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Online Advertising Market Business Watch in Romania
I’m doing live blogging right now from a very interesting event hosted the International Advertising Association (IAA Romania) YP Chapter.
Dan Petre (Managing Partner D&D Research) is delivering a great presentation on insights, market research, tools and advanced techniques.
Also invited to speak this evening: Raluca Oprescu – Marketing Development Management Ursus Breweries and Sorin Psatta – Integrated Communications Director BBDO.
At a first glance, I’m almost sure that 2010 will be the year of media buying agencies in Romania.
The fragmentation is amazing and probably the client service and decent rebates will decide who will perform the best in 2010. One thing is for sure: the media agencies will have a head start when negotiating buying terms for this year.
I’m planning to write a post in a near future about the latest movements on the market and about the surprising situations we’ll encounter this year.
In a nutshell: although there is a very fragmented market (with more sales agencies in 2010), the number of high-traffic Romanian websites remains constant – so are the budgets 
Gabriel Boaca and Magdalena Zander (part of the executive management of Intact Interactive in 2009) announced yesterday the launch of Digital4, a local advertising sales agency focused only on independent websites.
A very good start-up idea but very difficult for 2010 – I’m more than sure that their experince in ARBOmedia, Boom and Intact Interactive will help them boost things up by Q4 in a very complicated and fragmented Romanian online market.
Congratulations for the start-up and wish them many campaigns in 2010!
Silviu Ispas, local managing director of ARBOmedia.net and EMI Romania, decided to leave the company starting with 31st of march 2010.
ARBOmedia is already looking for a replacement for Romanian operations but until then, mr. Thomas Landolt, board president of ARBOmedia AG will supervise the operations (media buying and publishing) on the local market.
Fun Intro – Nikolas Sarkozy viral video on eRepublik - Spain Vs France:
Alexis Bonte, one of the most enthusiastic European Internet entrepreneurs, published a blog post today celebrating the 1 millionth eRepublik citizen.
I remember that when I first met Alexis he was really excited about eRepublik.com and about the project (If I remember well, it was before the investment in Trilulilu). eRepublik.com was launched in november 2007 by Romanian entrepreneur George Lemnaru – the start-up had a 200.000 eur investment made by Alexis Bonte and I remember that after a short time the success was so big that the servers needed a fast upgrade.
Today, after counting 1.000.000 users, I have to congratulate George and Alexis and their investors (for being inspired) and hope to see the number at least double by the end of 2010 Continue reading ‘eRepublik reached 1.000.000 users in december 2009′
Right now I’m in Paris but a few friends from Romania told me that they were working on a report for a non-governmental organization monitoring antisemitism online.
The mind blowing thing is that they also check to see who is financing bloggers of websites that promote racial hatered and antisemitism and that they discovered Vodafone paid advertising on blog pages: Continue reading ‘Vodafone Romania suspected of sponsoring antisemitism and discrimination’
Augustin Roman replaced Sorin Danilescu as the General Manager of Intact Interactive, the sales agency part of Intact Media Group.
Sorin Danilescu manged the company and the Internet division of Intact Media Group for 4 months and from now on he will be focused on developing new websites for the group. Continue reading ‘Augustin Roman, The New General Manager at Intact Interactive’
Right now at LeWeb, Ryan Sarver (Twitter) made a very important announcement for the developers all over the world – The first Twitter Developer Conference will take place in San Francisco in 2010.
More details on the official website: http://chirp.twitter.com/
After the guest speakers and events this morning, here are other interesting picks for the rest of the day (if you’re not in Paris you can check out the live video stream on the official website): Continue reading ‘LeWeb 2009 Agenda – very interesting to follow today’
Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder) is now on stage #LeWeb and speaks about how their users are redefining twitter every day
The live demo of the day – The Square is a hardware and software app used to communicate with the payment networks to complete transactions and transforms you phone into a POS. Continue reading ‘Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder) – “The Square” live demo, LeWeb 2009, Paris’
Intro Note: I really don’t like scandals, propaganda, and lies – I usually don’t comment on my blog when people attack me but this time I had a strong reason to expose the lies, blackmailing and pressures the team from ASLS faced from a local Romanian blogger when working for WBF2009.
Vali Petcu (also known as Zoso), is a Romanian blogger aspiring to get “A listed”. He claims to be one of the most read bloggers in Romania but the problem he had when got out of trafic.ro (official auditing of Romanian websites) was that he had only 200 readers and a very strong long tail (people searching for Romanian TV star, Mircea Badea, trivia, sexual content, etc). This is also a reason for keeping out of SATI (also auditing romanian traffic).
