Bogdan Gavrila – Core Target

Since Doru left InitiativeMedia (1st of July 2007), he focused on his new business as an independent consultant. Now, the new website is almost ready and here is where you can check it out (It’s a blog written in English).

The first statement:

Marketeer is a young team of marketing professionals specializing in strategic marketing and online marketing.

We work with corporations and organizations from throughout the world as well as from Romania to design, develop, maintain, and market their businesses. We work to develop successful marketing strategies for businesses from large corporations to small home-based businesses. Each with their own unique marketing strategy designed to draw their potential customers as well as to “make the sale”.

I think that having the time for Marketeer.net SRL it’s like a dream came through for Doru because the company and domain date back from 2004 (seem to be old plans).

PS1: I know Doru will go nuts because of this post (since the website is still under heavy construction) but hey, someone has to do it!

PS2: Doru, If your company is called Marketeer.net, why don’t you book the www.marketeer.net domain?

PS3: Good luck with the new blog!

Here is a small print screen for Razvan:

“Pensii private” = Romanian for “private pension funds”, finally a healthy and decent business for the local oligarchs. Turns out to be a real phenomenon in Romania as we speak – the private pensions are also the primary source for the stupidest ads to hit the available media spaces this autumn.

In a time where people don’t like big corporations, big profits, dropping stocks, acquisitions, etc, I seem to realize that Google really is a lovemark for me.

I discovered Google in its early years and the simplicity made use it. Google shaped the way I think, made me focus and look for keywords both online and on my everyday life. Google was the first to teach me about networking with people and made me aware of the biblical power of the word. Google made me pragmatic and also structured my perception of the informational world we live in.

Google it’s not only a search engine.
It’s my no.1 business partner, an incredible tool for research, a philosopher and magic genie, it’s maybe the greatest man built machine on the planet and a way of life.

I know that because of Google, the human race grows to be smarter, safer and more aware of its thoughts.

Happy birthday Google and thank you for the last 9 years!
It was an awesome ride!

During my last trip abroad I’ve met a businessman from Shanghai and we had a talk about the new emerging market in China and the local trends. Here is a movie I found today about China’s mid-autumn festival is celebrated with lanterns and “mooncakes”:

Some people considered aggressive the post I had yesterday about Neogen and I think I need to make a clear statement about the last events.

Neogen is the no.1 website in Romania and this is because many people invested money, time and creative energy in a great project. I respect that and indeed Calin had a vision and a great plan. Being no.1 also means 1 million unique users every week, high quality services and tons of content.

One thing I’ve noticed yesterday as I was tracking the crises was that Neogen generated emotions and the bloggers were very passionate about the subject. This is a thing Neogen should use in the future and convert all the feedback they had in order to create a better community.

Either we like it or not, Neogen also represents the publishers and the Romanian Internet users. Although we are not yet conscious about it, the Internet is now a mainstream phenomenon but the companies still behave like pioneers or underground digital guerrilla fighters. This is why when dealing with sensitive events you have to act like a player and control the big game. Neogen had the speech focused in 2 directions yesterday: a) trying to hide the evidence, acting like there was a minor incident; b) playing the victim. Also the people working in the industry had a protective and a non-critical attitude.

I believe that Neogen should step up and play the ball. The should be strong and speak about the safety issues on the Romanian Internet and they should assume the role of crime fighters. They should promote the fact that they are working with the Police and the proper authorities (and not the other way around) and they should act as the no.1 website: with integrity, responsibility and good common sense.

Hiding facts, minimizing problems or pretending that these are just media campaigns will affect the industry and all of us can face the same issues in the near future. This is why I said that I expect people like Orlando, Calin or Ionut to step up and act like proactive leaders.

As we speak, the events we saw yesterday present both a great threat and a great opportunity:
- the threat is regarding the media pressuring the authorities to block the websites
- the opportunity appeared because the traditional media managed to bring a serious problem in the mainstream and to raise awareness. This is why now there are strong expectations for pertinent solutions and active measures. The next step can be a positive one if the industry will react proAct properly.

Although my posts about Neogen seem very cruel, I have to say that I’m a true supporter and I have high expectations from everyone working over there.
We all have.

“El silencio no tiene límites para mí los límites los pone la palabra.”

“Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?”

“What sculptors do is represent the essence of gesture. What is important in mime is attitude.”

Marcel Marceau
1923-2007

1. One month ago I wrote a post a about Neogen promoting child abuse and asked them to call the police and the authorities. There was no answer from Neogen but Vodafone decided to suspend their advertising campaign (very wise of them).

2. Today one of the most read newspapers in Romania publishes an article about Neogen hosting pedophilia. Again, they decided to hide the evidence and not call the authorities.

3. The Lie comes from their PR Manager, Maria Suciu, saying that they have an automated censorship system that erased the evidences. THE TRUTH is that there is no system and the website is manually operated. If a movie is to be removed, there is a human operator doing this.

4. The abused minor (this is just one evidence) is one of the users. Sorel Mihai, a 14 15 year old boy was abused by Neogen by displaying pornographic content in his account. He had a post about this on his personal blog expressing his frustration but there were no answers and no active measures from Neogen.

5. Internethics – a Neogen representative is part of the jury at Internetics and will judge the best Romanian websites. By far, his presence in the jury this year is not ethical and I have reasons to doubt the quality of his decisions in the contest. I also expect Orlando Nicoara, the president of the jury, to have a statement on this matter and take some action.

Strong tip for Millenium Communications: having Vodafone and Neogen in the same place after the incident they had one month ago is something to worry about.

LATER EDIT – Related: Sorin Tudor, Zoso, Piticu, Alex Radescu, Scarlatescu, Arhi, El Lunes.

First of all, the old server (http://ad.ip.ro) had some technical problems earlier this year, but the most important 2 issues are related to the compatibility with some local Internet Service Providers (there were users unable to see the ARBO ads) and to the compatibility with Mozilla Firefox (the old ad server couldn’t display the overlayer flash ads in a Firefox browser).

The new ad server for ARBOmedia Romania is located at http://ad2.bbmedia.cz and it’s now hosted in the Czech Republic. It seems that ARBOmedia AG is planning to bring all the networks on one server in order to have a better understanding of the advertising business – they already have the ad.bbmedia.cz serving the CZ users, ad2.bbmedia.cz serving RO and my guess is that we’ll see ad3, ad4, etc for other countries. Of course, having one ad server means low costs, better targeting and better management of the ip database but also the possibility to sell an online campaign in several European countries.

If their strategy will succeed, we might have the first serious European competitor with the big American online brokers and of course, ARBOmedia will be a very attractive company to buy in the near future (they say, everything is for sale).

The National Tourist Agency said that the revenues in Bulgaria coming from the visits of foreign tourists in the country have increased with 16.04% in the first half of 2007 compared with the same period last year.
The revenues are EUR 1347,4 M and the number of tourists has risen with 6.88% meaning 3,972,020 people.

Since ARBOmedia and Neogen had training sessions in Bulgaria, I would have to point the finger at them for supporting promoting the Bulgarian tourism.

But every story has not only bad guys and I’m glad to say that there still is hope for the local tourism – Media Direction and Boom are only 2 of the companies manifesting awareness of the Romanian business environment since they directed the money towards local businesses (in Valea Cernei and Olanesti).

Today in Novinite: Former Bulgarian PM Simeon Saxe-Coburg, has been a collaborator to the now defunct Bulgarian state security service, members of the Order, Rule of Law and Justice party (ORLJ) claimed on Saturday.

Saxe-Coburg, who is also the leader of the National Movement for Stability an Progress party was recruited for the communist-era secret services because he had incurred huge gambling debts.

There are documents proving his agent past in the archives of the secret services, there are papers containing information of Simeon Saxe-Coburg’s contacts with high-ranking state officials during Bulgaria’s totalitarian regime, which are kept in the archives of the Bulgarian Communist Party central – full story

“The tarantella (tarentule, tarentella, tarantelle, tarentelle, tarantel) is a traditional, southern Italian dance of 6/8 or 4/4 time, characterised by the rapid whirling of couples. There are several local variations of this dance, including the Neapolitan, Sicilian, Apulian and Calabrian tarantellas. It is led by a central singer/speaker. A tarantella is also a song that can be played by instrumentalists. Sometimes the word used for the song is taranta (“tarantella” is in fact a diminutive dialectal form for “tarantula”, a common kind of spider).” – Wikipedia

And here is the viral Youtube Tarantella Calabrese – Tradizionale (597,976 hits and counting) – I have reasons to believe that there are campaigns made only for YouTube and the best thing is that you’ll never know what hit you:

Using art to raise awareness for the traditional Romanian customs and products is not something new but this is the first slow food movement to do this.

