After losing Trilulilu.ro, Kappa.ro and parts of InformMedia two weeks ago, Boom (Netbridge Investments) breaks the contract with their most important website, gsp.ro.
The rumor started in Hotnews was confirmed today by Augustin Roman, New Media Manager at Gazeta Online. This news is extremely important for the Romanian online advertising market because this account is evaluated at 10% of the overall market and gsp.ro is probably one of the most powerful brands in .ro. Continue reading ‘gsp.ro, no longer represented by Boom (Netbridge Investments)’
Last August I was blogging on PROTV / MediaPro Interactiv – plans for 2009 and their new Romanian online sales team.
Beginning with january 2009, Bogdan A. POPESCU is the Digital Sales Manager at PRO TV/CME group and although we haven’t seen any press release from PROTV, he will be managing the online sales for the Internet division (different from MPI).
This means that we have another player in this fragmented market as Orlando Nicoara (MediaPro Interactiv) will focus on other MediaPro products and also on some independent websites. Continue reading ‘Bogdan Popescu, Digital Sales Manager at PRO TV’
The first time we found out about Biz Lawyer it was a few months ago, in Financial Times:
“The website ( www.bizlawyer.ro n.r.) functions as a bridge between the community of business lawyers from Romania and the one from other countries”, showed the report of Financial Times Innovative Lawyers, made public in London, on October 17, during the award ceremony for the most innovative lawyers of the world…
BizLawyer.ro is now part of our premium business portfolio at INTACT Interactive.
One year ago I was blogging about the financial crisis and I was wondering about the impact on the local online advertising market. The information about the crisis was available for the business community at the end of 2007 and the good thing is that (some) people had the chance to prepare for the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009.
Of course, as I look around, I can see that a large percentage of the local online companies were not prepared for the shock wave – I’m not saying that one year ago they were reading the wrong blogs, but the months to come will be very hard for their oversized budgets, teams and spending habits.
This week, Romanian business website Daily Business announced that Valentin Oeru (Managing Director at Boom Advertising/Netbridge Investments) was leaving the company.
24 hours later, AdPlayers.ro wrote an article stating that Oeru had “fun” when he found out about this information but he didn’t deny it.
In case you wonder, here is a quick overview of what really happened behind the scenes: Continue reading ‘Valentin Oeru leaving Boom Advertising – behind the scenes’
A former KGB member turned businessman has bought the London based daily newspaper, The Evening Standard, which was founded in 1827, provoking debate in the UK media over the suitability of a man a Times source describes as “closer to those in power than he likes to admit publicly” to run a paper. full story
But then, Evening Standard had a very nice layout, and the pictures were great.
SATI reported 2.428.259 unique clients and over 48.000.000 page views for Roportal, meaning that this is the no.1 Internet community in Romania.
INTACT interactive has another top player in its portfolio (click here for details).
41 media questions in a “must read” interview with Laurentiu Ionete, GM at CLIR Media, the most efficient advertising sales agency in 2007 (1.046% growth compared to 2006), part of INTACT Media Group.
Vodafone.ro, YouthSMS.ro and Vodafone LIVE! will be represented by INTACT Interactive in 2009 (full news here).
According to SATI, Vodafone.ro reaches 620.000 unique users on monthly basis, 15% surf ing the business area.
The situation is not exactly “outstanding” when talking about the Romanian online advertising market in January 2009.
This is an example of a business model (local online sales agency) hit by the crisis:
- - mid 2007 – mid 2008 – signing 2 year contracts with Romanian websites – minimum guaranteed in EUR currency;
- - 2007/2008, stable course RON/EUR, fixed rate-card in RON, average 3,65 RON/EUR;
- - hell breaks loose in November 2008, first signs of the financial crisis, some advertising accounts are frozen;
- - November 2008 – sales targets not achieved, first cash flow problems, all payments delayed;
- - early December 2008 – panic button & business reset in order to limit their loss; all the contracts are dissolved beginning with Dec 31st;
- - December 2008 – heavy loss of portfolio and market share;
- - 15th of January 2009 – time to pay regularization for the contracts, currency weakens dramatically – 4,30 RON/EUR;
It seems that 2009 will be a very hard year for the local players in the online display advertising market.
Our Sales Director, Gabriel Boaca (INTACT interactive), was key punching the excel yesterday and came up with the graphic below showing the top 10 online advertising players in Romania in January 2009.
The last three months of 2008 and the economic crisis had a strong impact on the local market and made us work harder in order to build one of the strongest portfolios there is on the market. INTACT interactive aims to become the no.1 online sales agency in Romania and before we launch we’re happy to count over 80 websites in our official rate-card (the full list of websites will be announced in the following days).
It’s not very hard to notice that the Romanian online market fragmentation will achieve a new dimension in 2009 and the competition will probably reach the next level as the economic crisis will tighten the fight for the best results and maximum ROI.
I’m more than sure that it’s going to be a hard year (at least the next six months) for the young Romanian Internet industry buy I’m confident that our enterprise will hit high scores on all levels. We have to and we will.
Congratulations to Magdalena Zander, Gabriel Boaca, Maria Cocris, Irina Bidileac and Sorin Cristea for stepping in 2009 together with INTACT interactive, for setting up a strong online portfolio and special thanks for being the best interactive team in Eastern Europe.
Later edit (also writing about this):
These days we’re running a fun mobile campaign for Radio ZU and its community. Implemented by INTACT interactive and powered by OMN, the campaign focuses on SMS text messages sent to Radio ZU -> full story here.
The good news (exclusive also 
) is that in 2009 INTACT interactive will offer Romanian advertisers a special mobile interactive package with advanced targeting of male opinion leaders.
An absolute premiere in Europe, figures show amazing results when speaking of reach and ROI 
Stay tunned and follow our new blog (romanian only)!
