Leo Burnett after 10 years of Romanian Creativity Gala: Creativity sells!
After 10 Years of Romanian Creativity Gala, Leo Burnett Group Romania got yet another recognition for the works it delivered, over the time, to its clients. Shortly after, the group’s representatives organized a meeting during which they expressed their opinion on this matter.
Stefan Iordache, COO Leo Burnett Group, mentioned that, in 2011, Leo Burnett Group Romania celebrates 17 years since it started its activity and, after the Gala, he also said the last 10 years were ones in which the group of agencies he leads “changed the face of the industry and made history”.
A few years ago, during ADOR, Bogdan Naumovici, than Creative Director of Leo Burnett (now Creative Director of 23 Communication Ideas), promised the audience the agency he was part of would win the festival 5 years in the row. A thing that, later, became true.
In 2011, Iordache said his group promised to win the festival 5 years in a row and kept that promise, while building successful stories for its clients.
Among the brands Leo Burnett Group Romania realized stories that turned in a real success were Elite and Doncafe, Bergenbier, Prigat, Altex, Cancan, Pagini Aurii, Western Union, Petrom and many others.
The best campaign of the last 10 years of Romanian advertising was Men’s Day for Bergenbier, followed by Prigat. The agency won recognition also with the best TV ads of the decade, Batman and Starwars for Altex, but also for outdoor (Dinosaurs for Antipa Museum) and for the best interactive campaign in the last year, Rediscover Romania for Petrom.
Iordache said all those campaigns changed the market the clients are activating in and also changed the face of Romanian advertising.
Although the statement we made 10 years ago seemed very arrogant and was extremely contested back than by the entire industry, we managed to mobilize together an entire creative generation and to convince a lot of clients that, in Romania and not only, creativity sells.
Our dare was accepted on the market and the results are visible now, when we are evaluating the 10 years that passed. The Gala (on Tuesday) brought together, maybe for the first time with applauses at open stage, an entire community of ad and marketing men that celebrated and remembered with pleasure and fairplay the best works of the industry
Besides the pride of winning so many “BEST OF last 10 years”, we are proud we were and are the ones that shape the market
Stefan Iordache,
COO Leo Burnett Group Romania
According to Iordache, people are the ones that matter. He said that, with very few exceptions, the people that went up stage at Romanian Opera on Tuesday night are actual colleagues, but also former colleagues that are working today in other agencies.
We are the agency with 25 people that are “older” than 8 years in it. The medium period of time spent in our agency is 5 years, which is a lot for nowadays industry. Moreover, we are the agency with the most seniors gathered together under the same roof, more than in any other Romanian group. We really are the agency with the biggest number of teachers.
The fact that creativity sells was shown by the fact that Leo Burnett Group won a lot of prizes for creativity and efficiency with the same works. We believe and we proved that creativity sells. We gathered a lot of Effies at all the editions of the local festival: Grand Effie, 12 Gold Effie, 8 Silver, 5 Bronze. We also have the international recognition for the efficiency of our campaigns: 2 EuroEffies and 2 APG Awards.
Stefan Iordache
Leo Burnett Group Romania has long term relationships with clients such as P&G (15 years), Starbev (14 years), Altex (8 years), Strauss (6 years), Samsung (5), Petrom (4) and Groupama (3), among others.
The clients about Leo Burnett Group Romania:
Tiberiu Mercurian, Marketing Director Starbev:
The award for Men’s Day is a recognition for the work of a team that included Bergenbier people and the agency’s men, that were close to us every step of the way. It was and it is a team work, because this kind of ideas need 2 essential ingredients: a creative agency and a visionary client that accept this idea and invest in it. That is what competition’s jury awarded.
I don’t intend to talk about all the 4 editions of Men’s Day (2007, 2008, 2010 și 2011), but I would like to point out the gradual evolution of the phenomena, the way always new in which the consumers were surprised each year (choosing the day in 2007, the vote in 2008, the hymn in 2010 and the present in 2011), and also the proportions build up over the time.
The success of Men’s Day campaign consists in its origin: an insight identified among men, and the proof of a men’s day “need” can be found in 2009, the only launch since launch in which Bergenbier didn’t officially celebrated Men’s Day, but on www.ziuabarbatului.ro there were 20,000 people looking for information regarding the event
Narcis Horhoianu, Marketing Director P&G Balkans
Leo Burnett confirmed, over the years, that one can communicate creatively and efficiently. Working for ones of the most important P&G brands, Leo developed campaigns that offered our consumers brands’ benefits in a relevant and attractive way. I am glad for the recognition obtained at ADOR and I congratulate them.
Dan Pazara, Marketing Director Communication OMV Petrom
Petrom works with Leo Burnett since 2007 and, thank to the way they understand our business, in which they get involved and work with us, we consider them real partners. No matter we made image projects, internal communication or digital projects, they proved “common sense and responsability”. Or, in terms more close to marketing, strategic thinking, creative solutions and equally good executions
Marius Melesteu, General Manager Strauss Romania
Among the 2 winning campaigns made for Strauss România, that won on TV (Prepare to be reach! – Elite) and online (Doncafe Mixes), Leo Burnett proved not only creativity, but also the capacity of understanding consumers needs and desires, through an approach that matched them. We congratulate them for the added value they brought to Doncafe brand and we encourage them to be also from now on equally creative and original
Calin Clej, Marketing Director PepsiCo International
The recognition of the cretivity Prigat communication has is a constant thing in the last 10 years and not a surprise. Leo Burnett worked perfect also on Prigat briefs, our role as a client being resumed to counting the prizes won in many efficiency and creativity festivals where Prigat works were present. I am glad that last night (Tuesday), the Romanian communication industry honored once again this team. For everyone that worked for the client for Prigat brand – Eusediu, Irina, Claudia, Daniela, Andreea and the underlined – thank you, Leo Burnett!
Leo Burnett Romania includes:
- 23 Communications Ideas – ideas shop
- Starcom MediaVest – 1st Romanian media agency awarded in Cannes and the most awarded media agency in Romania
- The Practice PR – 1st Romanian PR agency awarded in Cannes and the most awarded in Romania
- iLeo, The Geeks, Digital Star and Starcom Interactive – digital agencies of the group
The last 3 years affected the Romanian advertising industry. It was normal. The crisis resented everywhere, not only in reduced budgets and fees, but also through bigger precautions from clients, that became more reticent in experimenting and more leanient to go on safe roads, with predictable results.
Obviously, this is also resented from agencies’ side.
We are more conscientious that every RON we spend is important, that each market share percentage is important and that we have to justify in business results any creative initiative.
The industry grew up, each of us grew up and we also have the experience, desire and capability to generate and build campaigns and projects that will reach people’s souls and minds and to bring added value to brands.
Our message for the clients is to trust Romanian advertising! To let us do our job and we promise they won’t regret. We did it pretty good when the industry was at its beginnings and we have proved that we grew up a lot in these 10 ast years. We want, we know and we can!
Another message for the clients is not to put price on the 1st place when they are evaluating an agency. Brands problems are more difficult to solve. Surely, for this problem the answer is not the cheapest agency.
We do advertising with responsibility and passion every day amd every day we are better.
I strongly believe that the next 10 years will be much more interesting than the ones we just remembered on Tuesday and you will see I am right
Stefan Iordache