Sorel Radu is now responsible for the sales strategy at Realitatea-Catavencu Media Group (print, radio, indoor TV and online): Tabu, Academia Catavencu, 24 Fun, Aventuri la Pescuit, J’adore, Business Standard, Money Express, Cotidianul, Radio Guerrilla, Realitatea FM, Monopoly Tv Network.
Sorel Radu was also involved in financing new media projects for the group (f5webcorp.com) and was the main person in charge with their new media sales division.
Laurentiu Pop is now deputy managing director and will team with Bianca Vlaston (EurActiv.ro/HotNews.ro) at Httpool Romania (news via Doru). Httpool is an interactive full service agency with a different approach and a new business model for Romania.
Their target (250.000 eur) for 2009 is achievable for Laurentiu – he used to play with millions
I was glad to read about Calin Fusu (Neogen) in a lifestyle magazine published in Moldova. The article is called “11 for Romania” and Calin is presented as a success story – the American dream came true for him in Romania
New Media is a book written by Dorina Gutu and starting today it’s available in bookshops. The book is about politics, blogs, blogging, web 2.0, Terrorism 2.0, podcasting, YouTube, Second Life, etc. – you know the list
Rachad El Jisr stepped down from the management of iMedia (Automarket, BizCity, Bumerang, Business Romania, CineMagia, Eva, Jocuri 24, Metropolis, Program 24, Stiri 24, Top Sanatate, Toplinks) leaving Adrian Cernescu in charge. Continue reading ‘Rachad El Jisr no longer iMedia manager’
Claudiu Gamulescu (Online Business Developer, Underclick.ro) together with Nona Serbanescu (Media Development Manager, Hanson Marketing) and Daniel Enescu (Managing Partner, Daedalus Consulting) will speak today at Strategic Marketing starting at 1400.
Claudiu Gamulescu started his online business in 1998 and since then he developed different e-marketing, e-commerce and online branding projects. Lecturer at the Academy of Economics in Bucharest and President of the SGGC Businessman Association, Claudiu Gamulescu is one of the first Romanian Evangelists (although he’s very modest) and promotes new media technologies in Eastern Europe.
“U.S. Army Europe announced the winners of its soldier and noncommissioned officer of the year competitions Friday in Heidelberg, Germany.
Staff Sgt. Travis Snook, of the 7th Army NCO Academy, was named the winning sergeant, and Cpl. Mihai Mocanu, of 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, was the top soldier.
Both men competed Aug. 13-15 in Grafenwöhr, Germany. Events included two land navigation courses, a 15-kilometer foot march, day and night weapons qualifications, an Army Physical Fitness Test and a series of other combat tasks, according to the USAREUR public affairs office.
Snook, of Lewistown, Pa., was previously named the USAREUR separate units NCO of the year. An armor soldier by trade, Snook is currently serving as a small-group instructor at the 7th Army NCOA. The seven-year veteran has a wife, Melissa, a son, Chanze, and is interested in Army Combatives training and coaching youth soccer. “I’m an example of what a good NCO is supposed to be both in physical condition and in mental capacity,” Snook told USAREUR PAO.
Mocanu, who represented V Corps as its soldier of the year, previously served in the Romanian army. A native of Hirlau, Romania, Mocanu has served as an infantryman for a year and a half after spending six years as a Ponds Security contractor in Hohenfels, Germany.
The 1997 European martial arts champion has a wife, Monica, and daughter, Emily, and dreams of attending Army Ranger, airborne and air assault schools. Even if he had lost, Mocanu told USAREUR, he would not have been discouraged. “Maybe sometimes you lose a battle, but it doesn’t mean you’ve lost a war,” he said.
By winning, both men earned the right to represent USAREUR in the Department of the Army-level competition Oct. 1-5 at Fort Lee, Va.”
After one year working at Google, Vivi decided to launch a small start-up in Vancouver, WA. He is the first Romanian blogger to have a chain of Complete Professional Nail Care & Foot Spas.
Rumors say that the business is great and many Google employees use Vivi’s facility. This is the main reason why in may 2007, Sergey Brin asked Vivi to open a Vivi Nails center in the Googleplex.
Antonio Eram is well known as one of the brains behind NETOPIA System. The thing you didn’t know is that Eram SA is the leading manufacturer of shoes in France, producing more than 11 million pairs of shoes per year.
Another secret is that he is planning to offer free shoes to all the users using the Romanian blogging platform Weblog.