On the other hand, Vali Petcu is in the “dark” side of the blogging business, blackmailing companies and using a network of blogs for attacking companies and people. I had a strong research on the matter as I was on of the attacked persons. As a normal person, I had to ask myself “why?” and tried to understand who is this guy and what is he planning with his network. Continue reading ‘Thoughts after #WBF2009 – explanations on how some Romanian bloggers hurt their ego’
Great news for the people around the world that didn’t make it to Bucharest at the World Blogging Forum: you can watch the event live on the Internet if you click here.
The video broadcast is powered by MediaDirect one of the most advanced companies in Romania specialized in online video delivery.
I’m at the World Blogging Forum in the Palace of The Parliament and doing live blogging
Romanian president Traian Basescu was the surprise of the day (at least for me) because he came to a blogging event and had a very interesting speech about new media, twitter, blogging and online journalism.
Very surprised to hear Traian Basescu talking about online advertising on blogs about the twitter revolution in Moldova or about the Internet attacks in Estonia and Georgia. Continue reading ‘Romanian President, Traian Basescu speaking about Internet at WBF’
This is the only confirmed news
Visual Soft SRL the company that owns and operates Autovit.ro, the biggest auto classiffieds website in Romania was sold to MIH Allegro BV, European subsidiary of Naspers South Africa. Continue reading ‘Autovit.ro sold to MIH Allegro BV, European subsidiary of Naspers South Africa’
Today I had a look at the media partners covering the World Blogging Forum and I just noticed that blomedia.pl has 1,590,000 unique users and over 6,565,000 page views (data for September 2009, Source: Google Analytics). Continue reading ‘1.500.000 monthly visitors on blomedia.pl’
The Open Internet Coalition sent Letter to FCC Chairman Genachowski Supporting Open Internet Rules.
The letter is signed by 24 CEOs and founders representing the world’s leading Internet and technology companies (eg Facebook, Sony, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, and Google) and they say their support the effort to protect an open Internet.
Continue reading ‘Open Internet Coalition – Letter of Support to FCC’
Dir. Constantin Popescu / Romania / 2008 / http://www.sagafilm.ro
A heartwarming comedy of parents using a computer for the first time to communicate with their son in America.
Y!Messenger Romania Snapshot
Unique Users: 7,8 million/month
Gender: 49% Male / 51% Female
Age: 74% are A18-44
Time Spent: 51 minutes/visit (average)
Inventory Romania: 892,000,000/month
GSP/Gazeta Sporturilor: Catalin Tolontan wrote about transparency regarding internet advertising in Romania. The article accused the competition of malpractice and had a political message concerning SATI members and media agencies.
MediaPro Interactiv: Orlando Nicoara responded with a detailed post on his blog. He explained how SATI works, he explained how the Internet works and accused Tolontan of not understanding the market and being misinformed by his employees, Augustin Roman and Sorin Danilescu.
AdEvolution: Val Voicu was second to respond to the malpractice accusations. He stated that traditional media represented by Tolontan is facing a sudden death and that they try to impose an old mentality and a model that is not self-sustainable and not applicable anywhere in the world. Regarding the emotional part of the answer, he accused Tolontan of being involved in operations with secret services and that his journalism is not ethical. Continue reading ‘Romanian internet market – BRAT/SATI involved in a new scandal’
August 2009 – Hi5.com (social networking website), similar to Facebook, leader on its segment in Romania:
Changes from december 2008:
I have no idea what happened to see this type of growth in 25-35 but it’s a good thing for the sales team since they now have a strong argument for pushing this website. Demographics provided by Alexa say that 18-24 are over-represented on Hi5 but probably will change on their next update.
Central European Media Enterprises Ltd. (“CME” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq/Prague Stock Exchange: CETV) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with MediaPro Management and MediaPro BV, both controlled by Adrian Sarbu, to acquire the MediaPro Entertainment business. MediaPro Entertainment is one of the leading producers and distributors of television fiction and owns one of the largest studio/production facilities in Central and Eastern Europe. In consideration, MediaPro Management and MediaPro BV will receive US$ 10.0 million in cash, 2.2 million shares of CME’s Class A Common Stock and a warrant to purchase up to 850,000 shares of CME’s Class A Common Stock at a price of US$ 21.75, debt assumption of approximately US$ 35.6 million, and the contribution of CME’s 8.7% interest in MediaPro Management and CME’s 10% interest in MediaPro BV.
CME also announced that Adrian Sarbu, currently the Company’s President and Chief Operating Officer, was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of CME.
