Cover STORY
Cover STORY
Summer 2017 / Issue 54
Ad Industry Trends & Ethics in Macedonia
The ethics of marketing in Macedonia is a very important topic , unfortunately , it has received too little attention from Macedonian marketers and advertisers . Players on the Macedonian advertising scene generally respect the codes and the standards of operation , much like those in more developed and better regulated markets . Though the market is small and declining , the top 10 marketing agencies in Macedonia are mostly part of global networks like WPP , Publicis group and Interpublic , where group standards do not allow variations with respect to ethical standards regardless of the location . Much of the creative work which appears in our media is made elsewhere . In Macedonia , there are very few examples when a domestic agency campaigned for an international brand , even for the local market . Mainly , these are adaptations of global ads into local languages , primarily Macedonian and Albanian .
It is perhaps more interesting to consider whether our core business is fundamentally ethical . Whether promoting cigarettes , sodas and alcohol is ethical , or whether we are only interested in maximizing profit . While claiming to be “ building brands ” through market communications , we are often , in fact , helping build a consumerist society with bad habits , but that is another topic . Our business , however , also an opportunity to do good things .
For context , it ’ s important to describe the context in which our industry currently finds itself . The Macedonian advertising scene has been fighting to survive the biggest crisis in its history . Faced with the country ’ s serious economic and political crisis , most agencies have been in “ survival mode ”.
Saso Pesev , Managing Director , New Moment New Ideas Company
Against this backdrop , there has been an interesting dualism : local agencies kept winning prestigious international awards . In the past 5-6 years Macedonian advertising agencies won several Cannes Lions , a number of Grand Prix at the Golden Drum Festival in Portoroz and many others in extreme disproportion to the size of their advertising scene and working budgets . In fact , none of the countries of former Yugoslavia has won as many international awards as Macedonian agencies have .
Unfortunately , the development of the creative potential of the Macedonian market did not translate to greater business potential . On the contrary , Macedonian customers , faced with the political crisis and reduced public spending began drastically cutting their marketing budgets as the first and easiest way to save money .
No official data on agencies ’ turnover are published , but based on media revenues and other parameters , budgets appear to be as much as 40 % smaller than in the strongest advertising years , 2009-2010 . One key cause was the Government ’ s decision to allow the merger of 2 of the country ’ s 3 national
6 AmCham Macedonia Magazine