IAA Young Proffessional hosted a round table this week – the speakers presented their thoughts after IAA 2010 World Congress in Moscow.
Maria Tudor (Managing Director, Zenith Media) also spoke about optimism in the local Internet market and about online growth for Romania in 2010 (a must read for Internet Sales Agencies and Internet Publishers).
A very good news for Romanian Internet entrepreneurs/students planning to apply for polytechnic studies – university officials said today that they’ll open this autumn a Faculty for Entrepreneurs and a Business Faculty for Engineering Products.
“Din acest an vom avea Facultatea de Formare Antreprenori si Facultatea de Business pe Produse de Inginerie. Am luat aceasta hotarare impreuna cu Senatul Universitatii pentru a ne plia pe cerintele reale ale pietei. Deja am primit aprobarea de la ARACIS, iar din acest an vom face inscrieri pentru aceste doua facultati. Ceea ce este si mai inedit este faptul ca materiile care se vor preda vor fi prezentate de antreprenori reali. Incercam prin aceste facultati sa eficientizam invatamantul universitar si sa apropiem mai mult mediul business de mediul universitar“ – full story here…
ARBOinteractive just launched Behavia in Romania and I’ve promised Calin Rotarus to write a few words about the product.
As we speak Behavia is also the first and only ad-network in Poland (and one of the few in Europe), which offers behaviorally targeted campaigns. In Poland, the network reaches 12 million users on more than 650 websites (Grono.net, Kobiety.pl, Rzeczpospolita.pl, eGospodarka.pl, GazetaPrawna.pl, CKM.pl, Gry-OnLine.pl, Wizaz.pl, JoeMonster.org, MTV.pl, Viva-tv.pl, AOL.pl, Gery.pl, Fotosik.pl, SMS.pl, Pino.pl and many more).
In Romania, they reach 8.2 million unique users every month with more than 151.000.000 page views.
The technical platform for Behavia is supplied by the German-based company nugg.ad. The system using Predictive Behavioral Targeting broadcasts an advertisement only to a group of users, who meet defined requirements (download profiles below). Such solution allows to provide user with advertisement that fits his needs, what makes it more interesting for him.
The project manager for Behavia in Romania is Marius Sutu and you can find below a study case for Dacia Duster and FashionDays:
Congratulations to Marcin Wozniak, Calin Rotarus and Marius Sutu for launching Behavia in .RO!
Few people know the history of the Internet in Romania but yesterday I had the chance to notice the sudden death of local legend – I think it deserves a post.
1996 – The first Romanian newspaper published on the Internet marks the launch of online journalism in Romania. ZIUA was the first general newspaper to walk on the digital world in a time when “e-mail” was considered as hot as “twitter” 
2006 – Top 10 online player – During the years, the brand was challenged by many scandals and urban stories, ex-KGB spooks, secret documents and secret agents, legal and financial matters. The company was bought by local media mogul Sorin Ovidiu Vantu but was considered the “ugly duck” for Realitatea-Catavencu group and was never fully integrated in the group.
2008 – SATI: Affinity for old people – I remember a short episode in 2008 when I saw the first SATI demographics: Ziua.net had a strong affinity for old people and a heavy component of foreign audience: Ziua was also the first romanian newspaper with an online version for romanians living in and USA and Canada.
2009 – November – The Record – 2009 presidential elections in Romania also set a new traffic record for ZIUA: 1.488.159 unique visitors.
2009 – December: The announcement – Sorin Ovidiu Vantu announced his future plans in an interview: his investments will shift towards Internet and the print titles will be either sold or closed down. The news didn’t came as a surprise for people working at ZIUA at that time. The website still had 1.340.620 uv in December 2009.
2010 – January: The end of ZIUA - Facing critial financial issues, the newspaper was closed down. Ziua.ro displayed an empty homepage and Ziua.net was suspended. I tried to find out if the website was available for sale – at that time the website counted 1.046.633 unique visitors. I was not the only one interested in the faith of the website, I found out that Sorin Rosca Stanescu, the founder of the newspaper, was also interested in aquiring the domain but was politely declined.
2010 – February – 326.783 unique visitors – 1.000.000+ was a constant number for Ziua.ro in 2009: direct hits, heavy users and a very stable traffic. Last month the website lost this 1.000.000 people.
If you know how hard or how expensive it is to bring 1000 people to a website imagine how is like to lose 1 million visitors in a market like Romania. I understand the reasons for closing down the print edition but I have no idea what went wrong with the online edition nor how the strategists in the group missed the potential and the market share of the website… after all, it was the first online newspaper in Romania.
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:
| Advertiser | 2009 budgets - rate card (mil. euro) | 2008 comparison | Advertiser | 2008 budgets - rate card (mil. euro) | ||
| 1. | P&G | 261 | - 22% | P&G | 335 | |
| 2. | Cosmote | 155.5 | + 19,7% | Unilever | 187,4 | |
| 3. | Orange | 149,5 | + 26,7% | L’Oreal | 176,9 | |
| 4. | Vodafone | 131,5 | - 0,4% | Vodafone | 132 | |
| 5. | Unilever | 130,6 | - 30,3% | Cosmote | 129,9 | |
| 6. | Coca-Cola | 119,6 | +13,2% | Orange | 118 | |
| 7. | Kraft Foods | 116,3 | + 3,3% | Kraft Foods | 112,6 | |
| 8. | Reckitt Benckiser | 116,3 | + 50,6% | Coca-Cola | 105,6 | |
| 9. | Henkel | 112,6 | + 57,2% | European Drinks&Food | 94,3 | |
| 10. | L’Oreal | 107 | - 39,5% | Danone | 86,4 | |
| 11. | Danone | 98,7 | + 14,2% | Nestle | 81,8 | |
| 12. | European Drinks&Food | 87,7 | + 3,6% | Reckitt Benckiser | 77,2 | |
| 13. | Nestle | 93,1 | + 13,7% | Romtelecom | 72,1 | |
| 14. | Ferrero | 85,2 | + 74,6% | Henkel | 71,6 | |
| 15. | Johnson Wax | 78,8 | + 18,1% | Ursus | 70,5 | |
| 16. | Colgate-Palmolive | 74,7 | + 6,7% | Colgate-Palmolive | 70 | |
| 17. | Romtelecom | 70,6 | - 2% | Beiersdorf | 69,6 | |
| 18. | GlaxoSmithKline | 69,3 | + 46,5% | Johnson Wax | 66,7 | |
| 19. | Beiersdorf | 51,6 | - 25,9% | Renault Nissan | 61,3 | |
| 20. | Heineken | 51,2 | - 7,4% | Heineken | 55,3 | |
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 21/1/2010The 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
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.
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