Felicia has a new trendy look!
The project was managed by Gazeta Online, developed by 3Waves Net and designed by AM design. Congratulations!
To celebrate the new version, Intact Interactive is preparing a special offer for advertisers interested in targeting women. Stay tuned!
Ringier: launching online division managed by Marius Hagger (online background), Andrei Frunza (development) and Laurentiu Ciornei (editorial), 100 people, open source platform, e-commerce, editorial + classifieds, new women website coming soon, different sales model, details here; Continue reading ‘Romanian Online Market updates – weekly picks’
Media spending in Romania (PwC estimates):
2008: est. 869 mil. USD
2009: est. 755 mil. USD
2010: est. 725 mil. USD
2013: est. 917 mil. USD
Last autumn we started to work on our strategy and we spend more than 2 weeks gathering business information from the industry and estimating the market we operate in.
After heavy fights and very long nights in Ficusului Blvd. with Gabi and Magda, I tried to convince them that it’s not impossible to obtain the right figures in a stable market like Romania. Of course, everything was based on open source information and on our skills and understanding of the local market.
This is how we prepared a SWOT analysis focused on top 10 online advertising companies operating in Romania (market share and revenue share).
Tonight I checked again this document and I saw it was last saved on 27th of October 2008 – in the beginning:
Sheet 1 – 1. The market we operate in
Market size 2008 (€ MM): 20,0
Our key competitors: [...]
I know this is funny for Magda and Gabi but after 7 months, IAB & PWC prepare to publish their official report regarding the online advertising market in 2008. Their figure: 20 € MM.
Having this information 7 months ago was priceless. Many of our partners estimated 12 or 15 € MM and we like to believe that we helped them in order to better understand the local online advertising market.
Financiarul has a new online version that you can check out at www.financiarul.com (cheers Gusti).
The newspaper offers daily financial news and is published by Media Casa Press (part of INTACT Media Group).
The online advertising on Financiarul.com is managed by INTACT Interactive.
In 2007 I had a presentation called “Blogs – Competitive through information”, prepared for Strategic Marketing.
The idea was to evaluate blogs as sources of competitive information, raw intelligence or OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) – the model was introduced by army intelligence when developing strategic intelligence models for early warnings, Cyber-Intelligence, C4I systems, War-Rooms, etc.
Well, the idea is that today information warfare is as important to business as it is to the military
Here are some things we can figure out from the industry blogs/twitts/different posts and comments: Continue reading ‘Internet market in Romania – How do you know what your competition is thinking’
INTACT Interactive kept its promise and introduced the first 3D, 300×600 banners.
Renault, a company with a strong appetite for design and innovation is the first to launch a 3d wide campaign in Romania.
Great visibility, strong impact, wide formats are the future of online advertising.
During the crises, some companies decide to invest even more in online media.
Congratulations to Reckitt Benckiser for planning 5% of their media spendure for online campaigns (that’s 20 mil. usd). This decision is for the U.S. market but I’m waiting to see what is going to happen in Europe and in Romania.
Reckitt Benckiser owns brands like Cillit, Calgon, Vanish, Veet, Strepsils, Nurofen and Clearasil.
2008 business highlights.
- net revenues £6,563m (13% growth);
- £1,535m profit (15% growth).
And a quote from they’re annual report:
Our innovation has been crucial in giving consumers even more reason to buy our products.
Quick notes:
- 20:18:48 – earthquake starts;
- Hotnews is the only website to publish the undocumented news – 20:21 (~2,3 minutes after the earthquake, title “Cutremur in Bucuresti”);
- 20:25 -20:28 – no news on Antena3.ro/Realitatea.net – both websites receive heavy traffic;
- Antena3.ro – 20:29, first documented news;
- Realitatea.net 20:32, first news about the earthquake, heavy traffic, website is down;
- 20:33 – Panic hits Bucharest – main phone lines are down;
Conclusions:
- Hotnews was the first to mention the earthquake while Antena3 is the first channel to provide the official intel in less than 10 minutes. Realitatea.net copied the info 3 minutes after was published on Antena3 and now it looks that Hotnews copied the info from Antena3;
- the competition between the first 3 players is very hard and every minute can make a difference;
- Antena3 had the fastest reaction and broadcasted the first news but Hotnews had the fastest online presence announcing the event in a very short time;
- StirileProTv.ro is the only website without a reaction in the first 30 minutes after the earthquake mainly because they don’t have dedicated online editors and they depend on Mediafax and PROTV;
- Mediafax had its first release on 20:59;
- It seems that people, instead of going outside their buildings, they went online;
- 100 blog posts in the first 50 minutes after the earthquake (Google Blog Search/tag: cutremur);
- more reactions (compared to blogs blogs) on twitter #cutremur;
- I recall an early study made by Romanian government – during a crisis, Romanians switch to official state channels (TVR, Radio Romania) to find out more about what is happening. I think that we can notice a switch in this behavior since many people try to go online and find out more;
Congratulations:
- Gandul.info – they published the news at 21:20 but on Google it shows that it was published 19 hours ago – nice Google trick but I don’t think they’re going to rank very high.
