This is regarding my NGO involvement in the last 10 years:
On the last Netoo meeting I offered one of the NGO I founded to support the group (as in logistics, headquarters, know-how). NGO means non-governmental and non-profit. At this suggestion, Dragos Novac and Varabiescu asked me ironically: “what’s in it for you?”… of course I was offended…
So this post is dedicated to all the volunteer work I did in the last decade: to all the students we trained, to all the children that we tried to bring a smile, to the thousands of youngsters we helped find a job, to all the projects we developed and all the long nights spend trying to change systems… in life not everything is about making money.
I still support ASLS, ASPSE, OSE, ANOSR, USR, GIPIR, INTERMEDIU or VIP in their projects and I strongly think that the business environment should strongly support the NGOs – I care about the Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives and I hate to see ignorant people talk about “how to make some money”.
Probably to Novac and Varabiescu “volunteer” is synonym to “sucker” and because many of the bloggers do volunteer writing, the “blogvertising” initiative is not so honest as it seemed to be the first time. Rest assured that the serious bloggers will not write about some new product just because an agency has a budget for this…
Mircea Tanase managed to pull his strengths and organize the first CI international seminar in Romania at World Trade Center. This was one of his goals from the first time I met him and I think the event is needed in Romania. They’ll have guest speakers from Shell Hydrogen-Netherlands, Intell Competitiv-Romania and Comintell-Sweden.
The first session will be hosted by Vasile Paun (Romanian Army Intelligence) one of the promoters of this concept in Romania (his latest book „Puterea Informationala” is available at Tritonic).
You can register here… or read more on the official website (here).
You can read here the articles Mircea Tanase writes for Business Adviser on monthly basis..
This is the name of the book Andrei Postoaca (IPSOS Interactive CEO) wrote. The book is available on the Amazon and I’m sure it’s more interesting than the book everybody bought last week (some of you know what I’m talking about).
Book Description: “The Anonymous Elect is the book that restores market research to its original condition and bestows it its full interdisciplinary rights. It asks questions that address market researchers and sociologists as well as psychologists, linguists and specialists in marketing and communication: Is there a language of online panel communication? What does this language say about the relationship between the online researcher and the online respondent? To what extent has the online medium increased the self-awareness of today’s respondents to research studies?
A memorable experiment in writing, Andrei Postoaca’s exploration of online access panels is a book about interviewing and being interviewed, addressing and being addressed. By shifting the two voices involved in the online panel communication, the author approaches market research not only by way of facts, figures and plain statistical evidence but also by way of interpretation of the rhetoric of the online surveying act.”
The Romanian Government Ordinance no. 130/2000 and the law 51/2003 applies also to the Internet – this means that if you buy something online from a Romanian e-shop, the law says that you are entitled to a 10 days money-back guarantee.
While surfing some of the most important online shops, I’ve seen that the “10 days money-back guarantee“ is not mentioned, so I’m thinking that the general public needs an awareness campaign.
Via Dragos Roua, they are testing the new version of culinar.ro (Mirabilis 2.0) so maybe they’ll take care of this problem also… till then, MRM Partners should be worried because their banner is down low…
This evening I had a discussion with Jeremy Wright on Zilele Biz. We talked about his security clearance as an army man (from a NATO country) and about using blogs for recruiting young leaders for the Romanian army. We also chattered about how he manged to raised the 2 million dollars investment fund for B5media.
Overall, Jeremy became a fan of Romania and he even has business plans here. He told me that he wants to invest in Romanian blogging and that he wants to have here 5 blogs (he put the offer on the market) – he already met some of the potential partners but he told me he is waiting for more proposals.
I was there, first thing in the morning and had a very long day. Good thing it was on a Friday so I could reschedule some meetings.
First conference – The INTERNET Revolution – ADVERTISE IT THE WAY YOU NEVER DID IT BEFORE!