Orlando Nicoara is well known for his managing skills. We all knew that his only business is online but his greatest secret is the Orlando Magazine – the magazine reflects the lifestyle and interests of an upscale, educated readership. Although he is very discreet about his involvement as a media owner, the plans are to bring the Orlando Magazine in Romania in 2010 (when he plans to exit the existing online business).
Finally, the most controversial secret is about the first Romanian blogger to win the first million dollars from his blog. Few people know that his accident also provided national TV coverage for his blog and this is how his revenues reached the sky in just a few days. This is how Zoso made the first million but this was just the beginning and now he managed to build an empire based on blogging.
His latest investment is the Zoso Hotel in Palm Springs but his latest visit to Paris indicates that he is about to open another Zoso Hotel near the Eiffel Tower.
[DISCLAIMER - the information presented below is not yet 100% verified and is just based on rumors. I hope you had fun reading it and please considered it as a week-end posting ]
From left to right: Claudiu, Magda, Doru, Corina, Laurentiu and Gabi. They were the guys running the ARBOmedia online business and last night we had the last party.
Doru left ARBOmedia beginning with the 1st of January 2007 and started a new job with Initiative Media. He was the team leader in the online department.
Laurentiu was the second important member to leave the company and join Doru at Initiative Media. His departure is critical – few people know that Laurentiu had a sales target close to 1.000.000 USD. He was very discreet about his departure but the effects will be dramatic.
Claudiu spend yesterday his last day at ARBO. His plans are to return to his business. He was one of the oldest partners in ARBO and had a great online know-how.
Magda was another key person in the online department and she already packed her stuff. Although she had a smaller sales target, she was the one managing the relationships with all the publishers and was the ad server guru. Her departure means that some websites will follow but the most important thing is her new position in the new company (a spectacular evolution).
Corina was the one managing the special projects at ARBO. She will also join Magda in the new sales department leaving ARBO with another problem.
Gabi is the last person to leave the boat, also joining Magda and Corina. He was one of the most experienced sales persons but also very discreet and very business oriented.
The 6 people you see in the picture above are the ARBOmedia online team – they made the network, they managed the ad server, the did the million EUR sales.
The first two people I met from ARBOmedia were Magda and Laurentiu. They seemed quite positive to me in a discussion that I wanted to drive them crazy but they had answers for every question.
Last year the ARBO online golden team was as its best: with Calin Rotarus managing the online sales and Doru Panaitescu executing clearly every campaign. Things started to chill last autumn. First, Calin took charge of all ARBO sales so there was one shortage in the online department by the end of the year. Surprisingly for everybody we found that beginning with the 1st of January 2007, Doru Panaitescu left ARBO and entered another interactive quest. Next on the list was Laurentiu so the core team was loosing member by member. The ARBO online team had a solid core at some time but the decisions made by some people confused the term “management” with “leadership” so that chemistry kicked in big time.
I remember that one time I had the chance to see what Magda was doing over there so I was really impressed. I told one of our investors that if we wanted to start an online sales agency, Magda would be the first person to recruit (first of all because of her long Yahoo Messenger list full of site owners ) and I considered her to be one of the key members in the ARBOmedia online team. At some moment this year she was promoted but I guess that her heart had other plans
A few moments ago Magda announced us (e-mail) that she’s leaving ARBO beginning with the 1st of July. I told to myself that the day Magda will leave ARBO, the ship will sink so now It’s a good time to panic. Rumors say that the figures produced by the ARBOonline in the last months don’t look very good, many of the publishers are not happy with the sales and the competition is tougher on a fragmented market (last year in june there were only 2 important players in the market, now there are 4).
I wanted to write about Dragos, Marius and their national event called “Olimpiadele Comunicarii“, a Romanian competition for the young PR professionals and here is my chance since I had the opportuniy to see their photos (I’m sorry I didn’t made it to the event this year).
Because I’m a photo fan, this post will present a visual challenge between Victor Ponta and Bogdan Olteanu (both invited at Olimpiadele Comunicarii). I focused on the nonverbal messages and since I like to think that the pictures speak for themselves, here is the challenge:
The secret handshake challenge:
Two powerful people sharing an equal standard. Correct handshake for both of them
This is where Ponta gets 1 point because he’s so relaxed. The arms are casual floating around his body
AND NOW,
GET READY FOR THE FINAL CHALLENGE!
The Mike:
Very good idea to get on the stage on your shirt. Keeping your hand in the pocket while speaking to a live young audience it’s a good idea You might think Ponta is singing a rock song while Olteanu is doing stand-up comedy
First time we met I thought he was just a journalist who seen it all in his life. He thought I was a guy in a bubble, in a totally different world
At that time (2005) I was managing Festivinum (the national wines’ festival) and he was one of the guys writing about wines on monthly basis in ZIUA and in Connaisseur (print).
