No matter which changes occur, the main goal in marketing stays the same and that’s reaching the consumer.
In today’s world with more channels than ever, nothing is accomplish-able without good strategy. The director of creative media agency UM, Mario Lovrić, pointed out to an interesting piece of information that around 85% of world population with internet access manage at least one of their social media profiles, while in Croatia it’s around 90%. That is, of course, key information for strategic planning.
How was 2017. for your agency and what do you expect from 2018?
This year due to Agrokor crisis, the market has transformed itself and media agencies had to prove themselves. I think that we are leaving this challenging year as one of the winners.
We successfully took over reputable clients like Addiko Bank, H&M and Krka, but also at the same time we continued cooperation with our existing clients after successfully winning all media tenders and creating healthy basis for long-term stability of the agency.
We are looking forward to the upcoming year because we’ll have a chance to work on improving the quality of our service. Since we’ve significantly strengthened our team, a special emphasis will be on further strengthening our digital team which is growing in number by the day.
Which are the currently most common trends?
I would emphasize the need to further segment the recipient of the message (the consumer) not only based on his demographic characteristics but also based on his type of lifestyle. Then, the message can be more relevant and the consumer could actually identify himself with it.
What helps in this process is the technology, and I’m proud to present our Moments process of planning including our other tools which our network creates globally and we implement locally.
The technology has of course made the most progress in the digital segment but the data, including a variety of research tools used for efficient use the offline media is also very important in order to determine which channel from the media mix contributes the most to communication synergy.
Did the budgets recover and how much of it is invested in marketing activities?
I can give you examples for both based on your question. In some market segments the competition intensified. For instance in retail segment there was an increase in investments while in the segment of telecommunications, the investments became more rationalized.
Big brands are investing big budgets but at the same time their goal is to make their investments more efficient and every step measurable while on the other hand small brands have an advertising opportunity in online media where they can achieve good results without huge investments with a creative approach.
Last year there was a lot of talk about going digital. Now that that’s behind us, what next can we expect?
Može se očekivati da nakon digitala u užem smislu te riječi, zapravo sve postane digitalno i umreženo te da se procesima oglašavanja sve više upravlja pomoću automatiziranih procesa, tzv. programmatica.
Prema vašim procjenama, koliko vrijedi tržište marketinga kod nas, a koliko vani?
After digital we could expect TV, OOH, radio,… becoming more networked and connected and advertising processes being managed by automated processes also known as “programmatic”
It’s safe to say that those things are already happening on the most developed markets in the world and that they are coming here as soon as the “big players” start to invest.
There’s a lot of talk about unemployment of young people in the public, what’s the situation in your sector?
We are witnesses that the structure of supply and demand of human resources has drastically changed in the last 2 years. Certain big companies are opening their global offices for digital marketing in Croatia, Croatian companies are selling their services abroad and our experts are hired by big companies and work abroad. It resulted in higher demand for experts in digital area. On the other hand, our educational system isn’t fully prepared for that. Today’s circumstances on the market show that no knowledge is absolute and that advances in technology have forced us to keep investing in ourselves and brought on necessity for lifelong learning.
According to your estimation, how much does marketing sector worth in Croatia, and how much abroad?
Global advertising tools are well known in our market and we aren’t lagging behing in that area. When it comes to local media, a difference can be spotted between ours and the most advanced markets. In the coming years, most of the investments will go to linear TV while on the developed markets, everything is fused in digital while TV is going in “programmatic” direction. While we are only starting to use digital OOH, that’s been a standard on the developed markets.
It’s hard to compare values of different sized markets but Croatian media market has approximately 200 mil. € of yearly investments. Our market has a lot to offer technologically but also with quality of our content.
I would dare to be a reasonable optimist and to expect positive trends on our market for which our agency will be prepared.
I&F McCann Grupa jedan je od vodećih komunikacionih sistema koji 20 godina uspešno posluje u 12 zemlja jugo istočne Evrope i nordijske regije. Naš posvećen tim čini 600 talentovanih profesionalaca, koji svakodnevno sarađuju na integraciji marketinških kampanja, promotivnih aktivnosti, organizaciji događaja, dizajnu, planiranju i zakupu medijskog prostora, PR, produkciji, komunikaciji u oblasti zdravstva, kreiranju TV sadržaja,kao i na svim formama digitalnog marketinga. Agencije koje posluju u okviru I&F McCann Grupe deo su McCann Worldgroup (www.mccannworldgroup.com),jedne od najvećih svetskih agencijskih mreža,osnovane 1902.godine koja posluje u više od 120 zemalja sveta, i u vlasništvu je Interpublic Group (IPG) (www.interpublic.com) sa sedištem u Njujorku.