[+] Vanda WOLFOVA the Regional Director, Ogilvy Group EAME was the guest speaker with a very good presentation, both client and results oriented. They are doing serious efforts to catch up on the Internet and to be more competitive on the new Media. I must say that Vanda WOLFOVA had yesterday a meeting with the Romanian Ogilvy management and she stressed on the importance of the new techonologies.
[-] Radu Florescu from Saatchi&Saatchi – first of all because he had a presentation about the Internet and he had now idea about what’s going on out there. He made it clear that the reason why the Internet advertising is underdeveloped in Romania is first of all due to the lack of professionals and know-how in the agencies and because the clients are used to spend their budgets on TV.
The only thing we agreed on was on how stupid is to watch a movie on TV – for example, a 1h20’ movie on PROTV takes away 3h of your life with all the commercials.
I hope TiVO will enter the Romanian market
Also interesting in a strange way – Bogdan NITU, General Manager – Webstyler (he was a little nervous).
Jeremy Wright had a indigestion the last evening so he was not able to attend this session.
Val VOICU from AdEvolution missed the whole thing (no explanations).
Conclusion: everybody from the PR/advertising industry wanted to know more on the Internet and to be in the mainstream but they fear to do this because they lack the proper know-how.
The second conference – The new consumer, tendencies, attitudes and market realities
[+] This was the best conference of the day – moderated by Dan PETRE, Managing Director at D&D Research. All the discussions were focused on the young consumers so imagine the things they talked about – from how the children influence their parents in buying the favourite products to brand recognition for babies. These matters are very sensitive and the studies presented were very good.
Most interesting:
Stefan STROE, Head of Consumer Context Planning – Starcom Media with his presentation on the VIRAL campaigns.
Daniel ENESCU, General Manager – Daedalus – he presented the results of an European survey about the young people. An interesting conclusion of the survey was that the relationships in couples changed a lot in the last years. Now, you cannot target a couple anymore because the individuals have different needs and they can have different lifestyles. But, after the first born child their behavior changes dramatically so that when planning a campaign we can now select “children” or “no children” as serious criteria.
Mirela ANGELESCU, Client Service Director – GMP presented a very interesting study case about the little guys and the commercials we can hear at Itsy Bitsy. Very interesting were the ethical questions she raised. After all, this type of advertising aims the children.
Dan Petre presented a study made for two important companies in the market. I was shocked because of some results of his research: for example, kids are more mature and want to become 30; they are not watching cartoons all day anymore; they don’t like Tom & Jerry anymore but the new Japanese productions are quite trendy. Also, the emotional experiences children have with brands are very powerful and they all are very open to the advertising.
The third event – STRATEGY VS CREATIVITY
Good speeches:
Sorin PSATTA, Strategy and Research Director – Graffiti BBDO, Bogdan BRINZAS, General Manager – Brinzas Design and the closing act signed by Dumitru BORTUN, ARRP President
Today was also a good day for networking: Dan Petre introduced me to Bogdan Naumovici, Adrian Botan and Ioana Vaideanu – I also met Serban Alexandrescu, Dragos Dehelean, Tudor Maxim, Dragos Tuta, Antonio Eram, Ionut Oprea and other bloggers.
In the end, here is the favourite movie of the evening via Bogdan Naumovici (Smirnoff Teapartay ad):
If you were not at the Leo Burnett party this evening, the second most interesting place on the underground advertising map was the Netoo meeting hosted by Cristian Manafu. Special guest star – Cristi Parvan – Zenith Media.
The talks focused on the blog advertising and I noticed very interesting points of view. I suggested using the new contextual service from ARBO and also their web server in order to create a common exchange leaderbord zone.
Another subject was about a new study, this time demographical, on the blog readers. I suggested using the online panels from Insites or Gemius (I met the Insites managers a few months ago and they told me that they are very interested in conducting surveys on whatever website we can think of).
Overall, the meeting was quite a success because I had the chance to find out more about the budgets, money and small interests that will soon target the Romanian bloggers. As I told you, Cristi Parvan from Zenith Media was there after their long company meeting on blogging and internet planning.
The second part of the evening was dedicated in spending some quality time with the new blogger friends and exchanging some useful tips over a drink downtown.
