TBWA Bucharest, about the pitch for Romania’s tourism brand

Branding, Creativity, Marketing

According to a press release, TBWA Bucharest was involved in all the pitch process that aimed to chose a company to create the Romanian tourism brand. The consortium the agency was part of entered the final stage of the pitch along with THR – TNS, later designated winner, and Saffron – Brandient.

The consortium coordinated by TBWA Bucharest ranked 2nd in the final stage, in terms of financial offer.

TBWA Bucharest mentions that the consortium it was part of was including the participation of GFK International as a research partner and of an multi-national experts team from TBWA Worldwide, selected on their experience and role in creating national and tourism brands for South Africa, Paris, New Zeeland and Malaysia. As an info, the branding and communication campaign “Malaysia, Truly Asia” is recognized as the most efficient globally in the last couple years.

“Initially, we didn’t wanted to communicate the activity of the winner of the pitch we were part, but we feel is our duty to present our own position, considering the questions we received from the press and the fact that Brandient already presented its opinion.  TBWA Bucuresti is part of one of the most powerful communication companies at international level and, in the same time, a Romanian company, with Romanian employees and management and with fees at the level of Romanian market. If we would have ever dared to show, even to the smallest and inexperienced client from Romanian regions a brand identity not original, we would have lost for sure his respect and support. In such a situation in which, let’s say, a TBWA employee would have tried to profit of a lack of attention moment from its bosses and get away with a cheap thing, presenting a instead of a original creative work a little and convenient copied thing, we would have faced an action of cancelling a contract, a refuse to pay and even a trial. Now we see we are too tough with ourselves. In what concerns the quality of the logo on its own, we would have expected to be impressed. Obviously, we aren’t”, Cristian Munteanu, Managing Director TBWA Bucharest, said.

Alina Simpetru, brand strategy consultant and the one that had the initiative to enter the TBWA Bucharest –GFK Bucharest in the pitch, said that “ the embarrassing situation Romania’s name was in the last week was a surprise for everybody, especially for the communication specialists”.

“I think it worth to be underlined, in this context that both TBWA – GFK and Saffron – Brandient were bringing an advantage, now even more visible after the discussions from the last week, to include in their teams an interface of Romanian specialist, that could have filtered with a higher efficiency both Ministry’s demands and the proposals from the foreign experts. There will be a lot to say here about competence, responsibility or the satisfaction the work is giving to you when you have the chance to do your job for a product that is no other than a country, or even your own country”, she said.

Simpetru considers important what will happen in the future and adds that maybe the example of this 1st stage of research and branding to convince the Ministry that there is a real need of specialized counciling and even public consultations before making important steps, such as establishing investments directions for the 74M budget left to promote the country in the next 2 years.

TBWA Bucharest is the Romanian office of TBWAWorldwide, part of Omnicom Group Inc. Having 258 offices in 77 countries, TBWA network also has over 11,000 employees in the world and has a clients’ portfolio that includes Apple, adidas, Absolut, Mars, Visa, GSK, Nissan, Samsonite or PlayStation.

In Romania, TBWA is present for over 12 years, offering integrated communication services for international and local clients such as Beiersdorf, Henkel, Mars, JTI, Michelin, BMW, adidas or Beko.