The sculpture above is made from traditional and very rare Plescoi sausages made by Adrian Ilfoveanu, a local modern artist. The good news is that you can see it live at Muzeul Taranului Roman – Clubul Taranului until the 25th of September along with a black and white photo exhibition signed by the international artist and photographer Nicu Ilfoveanu.

The event was sponsored by Val Duna (wines from Carl Reh Winery) and Poiana Negri and it’s part of the local slow food movement called “Revolutia Plescoi” – el lider: Cezar Ioan.

Later edit – the Plescoi proclamation is available here…

Buy a smartphone for only $10.5 million and get your very own private island. It is the one accessory that says, “I control my island. And I have a smartphone.” The offer expires September 29 – click here for the private offer

The new BlackBerry looks good

I promised to express my new views on the global market based on my recent experience in Italy. One of the speakers I had the chance to meet was mr. Akio Sato, Intelligence Unit Director at Diamond-Friedman Co. LTD – a very pleasant gentlemen with a great sense of humor and a very healthy passion for wines.

I remember that he had a very interesting feed-back regarding the Japanese Wine Market Trend and I’ll try to underline some of the key points since I promised to write something about Japan.
First of all, Japan has serious demographic concerns – as we speak they are 127 million but Japan’s population has begun to decrease at a rate higher than predicted by the Government – it seems that the number may drop below 100 million by 2050 (Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications　Statistics Bureau,　National Institute of Population and Social Security Research　”Future population projections in Japan” – date of projections: January 2002).

The second thing I had no idea about is regarding the senilization in Japan that shows the most intense curve (as we speak, it’s No.1 in the world) – 35,0% (above 65 years of age).

On the other hand, there are some positive aspects regarding the population, mainly the great interest for health and environment – 23,5% of the consumers are part of the LOHAS (acronym for “Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability”) – this consumer group represents the people with a strong interest in health and environmental issues in their lifestyle. This percent is huge if we are to compare it to the other super-nations of the world.

The Japanese alcohol consumption (surce: National Tax Administration Agency, 2005) puts beer in the first place (71,6%), sake (12,8%), Shochu (7,5%) while the wine is only 1,8%.
One thing is for sure – there is a big appetite for modern wine – Wine Sales Ranking (Monthly POS Data) show Mercian, Bon Rouge Box (Sukoyaka Wine, red, full body, carton package 1,8L) in the first place. As a personal note, the bag-in-box and the carton packaging for wines seem to become very trendy all over the world. The Italians don’t agree with this types of packing and I have to agree with them since I love the 720ml bottles.

Back to Japan, there seems to be a growing preference among Japanese females for the Italian foods and wines – I guess Italy is considered very romantic but this insight is worth noticing. Last but not least, Japanese who drink wine frequently have a deep knowledge about wine and are selective about the wine quality and the wine producers all over the world should know that entering the Japanese market it’s very easy.

While talking to my Japanese friend, we came upon some productive ideas and I hope he’ll remember them when reading this post
ありがとう!

By far, this is one of the most interesting type of restaurants in Italy (on the east coast). Also called “trabocco”, these places are also a fishing machines from another times, preserving the old Italian fishermen tradition.
The construction is very simple and very technical – although they don’t look very safe they manage to survive the waves and the angry sea but the most important thing is that on a “trabocco” you can enjoy a fresh seafood menu, hear the lazy waves and compare the long bottles of cerasuolo.

In a very emotional speech, Sally Field tried to say “THERE’D BE NO DAMN WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE” in front of the camera. Of course, Fox was there to correct the situation:

And this is how the message becomes viral – the classic censorship has great new media potential.

Strategic Marketing is the latest event promoted by the Business Media Group this autumn and it targets over 500 specialists in marketing, media, advertising, pr and sales. Some of the guest speakers invited will be Paul Garrison, Jared Salter, Ana Matos and Robert Zanescu and the event will take place on the 23rd of October at the World Trade Center in Bucharest.