I was there for the second conference: “INTERNET – A POWER TOOL FOR BUSINESS GROWTH” – Speakers: Jeremy Wright, Author of “Blog Marketing” and Thomas Power, Chairman – Ecademy.com – Thomas had a very interesting presentation about the business networking and the network he develops. For example, he told us that he had on his website a 10$ fee for registration. After several complaints that the fee is too high, he decided to lower it to 2$ but in the same time he launched the “LIVE membership” – for 5.000$. As we speak, lots of the subscribers enjoy the full LIVE membership.
Jeremy Wright will also speak tomorrow morning and I hope I’ll make it in time at 9:00.
I met there Cristian Mezei, Antonio Eram, Radu Ionescu, Carmen Holotescu, Bobby Voicu, Bogdan Epure, Alex Mihaileanu, Vladimir Oane and other fellow bloggers…
ARBOmedia uses the Czech BB media ad server (as shown in the image above). As you can see, today they had to celebrate another event: over 10.000 unique banner designs were served by their server during the years. The number is not relevant for the paid campaigns (all the banners that enter the network receive a unique ad server id, and as you know, ARBO allows in-house banners for their site owners) but still, it’s relevant for the site owners that are using the system more and more.
NOTE: the image is a print screen from a ARBO user account.
Incepand de acum, Vodanet prezinta pe site-ul sau profilul demografic al audientei site-urilor sale. Datele demografice sunt detaliate pe fiecare proiect in parte si permit efectuarea unor astfel de stastici: spre exemplu, din cei peste 110 000 vizitatori unici/luna de pe www.bloombiz.ro, 27,90% sunt manageri de top sau persoane care detin o comapanie; sau din cei peste 650 000 vizitatori unici/luna de pe www.ele.ro, 15,36 % sunt femei care isi fac deja cumparaturile pe internet. Aceste date sunt masurate de catre Gemius, cea mai mare Agentie de Online Research din Europa de Est si sunt disponibile pe site, la sectiunea Profil Demografic.
This excerpt is from the press release Vodanet made today. Although GEMIUS are probably doing a good job, the guys at Vodanet seem to have problems interpreting the data. For example, they say that 27 900 visitors of bloombiz.ro are top managers or company owners… I bet Bill Gates is one of them.
They should have said how many respondents they had on that survey. I strongly doubt that 650.000 women filled their forms – I mean, GEMIUS is good but not that good!
JOBfest 2006 is going just well – today we had the OK sign from ORACLE and there is one more place left if your company is interested to become official partner.
Because we receive many requests on daily basis, we decided to offer a package for online participation only (because all the packages are already sold out).
PS: we also opened a blog for the workaholics and we prepare for another viral campaign!
A very interesting article on first page of ZIUA (local Constantza edition) – in the 2nd century A.D., in Constantza (rom. Constanta) there was powerful alexandrine community, most of them navigators and traders. The archeological discoveries proved that in Tomis there were temples dedicated to Osiris, Isis and Serapis.
This article is an exclusive – check it out here…
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…
I was invited today at Crowne Plaza for the official launch of ARBOcontext. A very interesting feed-back was provided by Calin Rotarus, Magda Zander and Doru Panaitescu – the contextual service is addressed to the small spenders and in countries like Poland or Czech Republic takes 6-7 % of the advertising market.
Must know:
- the service is available only for the websites in ARBOmedia;
- more than 50% of the websites (high quality) already have the codes up and running;
- you can modify and adjust your settings during the campaign;
- the service is integrated in the classical advertising display
- there are 2 types of contextual displays: text ads on your regular leaderboard space and undelined key words in a page;
- normal ad server priority: visual banners, contextual banners, inhouse banners;
- advanced targeting (geographic, day/hour, etc.);
- the service will reward the publishers with rich text content and will encourage them to develop more quality content;
- as a client/publisher, at any time, you can check your balance and your account;
- you can start using the service today at www.contextuala.ro
News from Poland:
On October 16, 2006, TVN S.A. announced a squeeze-out for Grupa Onet.pl S.A. shares, which are held by minority shareholders.
