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EASTERN EUROPE: LEARNING THE CUSTOM MEDIA LANGUAGE
POLISH PIONEER NOVIMEDIA LEADS THE WAY IN A DEVELOPING BRANDED CONTENT MARKET. BY JEFF HEILMAN same street in the Polish city of Katowice, Maciej Jazwiecki and Kamil Dlutko shared passions like sports and cars. In 1997, they bonded over another mutual interest—Americanmade marketing communications. Jazwiecki, then 25, came from a family of journalists and had public relations experience representing Burton Snowboards and consulting with Burson-Marsteller. Dlutko, a 22-year old finance student, was intrigued by the potential of marketing communications tools. Their decision to incorporate, using funds from Dlutko’s scholarship, was your standard bootstrap story— meager start-up capital, lots of energy and determination. “Poland had just entered the free market, which meant people were beginning to learn about marketing and advertising,” says Dlutko. Although they launched Novimedia as a firm, the partners quickly changed focus and the company became Poland’s first custom publishing concern. “We saw targeted publications as the future of communications—more powerful, believable and costeffective than any other marketing activity,” Dlutko says. The partners gathered information about the .. custom media market and approached Western corporations which at the time were beginning to start up or acquire subsidiaries in Poland. Novimedia’s first custom publish-
ing client was British American Tobacco. “We created on as an internal communications tool,” says Dlutko. Initially a 12-page quarterly leaflet, the program evolved quickly into a 40-plus-page bimonthly, bilingual (Polish and English) magazine. internal surveys found that on was the company’s most trusted communications channel in Poland. Next was a custom publication for Renault. Launched in 1998, Poznaj Renault (“Know Renault”) mixed branded content with carfan appeal, targeting the French automaker’s customers in Poland. A circulation of more than 160,000 made it Eastern Europe’s largest auto custom magazine at the time. In ’99, the partners re-branded as Novimedia Custom Publishing. The company now works with some 30 brands, including Coca-Cola, Toyota and Citibank. Headquartered in Katowice, Novimedia employs about 20 fulltime staffers. Last fall, the company earned a Pearl Award from the Custom Publishing Council in design for best new magazine, Goodyear Serwis, produced for Goodyear Polska. While lacking measurable metrics, custom publishing in Poland is on the move. Dlutko says the market has grown rapidly since 2006, increasing about 50% per year to the current level of about $100 million. Poland’s developing economy is attracting custom media players including global powerhouses like NOVIMEDIA HAS HELPED BUILD MARKET SHARE IN EASTERN EUROPE FOR GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE BRANDS INCLUDING SCANIA, GOODYEAR, CASTROL, TOYOTA AND RENAULT.
Saatchi & Saatchi; Jazwiecki estimates there are about 10 significant custom agencies. Branded content activity is picking up elsewhere in Eastern Europe, with at least one operator in Slovenia and an intriguing player in Russia. Moscow-based Mediacrat, founded in 2004, is led by managers who have worked or studied in the .. Alexei Medvedev, business development director, has an economics degree from University of ColoradoDenver and worked in the .. for Janus and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mediacrat started up with Styles, a 2 magazine for the Russian unit of Pernod Ricard, the world’s largest liquor marketer. Its portfolio also includes Yerevan Magazine, focused on Armenian culture and the only Russian publication with licensed editions in the U.S. and Canada. In 2007, the company reorganized into a private partnership with two divisions, publishing (including branded pubs) and media services, including marketing, creative and production. The new structure “frees us to test new editorial and design
ideas that we can then show to custom publishing prospects,” Medvedev says. Mediacrat’s biggest win of late is a promotional and imagebuilding campaign for the European Commission in Russia. Medvedev says there are about 10 other agencies in Russia specializing in custom media. He estimates the market’s current size at about $300 million, including the local activities of several global marketing and ad firms. Marketers in Russia are still learning about branded content, Medvedev says. Many companies’ marketing strategies “are still trying to look Western,” built on the basics of traditional mass media advertising, “rather than fully understanding the value of custom media,” he adds. But Medvedev is optimistic for the future of branded content in Eastern Europe, as is Novimedia’s Jazwiecki. “We see a vital trend of marketers understanding that mass communication is losing strength,” Jazwiecki says. “That means more focus on custom content, which should lead to rapid expansion of the industry here.”