentary and stories from the region. The English portal covers news from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Slovenia.
“First of all we would like to bring the region closer to the world. With information on people, campaigns, agencies and events in the region, we offer readers from all over the world who are interested in communication and marketing industry, insight into the rich happenings in the region,” its editor Gašper Meden stated on the website marketingmagazin.eu, adding that the portal represents “a much needed insight into the creative and communications professions in the region, which is becoming more intertwined.”
Meden’s statement made me think of a situation a decade ago when a group of investors bought the copyright and publishing rights to Business Magazine from me, a magazine that I started in January 1992. It was published until 2003, with a two-year break during the war. At the promotion, when the first issue of the “new” Business Magazine came out, its editor in chief said, among other things, “It’s finally time for Bosnia and Herzegovina to get its Business Magazine!” People looked at me and smiled. It was as if there had, in fact, never been a magazine that had received the annual award of the Association of Journalists of Bosnia and Herzegovina for a publishing project, nor that had been for years a full member of the EBP (European Business Press, the association of publishers in business and finance). So says Meden, “the new portal represents a much needed insight into the creative and communications professions …”, completely ignoring the fact that the portal Media Marketing, the most relevant media outlet of the regional advertising industry, has been out for five years in the Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian language, and, as of 1 December last year, in English, in real time. We launched the English version for the very purpose of bringing the communications industry in the region closer to the world.
But none of that matters. It is important that there is a new portal here, that it looks good and that it is rich in content. I would like to congratulate Marjan Novak, director and strategist of Marketing Magazin on this new business venture. He was our guest a month ago at the Cannes Lions in Sarajevo conference. We had a great time together and will have many more, God willing. I look forward to seeing him soon at the Days of Communication in Rovinj where, I imagine, we will share our experiences of our digital media.
So now what remains for us is simply to get maximally serious, and be even better – if we have ever been good. And to continue to develop the portal Art&Business, which has great potential and importance – perhaps even greater than Media Marketing if we consider the importance of culture and art for the development of all countries in the region, as well as the importance of sponsorship for the development of culture and art. And to focus on our projects. The year started off great with the Cannes Lions in Sarajevo. Besides the two portals, we intend to devote a bit to book publishing. The first title to come out will be the regional edition of Mitja Tuškej’s No Friends, No Brands, which rolled out in Slovenia in December, published by Marketing Magazin. By the summer, we should get off the press a book on the most successful creative directors from the region and their best campaigns. For the autumn, we are preparing a book on art directors from the region, and I should finally get around to finishing my book Hotel Yugoslavia (the former two on creative and art directors are also of my authorship). For October, in Zagreb, we are preparing the Art&Business Conference and Art&Business Awards, a ceremony where we will award the best sponsorship strategies in culture and art. In Belgrade (November 17) we are organizing the AD Woman of the Year, a gala event at which we will pay tribute to the most successful women in the regional communications industry. Visit our event portal www.media-marketing.events for more information on these.
On Saturday we – Amir, Adnan and I – gathered for a “crisis” coffee on the occasion of the new portal marketingmagazin.eu, and they suggested that I write this article and to welcome our colleagues from Slovenia. Which I did, as you can see, with great pleasure.
It’s great. Oh, how glad I am that we finally have someone to rumble with.
Fantje, greva skupaj zmagat! (Guys, together to victory!)