“The Velvet Revolution in November 1989 swept away the communists and brought a fresh wind of endless opportunities for economic and social boom, including the entry of big foreign brands into the Czech market,” recalls Dita Stejskalová, Managing Director of Ogilvy’s Czech branch.
Thanks to Ogilvy, Czechs became acquainted with the Dove and Pepsi brands, Ford cars, Shell petrol and Absolut vodka. It was also behind the communication concept of Air Bank, “a bank you can like”.
“The Czech slogan Aby váš motor skvěle Shell (You Shell keep your engine running well) was supposedly coined by the wife of the then creative director while ironing,” Stejskalová recalls of one of her first clients. Another client specified as a campaign objective that they be sued by a competitor who had so far ignored them.
“It turned out well, their litigation continued for another year,” laughs Ogilvy CEO Ondřej Obluk.
Advertising in the Czech Republic has come a long way since then. “Today we would probably have to do a lot of things differently,” Obluk says.
“Not only has regulation and the legal framework tightened for some categories, but the public’s sensitivity to various social issues has also changed a lot. Minorities, age, sexual orientation, gender and, unfortunately, the proverbial Czech humour. And since advertising generally works with hyperbole, the space for creative solutions is often more limited today than it used to be,” he explains.
But the biggest battle now is for the attention of consumers. “Due to the increasing number of media channels and the amount of advertising, the time a consumer spends on a single ad has significantly decreased. The ability to perceive commercial messages has demonstrably decreased,” says Boomerang Communication’s Business Director Martin Vymětal.
During its 21 years of operation, the company has worked with more than 350 clients. The annual turnover has been around CZK 90 million for a long time. The most expensive campaigns are for Radegast, Flexi, LMC and in the past Vodafone.
“The turnover of a big annual campaign is around 15 million for production costs and lower tens of millions for media costs,”
adds Vymětal.
The willingness of clients to invest in advertising has always been based on the return on investment. “In general, however, the cost of creative solutions and campaign production is only a small part of the investment, the vast majority of the money goes into airing the ad in the media,” Obluk adds.
The most expensive project Ogilvy has worked on so far was the production of a TV spot for CZK 11 million, while the long-term campaign cost CZK 300 million.
Ogilvy currently works for more than 70 clients and its annual turnover was CZK 405 million last year. “Turnover is essentially unchanged, with only a short-term decline at the start of 2020,” Obluk says.
However, the structure of orders has changed significantly. For example, there were more projects in PR, social networks, internal and crisis communication, while clients reduced the quantity and intensity of classic advertising campaigns on TV.
Dora Pružincová, Chief Creative Officer at DDB, whose most popular campaigns include the Covid-19 one for the city of Prague and the McDonald’s brand. The company’s annual turnover exceeded CZK 207 million last year.
But changing channels is not always beneficial, according to Pružincová. “Many people underestimate the effectiveness of TV spots and billboards under the influence of the hype around new formats,” says Pružincová, adding that in addition to passive communication towards customers, it is increasingly important to engage them and let them experience something with the brand.
“Today we are working with technologies that we could not have imagined ten or twenty years ago. When advertising ‘invaded’ the Czech Republic in the 1990s, it was based on television and newspaper advertisements,” Obluk recalls. “Advertising is also more sophisticated, working more with data, psychology and behavioural patterns,” he adds.
It is access to data that has been the big change in recent years - from the passive use of pre- and post-campaign research data, to active measurement or A/B testing, to tailoring the core message to each individual ad recipient.
“At the same time, digitalisation enables more precise targeting or customer participation in the campaign itself. This is a great improvement,” thinks Martin Vymětal from Boomerang Communication.
Today’s accelerated times also demand much faster processing of requests. Agencies need to be much more flexible and faster in creating content.
“Advertisers are forced to react more quickly to what is happening on the market. People consume content quickly, skip it and want shorter formats that offer a simple message from which they quickly understand what is on offer,” explains managing director Adéla Krausová from WMC Grey.
This agency has also grown steadily in recent years and managed to double its revenues and number of employees. Among their best-known campaigns is the Dopravart, Rychlart, Chytrart project for the Datart e-shop, for which they won the Effie Grand Prix in November.
The concept helped Datart exceed the target for increased sales four times and the target for increased e-commerce income three times. The return on investment in communications was 279 percent.
Another popular campaign was Hackathon #znamkamarada. Within 48 hours, 200 volunteers organised a programming marathon to create an e-shop for the Czech Republic’s highway toll system in response to an overpriced government contract.
In addition to the five Cannes Lions and other awards, the campaign brought about the cancellation of a suspicious 100 million contract, the resignation of the transport minister and initiated a change in the legislation for IT contracts worth hundreds of millions.
But what has not changed is human behaviour and motives for action, thinks Martin Vymětal. “We still work with desire and fear. Storytelling is the absolute certainty of advertising, whatever form it takes.”
That is why slogans like “Life is bitter. Thank God” (Radegast) still work in Boomerang Communication.
The most widespread trends today are undoubtedly virtual reality and artificial intelligence. “Virtual influencers are very popular in the world now, for example @guggimon. They represent an opportunity to turn influencer marketing into a content marketing tool that works without the risk of the human factor,” explains Adéla Krausová from WMC Grey.
DDB has created a campaign using AI. For Komerční banka, they have prepared a Christmas campaign that is the first on the local market to work with AI-generated illustrations, from key visuals to TV spots.
The involvement of artificial intelligence is addressed not only in the sense of working with data, but also in the preparation of creative designs. “A lot of agencies are experimenting with platforms that can generate visuals and texts based on keywords,” says Dora Pružincová. However, there are discussions about whether these tools will take work away from agencies or make it easier.
Some artificial intelligence tools make marketing easier, even though they are not yet used much in the Czech Republic. “These are, for example, Synthesia.io, which generates a video from texts. Or voiceover tools that use live transcription to create copy, product names, slogans or interview questions,” says Adéla Krausová.
Another trend is the NFT, metaverse or omnichannel customer journey, which allows consumers to shop through shoppable content, for example during livestream.
Technology, virtual reality, the metaverse and new social networks have practical consequences. For example, the shift from paper leaflets to electronic versions or less lavish packaging for luxury goods.
According to Obluk, brands need to show that profit is not their only goal. “They want to have added value even for those who do not (yet) buy them,” Obluk says.
And it is the added value that customers are increasingly interested in. But according to DDB’s Dora Pružincová, brands are under a lot of pressure.
“At the same time, there are increasing demands that these activities must not start and end in the marketing department. Of course, the chosen theme needs to fit the type of brand and be supported by measurable activity,”
she explains.
For example, they address the topic of sustainability with clients, both environmental, social and economic.
Martin Vymětal alludes to another global trend. The aforementioned changes in society have meant that people no longer buy just a product but also the opinion and attitude of the brand with which they are aligned.
“Advertising seeks to influence or even shape the consumer’s opinion on life. But I see a certain risk in this because it weakens what advertising has always been, freedom of choice, and turns it into an ideology. The brand, its opinion and activism seem more important than the product today,” he comments, referring to the Patagonia brand, for example.
“But with more sophisticated products, customers are all about building community. They want exclusive offers and experiences as well as information provided in a non-aggressive way,” Obluk comments. Technology would manage to do that easily today, but the question is whether we would want such a world without room for imagination.
“Advertising has, among other things, a certain information value, such as what the world looks like outside our socio-demographic bubble,” Obluk concludes.
Source: forbes.cz