I already confirmed my interest in this event and I’m happy to say that I’ll be one of the speakers in the “Blogging for business” workshop.

You’ll find more info about the event on the official website and on their new strategic blog.

I’m back in Bucharest after a very interesting experience I had in Italy. Made some new friends from Finland, Japan, USA, Switzerland, India, Italy, Slovakia, Israel and Canada and I hope I’ll be able to share with you my new views on the wine global market in the next days… and not only business views since I had the chance to taste over 120 wines – I think every Trebbiano, Montepulciano and Pecorino they have in Abruzzo.

Here is a short video made in Pietrantonj Winery – Vittorio (dating back to 1790) – also one of the many places we’ve been to:

“The whole world is changing. Communication is re-shaping the face of the world. Europe is the one to set the trends, as always. We need to face those changes, know them, and be the pioneers of change. We invite you to the IAA European Summit 2007 to get insight on how to stay on top of the change!”

This is the main event of the year in the marcomm industry and will take place on the 26th and 28th of September in Bucharest. You can find out more about the event on the official website.

IAA summit – Famous Supermodel:

IAA summit – Ronaldinho:

You can also read a related article about the IAA Summit and the promo campaign on Dan Petre’s blog.

Cuba and Venezuela already have doctors in the field and it was about time that the U.S. figured out this direct campaign in providing free medical care for the poor. This is a strategic program for South America and more than sure this is part of the attempts to improve their image in the area.
Here is a full AlJazeera report:

Hot, fresh news from ASIA – I was looking for the new JOLIN TSAI hit and I found out about her new futuristic matrix-like epic. Jolin Tsai transforms into the mysterious Agent J (not the same J from MIB) for her new album and music movie:

蔡依林顛覆舞孃專輯形象
在07年年度大碟中化身為特務Jolin
給歌迷再一次視覺饗宴

The movie also stars Korean actor Kim Jae-won and Hong Kong star Stephen Fung.

By the way, did you noticed PEPSI anywhere in the story?

I was really fascinated to discover this evening a new trend in wines. Although the Australian Rosemount is imported by Carl Reh Winery, there are new things to discover starting from the new shape of their bottle, the replacement of the cork with a cap or the whole feeling and taste of a new wine (the Rosemount is not complicated but it’s suitable to be your partner after a long day at work).

I’m more than sure that the Australian wines can conquer the Romanian market and I’m more than sure that you’ll enjoy tasting the Diamond Label – the wines will be available in a few weeks in Romania.

According to Intangible Business, Rosemount is a top10 wine’s brand and this can be an interesting fact when trying to discover the essence of the wine and of their global success.

Related: interview with Rodica Capatina from CRW.

A very good news comes from Doru Panaitescu regarding the new Master Degree in Online Marketing promoted by the Academy of Economic Studies. As we speak, this is the only program that combines modules about online advertising, research, direct and strategic marketing.
This is also a great news for the local online industry and all the specialized companies in the market – finally you can send you employees do some heavy studying and hopefully the level of online marketing will be another one in a few years.

LATER EDIT: Also to blog about this, Gabriel Boaca, a future local guru in online marketing.

One week from now I’ll be in Italy and I’m looking forward in attending several wine events.
THE IMAGE OF THE ITALIAN WINE IN THE WORLD will have case histories from Usa, Canada, Brasil, Corea, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom – the conference reserved to the experts and the foreign and Italian delegates and will take place in Palazzo Ducale della Montagnola of Corropoli (Teramo).

The second one, “MADE IN ITALY….MADE IN DOC? GOALS AND STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE THE ITALIAN WINE”, is another opportunity to learn more about their success story – It’s very hard to find case studies and specialists talking about wine branding and promotion strategies in one place and this is why I’m just glad I’ll be there.

Since I’ll have WiFi all the time, I’m planning to provide a great coverage on Vinul.ro.