Cezar was born in Buzau and studied in Bucharest – since 1994 he worked for Mediafax, Ziua, Ziarul de Cluj and GSP. As he had a passion for wines, he was the editor of the first monthly publication about wines (2002-2005) and at ZIUA he managed the weekly bonus magazines. In 2005 he was a member of the jury at the Concorso Enologico Internazionale, Verona (Italy) and as we speak he is a founder of the only Wine Press Club in Romania. In the last year he had to fly all over the world to taste all the good wines and fine foods (cool job ).
He is also famous because he is the first to bring in Bucharest the “Plescoi” sausages (unique in Romania) and started the movement called “The Plescoi Revolution” similar to the slow food protests. Last year, he sat with his friends in front of McDonalds and ate traditional food.
Cezar is also an incredible guy as he is a fast learner and very open-minded. He was the first publisher in Romania to close the printed edition of magazine and move it on the Internet. One year ago we started to work together on vinul.ro and since then the website became the no.1 resource for the wine lovers and for the people working in the industry.
Doru Panaitescu is leaving ARBOmedia. Beginning with 1st of January 2007 he will blog at Initiative Media – this is probably the last important movement in the online advertising market this year.
Meanwhile, the management decided to shorten the contacts on the official website – it seems that some of the people there were targeted by recruiting agencies. With Doru there’s another story: ARBOmedia works with Initiative Media so they had the chance to know the person (and skip the head hunters ).
Doru is more relaxed these days and as you can see, he is trying online dating:
Orlando Nicoara (ex. Netbridge manager) will face the next months a series of attacks and pressures from the NCH Group. The investors had trouble recovering after Orlando left the business this summer – one of the most important issues pointed internally was the fact that the board had no clue about what was going on, as Nicoara was a “one man army”.
Since July, NCH changed their policy and tried to figure out what went wrong. There is a team tracking Orlando’s management and they are committed to use all the methods to get even. The battle will take place on several levels:
- NCH plans to sue Nicoara for bad management;
- there will be a mass-media campaign in order to discredit him (from bad practices to money laundry);
- they will pressure MediaPro in order to fire Orlando;
Some of the things they intend to do are not suitable for the Romanian environment. Attacking Orlando’s credibility can affect the whole industry, not only Media Pro Interactiv. On the other hand, this is a thing “they have to do” and I’m sure they’ll use all the available legal methods.
A question I could not resist to it was about ARBO’s positioning on the market after Orlando Nicoara left Netbridge. Calin answered that increasing the market share was not their primary objective – they focus on service quality they offer both to advertisers and publishers.
Sorin Tudor is the new PR at Netbridge. The interview was made by George Seban and there are a few things to notice:
- the most wanted websites in Romania are about News/Mass-media (also mentioned on Sorin’s blog)
- the most visited day of the week is Tuesday
- Firefox is gaining on Internet Explorer
- The online shopping will be the next boom on the Romanian Internet
- The online television will become an alternative for the classical TV channels (see ligaonline.ro )
The interview is is the printed version of B-A and I hope that soon will be online…
Talking about Netbridge, here is a website I’ve discovered this afternoon: www.newsletters.ro – the online tool they use to send and track their newsletters (here is an example).
This is the price you pay when you become famous. Magda, I know you’ll read this post so please don’t be mad (I think you look great in both pictures).
The profile is available here…
Via Cristina at NewsIn: Cristian Manafu, the mind behind Biz and Campaign Romania decided to quit his job at Business Media Group and start his own Internet consultancy venture.
Before leaving, he managed to bring Jeremy Wright for the second time in Romania at Zilele BIZ.
I hope that next time I’ll get to the Amsterdam Café…
Last week, the President Traian Basescu named the new heads of the Romanian intelligence services (both internal and foreign intelligence).
At the press conference, Ovidiu Zara, journalist at Curentul and friend (ex. student activist), posed some questions that the president found tricky. At the end, in a private talk, the president addressed his company a remark about Ovidiu Zara and someone overheard an insult to the journalist.
As we speak, there is a big scandal (read also Dragos , Marius and Sorin) in Romania because O. Zara has a similar name to… let’s say Dick Chaney… well, Zara is and always has been very involved in what he was doing I guess he’ll master this scandals (starting this Monday he’ll probably be on all the talk shows).