The squeeze-out period starts on October 16 and ends on October 20, 2006 and is conducted by CDM Pekao S.A. The squeeze-out price is PLN 165 per share in Grupa Onet.pl S.A. As the result of the squeeze-out trading in Grupa Onet.pl S.A. shares on Warsaw Stock Exchange has been suspended. After completion of the squeeze-out, TVN S.A. will control 100% of the Grupa Onet.pl S.A. TVN S.A. intends to withdraw Grupa Onet.pl S.A. shares from trading on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
The footage that raised the new PROTV website (click here) – also check out Orlando’s blog for interesting facts (best referrer – Onet.pl).
This is probably the worst Chinese PR problem this year. This summer at the World Youth Forum, I met the president of the Young Wing of the Communist Party – we had to talk about the global issues and most of the time, they shared different opions. The communist leaders are aware of the Tibetan problems while the general public (thanks to google, yahoo and other foreign governments) enjoys digested & happy news.
New tendencies in advertising – special course designed by Dan Petre – special guest star Laurentiu Pop – Online Sales Executive at ARBOmedia.
For the first time in Romania two specialists will talk about the new global tendencies, viral campaigns and online environment. This will happen in my MA class a few weeks from now and I feel that this class will be really competitive and market oriented.
Talking about advertising, yesterday I was offline, at Howard Johnson (INTERNETICS) to see Orlando Nicoara (MediaPRO Interactiv) and Andrei Postoaca (IPSOS Interactive Services) in their live performances. Orlando talked about the online market fragmentation and made some positive predictions for 2007. Most of the time, I tried not to fell asleep and Ionut Oprea told me that Orlando wanted to keep a low profile (so, nothing spicy out there).
On the other hand Andrei Postoaca really made my day (we already work with IPSOS) and the presentation was a good chance to get more familiar with Ipsos and their online panels. These guys can really provide you with market intelligence although, as we speak, they don’t have on going projects in Romania.
Something Dorel Abraham should care about in the future…
On Thursday – the government will begin the first talks on branding Romania.
On Saturday – together with the NATO College we’ll have a closed workshop about the francophone summit in Bucharest and the impact on Romania’s image. We’ll also talk about Romania entering E.U. in 2007 and about the new opportunities, challenges and threats.
Via Victor from UTV (e-mail) – they launched the new U-Online: music streamings of the most wanted clips on the romanian UTV. Now, this is something the Romanian Mtv or K-lumea (other tv music stations) lack.
Inhouse banners, campaigns, history… check out http://ad2.ip.ro/lxxxx/ (try to guess the 4 letters – Magda will award the winners as she wanted this link to be hard to guess )
NOTE: beginning this week, ARBOmedia started to change the ad server codes on the websites. The new ones will allow them to be more flexible and more client oriented.
With Dan Petre, more opened minded this time. The 5 hour training was yesterday and there is one thing that I started to enjoy about his course: he is willing to share more about the viral campaigns (examples, market studies) and about the new media as a phenomenon in the settled advertising markets (the VW U.S. Internet campaign was such an example). This is not what they usually teach you in school and this could be the first viral & new media class in Romania (although off the record).
I was also the first one to tell Dan the official news about Manafu leaving Campaign but he already knew the inside story and the plans from Cristian himself. This is not relevant, but when talking about Campaign and their future without Manafu, Dan Petre recommended me to surf more the Iqads – a word from an analyst
On the other hand, I’m not the only student this autumn – Doru Panaitescu also started his PhD on the Internet Advertising.
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…
Romania is closer every day to 2007. The E.U. survival guide is not yet available in the near book stores but you already know that your company has to be competitive. In a “Eurochambres” study I found that over 40% of the Romanian companies have problems in exploiting the classical information resources (mass media, internet, events).
From another source I found out that only 1 out of 10 Romanian companies in every sector already have a trained competitive intelligence team and a CIO.
If you got so far and can read this post it means that you still have a chance.
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