INTACT Interactive prepared the first Internet Business Intelligence Report regarding Romanian Online Advertising in Q1. The report is available in english for all the publishers in our portfolio and for our partners interested in online advertising and Romanian Internet.
The report is based on advertising campaigns served by Boom (Netbridge Investments), ARBOInteractive, AdEvolution, MediaCafe, MediaPro Interactiv, F5X Media (Realitatea-Catavencu), InternetCorp, AdTarget, Sanoma-Hearst and Splendid Media.
The good news is that beginning with March 2009, more clients started to spend their budgets on online advertising.
During last days, several journalists wanted a point of view regarding our commercial relationship with Boom (Netbridge Investments). I’ve decided to publish the questions and some of the answers I gave (romanian only):
Q: Te rog sa ne spui oficial daca site-urile grupului Intact au de incasat de la Boom venituri aferente anului 2008 si despre ce site-uri e vorba( mai precis daca e vb de flota Gazeta, sfin.ro, jurnalul.ro, revistafelicia.ro, topgear.ro)
Bogdan Gavrila: Va pot spune ca au existat legaturi contractuale in 2008 intre companii ale INTACT Media Group si regia de vanzari online Boom (NetBridge Investments) detinuta de fondul de investitii NCH. Pe fondul crizei financiare, toate contractele au fost reziliate la inceputul lui 2009. Atat domnul Cristian Petriceanu cat si Boom au fost parteneri stabili in 2008 si au incercat sa-si onoreze angajamentele. In ciuda zvonurilor din ultima vreme, sunt convins de faptul ca, la nivel de NetBridge Investments, vor fi luate cele mai bune decizii si isi vor pastra bunul renume in piata.
Q: Boom are datorii/intarzieri de plata fata de gsp.ro? Daca da, care este valoarea aproximativa a acestora si ce masuri poti lua?
Bogdan Gavrila: Exista intarzieri generate de criza financiara in toata piata. In acest moment site-urile gsp.ro sunt reprezentate in regim de exclusivitate de Intact Interactive. Contractul cu Boom a fost reziliat la inceputul anului insa daca exista detalii referitoare la datoriile comerciale, acestea au fost sau vor fi stabilite doar de reprezentantii celor doua companii.
Q: Poate deveni ingrijoratoare crearea unei noi divizii a Boom, pentru furnizorii la care regia mai are datorii?
Bogdan Gavrila: Privesc cu interes infiintarea a doua noi companii care isi propun sa vanda aceleasi site-uri. Nu este o practica noua pentru piata de publicitate online. Cunoscand corectitudinea de business a Boom si a lui Cristian Petriceanu, nu cred ca aceste companii au fost infiintate pentru a evita plata datoriilor si cred ca Boom isi va pastra in continuare bunul renume in piata de online.
Q: Crezi ca ar fi posibil ca Boom sa incerce un “faliment fortat”?
Bogdan Gavrila: Costurile de imagine ar putea fi foarte mari in cazul unor inginerii financiare de acest fel. Cred ca Boom face eforturi in acest moment pentru a-si plati toate datoriile iar mutarea operatiunilor si angajatilor pe alte firme este parte a procesului de eficientizare. Boom a fost o regie extrem de importanta pentru Internetul romanesc si pentru piata de publicitate online iar un “faliment fortat” ar afecta credibilitatea industriei de publicitate online.
Related links:
AdvetisingAge writes about Mindshare’s new metric for online video. The plan is for advertisers to start buying online video on a gross-ratings-point basis (GRPs), the same way they buy TV.
Click here to download iGRP Whitepaper.
Mindshare, Mediaedge:cia, MediaCom (also operating in Romania) are agencies within Group M.
Press release here.
Antena3.ro broadcasts live the revolution in Basarabia (Chisinau).
Interesting facts about the events in Basarabia:
Do you plan to do online business in Romania? Contact me.
DISCLAIMER: this is a personal blog. The contents of this site does not necessarily represent the expressed opinions of my employer, my endorsers or my partners.