Another great TED movie with Sir Ken Robinson:

Later edit:
Creativity? We don’t like that. This is how they punish creatives (romanian lang):

Spetsnaz (Russian special purpose regiments) is the common name for the elite or special units controlled by the Federal Security Service (FSB) with counter-terrorist and anti-sabotage tasks. These units were the elite of the KGB and performed multiple tasks around the world. By far, the most interesting thing about the members is that they link their combat knowledge to strong psychological techniques:

So basically, they can disarm a person without any effort and do it very fast.
On the other hand, the unit has a zero tolerance approach to terrorists – they are trained to use the element of surprise, to act fast and eliminate all targets:

Before jumping to the next movie you should keep in mind that all this soldiers are elite – basically they can fly or can be invisible but the politics when dealing with terrorists is sometimes cinical. At that time, the leaders had 2 things in their minds: “never negotiate with the terrorists” and “we should set an example”.
334 civilians killed, 186 were children (437 people, including 221 children, were hospitalized) mainly due to the use of heavy weapons by the spetsnaz:

The mainstream story at that time was that the terrorists provoked all the deaths. At that time the event was branded as another “fight against terror”. Because people and governments change, due to the latests scandals involving Russia, there is a new story coming to us: the spetsnaz and Putin are responsible for the killings and Beslan meant poor crises management.

I guess this is one of those cases where the truth doesn’t matter anymore. For some.

1. Colorado Police Link Rise in Violence to Music – this is one interesting story in the New York Times. Of course, this can only be great advertising for the hip-hop community (Local police say recent shootings are tied to clubs that play gangsta rap) although not very pleasant for the club owners.

2. If you follow the Microsoft vs. Google war, you should also find intresting the Microsoft in ‘Cloud’ Computing article – “Microsoft is moving to create an experience that will divorce a user’s information from the particular device the person is working with at any moment” Bill Gates said and this is the future of computing.

3. Xinhua says China reduces investment barriers – “It is the improvement in the investment climate in China compared to other economies that has mattered most for the global pattern of investment,” says the report titled “Reducing Behind-the-Border Barriers to Investment”, which was drafted by the Center for International Economics, based in Canberra, capital of Australia.

4. Stepped-up checks mean longer lines at U.S. borders – many people seem to forget how is like to stay in line at the customs. In the near future we’ll probably see interesting news from this part of the world (Canada-USA-Mexico).

5. Another special operation in Copenhagen this week-end – 63 arrested: “hundreds of youth activists turned violent with protesters setting fire to street barricades and cars, and smashing shop windows, police said”. Again, I’m writing with my left hand.

6. According to a U.N. report, workers in the United States lead the world in labor productivity – The average U.S. worker produces $63,885 of wealth per year, more than their counterparts in all other countries, the International Labor Organization said in its report. Ireland comes in second at $55,986, followed by Luxembourg at $55,641, Belgium at $55,235 and France at $54,609.” – This may come as a bad news for some US politicians but they’ll have a reason to express their social views because a CEO pay is 364 times more than workers. Social justice, social justice!!!

7. Tiraspol Times: Independence Day celebrations in cities throughout Transdniestria – “Pridnestrovie’s annual independence day parade moved through Tiraspol, its capital city, on Sunday. Assembled bystanders cheered as the parade – led by the young country’s armed forces and volunteer soldiers – entered the city’s main square” – how cool is that?

8. Russia Today, 48 minutes ago – “Boris Berezovsky’s name is again in the news. Is he somehow connected to the Politkovskaya and Litvinenko affairs? There are those who speculate. In Context examines how Berezovsky became one of Russia’s kingpin “oligarchs” during the turbulent 1990s to a strident Kremlin critic”:

9. When typing “news” in my Google center, the first result was BBC News before the CNN and Google News

Today, in the Guardian:
“The United States has agreed to lift sanctions against North Korea and remove it from its list of states that sponsor terrorism, the foreign ministry in Pyongyang announced today.[...]

Under the US Trading With the Enemy Act, there is a ban on arms sales and certain types of aid for nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism. In addition to these formal sanctions, businesses are discouraged from investment and trade with a nation classified as having pariah status.

Korea watchers said a change in designation would be a historic breakthrough.”

Indeed, history is changing before our very eyes.

You can catch all the action from the Italian Grand Prix in Monza this week-end on the Ferrari blog.
Already on the news: F2007 vs MP4-22, Monza Tests – Day2 and Day 3.
FORZA FERRARI!