One very important thing we should notice: the event and scandal was produced and inflated in order to show some muscles and send a message (a dedication from a not-so-friendly foreign intelligence service) – or so I’ve heard…
“Bucuresti 05 Octombrie 2006 Seminarul propune clarificarea conceptelor din research, de la definirea si perspectivele acestui domeniu pana la pasii pe care ii presupune un proiect de cercetare pentru realizarea unei campanii de advertising. Modul de abordare a sesiunii presupune atat o dimensiune teoretica (predare) cat si practica (studii de caz + aplicatii), transformand ziua de training intr-o experienta de invatare cu aplicabilitate practica imediata.
Data fiind natura intensiva a abordarii acestui training si pentru a facilita asimilarea mai profunda a temelor abordate, este important ca participantii sa aiba cunostinte de marketing, advertising si/sau sociologie.
Din agenda: Concepte fundamentale si paradigme. Aspecte metodologice. Cantitativ, calitativ si integrat.
Locul si rolul research-ului in economia unei campanii de advertising. Cercetarea cantitativa pentru advertising: Principii; Tipologii. Exemple si studii de caz; Aplicatie. Cercetarea calitativa pentru advertising: Principii; Tipologii. Exemple si studii de caz; Aplicatie. Cercetarea integrata pentru advertising: Principii; Tipologii. Exemple si studii de caz; Aplicatie. Tendinte recente in cercetarea pentru advertising. Creative research: Principii; Tipologii. Exemple si studii de caz; Aplicatie.
Data: 10 noiembrie Locatia: Novotel Bucarest City Centre
DAN PETRE este doctor in Stiinte ale Comunicarii. In prezent este partener si director al departamentului de Cercetare Calitativa al D&D Research. Este conf. dr. si preda cursuri de Publicitate si Comunicare in cadrul Master-ului de Publicitate din cadrul Facultatii de Comunicare si relatii Publice din cadrul SNSPA. D&D Research a desfasurat numeroase proiecte de cercetare pentru clientii sai, printre care amintim: Altex, Aviva, Brandient, Credisson, Dunlop – Goodyear Romania, Heidi, Lafarge Romcim Romania, Leo Burnett and Target, Mindshare, Nestle Romania, Ogilvy & Mather, Philip Morris Romania, Romanian Think Tank, RAAA Romanian Association of Advertising Agencies, Scala Thompson Romania, Starcom, Whiteland Distributions.
Calendarul complet si detaliile cursurilor deschise: www.qualians.com “
If you didn’t read my last post, DAN PETRE is my MA teacher BUT HE SKIPS THE CLASSES because he has other things to do. This special course at QUALIANS is another reason to skip his classes for the next 3 weeks. I guess is both lame and unprofessional to skip the classes at the university but then again, I’m not a teacher…
PS: Mr. Petre, if you read this post, please note that you’ll be hearing from me again so try to be tough on me on the grades!
Congratulations for Calin, the new Sales Director at ARBOmedia – from this position he will manage all the sales in the company (TV, Radio, Print and Internet). Because he came from the Internet department, I hope that he’ll keep a good place in his heart for new media.
The new Online Sales Manager at ARBO is Doru Panaitescu and we all celebrate as he opened his new blog!
Orlando Nicoara was the Netbidge manager, Ionut Oprea was the ex-Netbridge PR. Now, Sorin Tudor is the new official spokes person at Netbridge and probably will see very interesting debates in the near future. Orldando, Ionut and Sorin, although not sharing the same opinions, they share the same web hosting server: gazduire.ro .
I wonder who pays the space and who has free hosting…
Sorin Ovidiu Vantu is one of the richest Europeans (his fortune est. over 1 billion usd). Vantu is a Danube Delta lover, enjoys fishing and is very discreet in doing business in Romania. This is the reason why he often manages to surprise the general public when he comes out of the silence and talks business.
If you are doing business in Romania it is very likely to encounter at least a company owned by Vantu. Regarding mass-media, he owns a trust called Realitatea and from time to time he shows direct interest in the new business, acquisitions and even new media. Vantu personally talks to the employees about the Internet and about this “revolution” and considers that this will be the field of great media battles in the future. He also encourages the journalists working for him to start writing blogs and this is the reason why we are going to see new personal websites in the near future at RealitateaTV, Cotidianul, 24Fun and so on. Starting this summer, Realitatea is also developing its websites so that in a year they would have quite an audience on the net.
Now, here is a very interesting fact for the Romanian readers of the blog: we all know that recently, ARBOmedia lost its TVR (The Romanian Television) contract to Splendid Media. It’s not easy to do this and lots of financial interests are at the middle. Imagine that the germans (ARBO) lost quite a big and strategic contract and it seems that Vantu has something to do with it. I’m not going the write about what exactly happened but I guess it’s very interesting to find out that Sorin Ovidiu Vantu is behind Splendid Media.
