Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Asja Dupanovic
The account and design tandem Angela & Miki is part of the team responsible for the most important client of New Moment New Ideas Company Skopje. Angela-Aleksandra Ivanović impressed the agency management at the first interview. They say that all of the features an account develops during the years of experience are innate to her. She studied Foreign languages (English, Italian and French) and business administration at the undergraduate level and then got a master’s degree in Marketing. During her master’s studies, she managed to complete the CELTA training as well. Miki Drakalska came to New Moment on recommendation of her older brother, but earned her place in the agency’s team with her hard work. She graduated from the College of Graphic Design, Graduated in European Law and received her master’s degree in Human Resource Management. Her silent voice and tenderness which she is distinguished by are in contrast to her creative solutions.
MM: What attracted you to start working in an advertising agency?
Angela-Aleksandra Ivanović: I’ve always been interested in the preponderant power of language in advertising and the way it influences people’s behaviour. However, as I grew older, I realized that you need to possess a plethora of distinct skills in order to succeed in this business. To me, advertising is an amalgam of creativity, wit and intelligence. I found this peculiarity quite challenging and alluring because it requires people to be both creative and analytical. On top of that, it’s a fast-paced industry with continuously growing opportunities, so it’s anything but run-of-the-mill.
Miki Drakalska: I came from an artistic family and always knew I would do something related to creativity. Bearing in mind that marketing is a very dynamic profession, the process itself, the way you can transfer your idea to the target group using different techniques and tools, creative thinking, daily experiments with new things and stepping out of your comfort zone – these are the things which attracted me the most.
MM: Two of you are part of the team responsible for the most important client of the agency. How big is the responsibility you carry for someone your age? What represents the biggest challenge in this team and project for you?
Angela-Aleksandra Ivanović: As a 25-year-old, I think it’s an honour to know that your superiors believe in your ability to manage multiple projects for such an important client and that’s the driving force keeping me working at full stretch. Conversely, sometimes it feels like you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. The biggest challenge is to learn how to be an effective and productive juggler because we constantly have a myriad of simultaneous projects and incredibly strict deadlines. Although it can get very stressful at times, I believe it helps you skyrocket the skills you need for career growth.
Miki Drakalska: Every day is a new challenge. Until our clients will daily have to respond to competition, I never know what will wait for me in the agency, what requirements will be placed before me, what different interests and desires, what will I have to do to satisfy both sides – the client and the agencies.
MM: And what is it in the everyday life of an agency that you see is constantly encouraging you to grow?
Angela-Aleksandra Ivanović: I’m a results-driven person with an innate drive to work relentlessly on achieving goals and, fortunately for me, many of my colleagues share this growth-mindset, so their hard work, perseverance and devotion motivate me on a daily basis.
Miki Drakalska: I am motivated by situations in which an unusual design is accepted by the client, those situations when a client embraces something completely different from what the company was thus far represented by in the market.
I am lucky to work with the best designers in our region. Among them, I must mention my colleague Jana Misheva, who inspires me to give my best. Working with people I’m surrounded with, their directions and tips, this is what helps me grow continuously in every way.
MM: As an account, where do you see the biggest problem of the client-agency relationship?
Angela-Aleksandra Ivanović: One of the predominant problems is the frequent discrepancy between the clients’ expectations and their budgets. Another major issue that exacerbates this discrepancy is their reluctance to understand that sometimes they just need to let us do our job. Every client wants something that’s never been done before or something that is just “different”, but when we opt for a solution that is out of the ordinary, they tend to pressure us into developing hackneyed ideas just to play it safe. This prolongs the process of getting the job done and impels us to curb our creative potential.
MM: Milka, what type of design do you swear by?
Miki Drakalska: The one in which I have full creative freedom, in whose process I can learn and discover new dimensions which help me develop further. When you hear the word “freedom”, you have the feeling that something will be done easily. But this freedom can be a burden. It is not easy to choose a specific direction in which you want your design to go. However, this is the beauty of the freedom of expression for me.
MM: What kind of projects do you like to work on the most?
Angela-Aleksandra Ivanović: I think we all love working on projects where we get to be creative without any restraints. These projects foster great workplace innovation. Last year we had several projects of this type, such as the Jägermeister event which we organized and the visual identity which we developed for a censored museum exhibition.
Miki Drakalska: For me, these are mostly the projects I mentioned in the previous answer, as well as those involving the entire team, where we all contribute to achieving the goal together. Teamwork is generally more fun. My favourite projects are those resulting in social change. One of the newest things I’ve worked on is a set design for a local movie. It was a project in which I had full creative freedom.
MM: What do you envision the future of communication to be like?
Angela-Aleksandra Ivanović: In the not-too-distant future, maybe we’ll see the world through a set of AR glasses, language barriers will disappear and we’ll have devices that will translate real-time conversations. That could bring forth advertising opportunities that are still unfathomable for us today. In some bizarre distant future, I see AI as a colossus bestriding the world, so maybe humanoid robots will take over humans and make space advertising a thing. Although we have yet to see what the future holds for the advertising industry, I am sure digital communication will prevail, but with the expected rise of personal chatbots we’ll need to get very creative lest we get brutally filtered out.
Miki Drakalska: I’m not sure I can give an adequate answer to this question. It is a future for which one cannot predict the direction in which it will develop. When I think how communication has changed since my childhood to date, I am convinced that new and interesting ways will be found to present the companies with less effort.
MM: Do you advise your peers to join you in Macedonia’s communications industry or try to find a better job?
Angela-Aleksandra Ivanović: I understand where they’re coming from because sometimes advertisers create content that can be misleading, but I don’t think that the business per se is misleading. This industry offers a unique opportunity to use a wide range of skills that you had no idea you even possessed in the first place, so I would definitely recommend a job in advertising to any hard-working individual who does not give up easily. It’s a stressful and fast-paced industry, so you either love it or you don’t, but if you manage to get into the swing of it, you’re at the right place.
Miki Drakalska: Everyone should do that which is most fulfilling. All jobs – not just the ones in marketing – are demanding, regardless of the type of field or industry. Since the marketing profession is stressful and challenging, no matter what advice I give to young people who are thinking to become part of this industry, it will not be relevant. Up until they try to work in this field, they will not know if they are suitable for this job.
MM: What are your passions outside the agency?
Angela-Aleksandra Ivanović: I absolutely love languages, so you can usually find me flipping through my language books, researching word origins, or maybe doing grammar exercises just for the fun of it. Languages aside, I also enjoy reading about other things that interest me, I’m a total sci-fi geek, I love experimenting in the kitchen and I’m really into yoga.
Miki Drakalska: I usually spend my free time with people and activities which inspire me day by day. I am trying to attend various cultural events taking place in our city – exhibitions, concerts, book promotions… I have to emphasize that I am passionately devoted to comic books. They inspire me in particular. Another passion of mine is photography and, during the weekend, I try to spend at least an hour with one of my friends, exploring the streets of my hometown, searching for interesting places, hidden spots and taking photos of them. It is interesting that you can live your entire life in one place and still always discover something new. Even people you’ve already seen can always be looked at from another perspective and experienced differently.