Bogdan Gavrila – Core Target

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.

I had a twit  this morning about Simina’s article based on local media budgets in 2009 published in Wall-Street. According to Alfa Cont numbers,  Romanian top 20 advertisiers spent almost, 2005,3 mil EUR (rate card) in 2009 compared to 2174,2 mil EUR (rate card) in 2008.

The panic effect: similar bugdets, 90% discounts

The difference: 168,8 mil EUR (rate card), a very small percent if compared to the est. 2,1 bln EUR (rc). The panic effect we saw in 2009 weakened media vehicles as the overall spending budget remained the same while the prices went down, discounts and rebates went up  - buying media with up to 90% discounts is now something ordinary on the local media market.

The climate was very good for the clients in 2009, 13 of top 20 spenders increased their budgets and in some cases we saw over + 50% growth (Reckitt Benckiser, Henkel and Ferrero).

Top 20 Advertisers in Romania – 2009 vs 2008 comparison:

Source: Alfa Cont – Romanian Advertising Market

Wael Abbas was one of the guests at the World Blogging Forum in Bucharest last autumn (I wrote a post here about his fascinating story, online activism and struggle). On the 21st of January the court of Hadayek ElQobba, upheld the sentence against of six months imprisonment. Find below more info about the imprisonment and about how you can support Wael:

تأييد الحكم بحبسي ستة أشهر

تأييد الحكم بحبسي ستة أشهر
Upholding the Imprisonment Sentence of Blogger Wael Abbas, Six Months In Jail

Cairo on 21/1/2010

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said that the misdemeanor court of Hadayek ElQobba, upheld the sentence against the blogger “Wael Abbas” of six months imprisonment and LE 500 pounds as a judiciary bail in order that he would not attend the appeal hearing. The lawsuit was filed against Wael by a citizen and his police officer brother on charges of “damaging an internet cable”.

The case comes in a series of multiple violations against Abbas as consequences to what he publishes on his blog http://misrdigital.blogspirit.com” where he monitors and exposes many crimes of torture committed by the government against citizens. The verdict is a threat to the blogger to force him stop blogging. Continue reading ‘Wael Abbas, World Blogging Forum member, sentenced in Egypt’

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′

Trafic.ro is the oldest and one of the most trusted audit websites for Romanian webmasters as it displays statistics for over 45.000 internet websites. The service measures Romanian Internet traffic since 2000 and in the last year they started to display an open strategy built around its community.

As we speak, Romanian online advertising has 2 accepted official measuring tools (the other one is SATI/BRAT) but trafic.ro still has the psychologycal advantage of being the first on the market, a better technical application for measuring and delivering data in realtime and it is more cost effective than SATI. Continue reading ‘Internet Event: API.trafic.ro Awards’

I’ve been using Windows Mobile since 2005 and at that time I had SPB Pocket Plus installed on my SPV M1000 (great phone, still working). Meanwhile I switched to HTC (Diamond was a terrible experience) and Samsung Omnia (the config was quite ok with 8 GB storage, 5 megapixel camera, etc).

I like Windows Mobile because of the advanced features (mainly agenda & connectivity) and because the system is very often installed on great business smartphones (I only have the high-end experience). SPB Mobile Shell for Windows Mobile is an app that helps the average user to get more from the phone and OS - great looks, very stable, easy-to-use and fun:

Maybe this is why the app received 28+ positive reviews and awards last year but you’ll have to install it in order to see how great it is!

PS: for iPhone users – I hear you now have copy/paste function! Amazing!

I’ve noticed Kaspersky Antivirus getting involved in a very interesting community campaign. I like it when people say that Christmas should last longer, therefore having a green Santa in January is always fun.

If you enter MosKraciunVerde.ro you still have the chance to win one of the 111 special prizez – the big prize: lifetime subscribtion to Kaspersky Antivirus