Although the web division of Splendid Media (called Splendid Media Interactive) run by Eveline Fabritius had a poor start this year, it is very interesting to see all the elements of Vantu’s new media grow and the moment when all of them will merge under a single management.
Mona Musca is a woman politician and since 1989 she was a reference point as she gave lessons of integrity and good practice. At a certain level, she was one of the most popular figures in Romania, competing with the president Traian Basescu.
A few weeks ago, the president decided to give the green light in opening the secret archives of Ceausescu’s secret police. You can imagine the shock encountered in Romania when people found out that Mona Musca was an “undercover” informer acting under the name of “Dana”. Everybody was more than pissed off and you can imagine how many people wanted to tell her a few words.
As I was saying, after the storm, the party decided that Mona Musca should go offline both in the public life and on the Internet. She was thrown out of the party and her domain got shut down. As she was working as the Ministry of Culture, Mona Musca was quite a net surfer (a friend told me) and now she is probably suffering over the monamusca.ro offline domain.
Via Ionut Oprea, I found out that he went to TVR50 (the official party held by the Romanian Television on it’s 50th birthday) and I know Mona Musca was there – I wonder if they had the chance to chat about her PR approach on the net as Ionut is a talented public relations specialist.
Yesterday, my friend Allicia (a dedicated blogger) told me that she wanted out of weblog.ro because the system is not usable anymore. She already made a copy on wordpress.com but still was unhappy because weblog.ro didn’t allow her to make a backup of her posts.
Via Zoso I found that many of his blogger friends are also moving their stuff out of weblog.
Antonio Eram (although involved with his company in other projects) is very close to the weblog and he is personally taking care of the updates. So… why the long nights? Because Eram is facing stress from other areas also – there are rumors that Vodafone is asking for many deadlines. Well, I can only wish him enough energy to take care of all the issues.
Adriean Videanu is the mayor of Bucharest. One of his projects is to build a business center in the middle of Bucharest and of course, he is facing a great opposition from the citizens. After several protests and social campaigns, the unhappy folks moved their little “war” on the Internet.
Of course, mr. Videanu doesn’t know one thing: there are over 50.000.000 blogs in the world and his new personal page is probably not a very good PR example. On the other hand he is the first romanian politician to have his own blog, so I guess he is making history.
The Romanian President Traian Basescu named a new head for the Romanian ARMY: Gheorghe Marin is the smartest army leader till now, having graduated 3 superior education institutes.
Must know:
Gheorghe Marin was the head of the army’s Project-Programming office. He also wrote several books about programming in Visual FoxPro 5.0, about desktop programs and databases.
He is also known outside Romania, as he wrote several articles:
- Modern conception in the modeling of resource allotment problems, Natural Resources and Energy: Non-Dissipation and Management an International Journal, New York, USA
- Substituting energy technology, Natural Resources and Energy: Non-Dissipation and Management an International Journal, New York, USA
As he says, Gheorghe Marin loves programming and is an Internet user. Beginning with 2007, the Romanian Army will hire soldiers; there are serious thoughts that Gheorghe Marin will use the Internet and Internet campaigns in order to promote the Romanian ARMY and recruit the new soldiers. So, prepare to see ARMY ads on BestJobs, E-Jobs or Job-Studenti.
The first annual Creativity 50 represents a multi-disciplinary account of the biggest and best thinkers and doers from 20 years of advertising and consumer culture. Many are creative directors and agency groundbreakers; some are directors that shaped the way messages look and feel; some are design gurus; a few are marketers who helped change the course of creativity. Some (like the Google duo) simply changed our lives completely.
The uttering of the word “Doom” usually spells an unpleasant end. But for Doom creators Carmack and Romero, it represents the beginning—not only of their careers as video game royalty, but for a revolutionary new era of gaming madness. The pair of programmer prodigies helped found the now-legendary game development company iD Software in 1991, from which sprung a wave of titles—including Wolfenstein 3D, Quake and of course, Doom—that defined the first-person shooter genre and inspired the imaginations of an entire generation of rabid gamers. Leveraging their programming skills to invent groundbreaking techniques in computer graphics and engine-building, Carmack and Romero forever changed the way video games are made and played, paving the way for later hits like Half-Life and Medal of Honor and ultimately serving notice to the rest of the world that the evolution of interactive entertainment had truly kicked into high gear.
John Romero is probably the most famous game developer in the .ro reign – see http://rome.ro – and now he is going to be more productive as his wife Raluca is also into video games.
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.