Jazz-ing on Romanian advertising market

Jazz is one of new names among agencies on Romanian advertising market, although its team and experience are deeply rooted in Romanian marcom. Because we wanted and were curious to find our more about what’s Jazz all about, we asked the questions and Irina Pencea, Diana Benko and Valentin Suciu – or, in one word, Jazz –  gave us all the needed answers.

AdHugger: Your agency appeared after a part of the team decided to separate from Romanian agency Odyssey. Why did you decide to make this step?

Irina Pencea: We left Odyssey when the agency wasn’t anymore what we wanted it to be. We realized that the best is to stay together and to start on a new road, together with a team of seniors that went through a lot of experiences and that delivers very good results

AdH: What are the main changes? Did you also left with some of the clients?

Irina Pencea: Switching to entrepreneurship is a big change. Although we already passed through launching and building an agency from zero, we discovered what the pressure of the salaries mean, what means setting up and making an agency functioning and how is to consolidate a portfolio of clients in very difficult moment for the market.

Some of the clients we were working with before decided to join us on our new road, and among them are Heineken, Danone and Starfoods.

AdH: What is your agency portfolio of clients in this moment and what kind of services are you offering to them?

Diana Benko: We have a balanced portfolio that we are very proud of. All the brands we are working for are either leaders on their sectors or have important positions within their categories. We are contributing to each with integrated or specialized services. Bringing together the complementary expertise of each of us 3, we can manifest our ideas in an integrate manner and in any environement. Today we work for Provident, Baneasa Shopping City, Grand Cinema Digiplex, Heineken, Starfoods, Muller, Golden Brau, Vichy Romania, Dr. Oetker or Reckitt Benckiser.

AdH: What are Jazz Communication’s strong points?

Valentin Suciu: The diversity and complementing talents people in our team have. Each of us has a talent and, together, we are orchestrating campaigns that can manifest in any medium. We have strategic thinking but we are also explorers, we have surprising ideas, but also efficient solutions. We want to surprise as much as we want to deliver results to our clients. We know how to build brands from zero as much as we know to find new qualities for brands with tradition.

Experience – many of us had the opportunity to shape up our talent for long years within the industry and there are very few categories for which we didn’t communicate until now.

Enthusiasm: the most often we hear from our clients that they like we like what we’re doing 🙂 We think you cannot do this profession without having a passion overdose so you can start it all over again with each new project, new client or new product.

AdH: How do you choose your clients? Which are the criteria the clients are taking in consideration when they demand your services?

Diana Benko: In fact, clients choose us and do that because they like what we do and how we do it. Chemistry is very important and that is why we are even more motivated when we can keep close with the client and when we feel client’s care for our creativity matches our care for his results

AdH: Which are the agencies you meet the most in clients’ pitches?

Diana Benko: I think we meet with the well-known Romanian advertising agencies as often as we meet with the ones that are as young as us. we don’t think there is anymore a major differentiation between small and big agencies or between the new and the old ones, as long as people that form them have the needed experience and talent. People make the difference in our business and the agencies are recognizing and cultivating the talent and people’s motivation to be better no matter if they are big or small, new or old.

AdH: How much does a good strategy matters within a campaign?

Irina Pencea: Very much. I don’t think there’s any client anymore that can afford to make a campaign without knowing if it is set up on the proper basis and how it can contribute to sales

AdH: Which are the mediums you are using most often in order to make campaigns and why?

Valentin Suciu: We’re communicating on any channel and the list of our projects is very diverse from this perspective

AdH: What was your turnover and profit last year? What do you estimate for 2013 and 2014?

Irina Pencea: We close our first year of activity with turnover close to Euro 1M and a small profit. For the first year, it is a result we are very proud of and that insured us a solid start. We’re still in the growing stage and we estimate we will surpass, this year, last year’s numbers.

AdH: How did Jazz’s team evolved last year? Which were the departments that benefited of most attention and why?

Valentin Suciu: Our structure is very flexible and simple – we have creative people and people that take care of clients’ brands and projects. The expertise comes from us 3 and the seniors team but, lately, we attracted in our team also young talents, with fresh perspective and that we can guide forward. We have now a 22 people strong team.

AdH: What does it mean for you to participate to national and international festivals? Are awards important for Jazz and its clients? What matters more: an award or achieving and surpassing  one campaign’s KPIs?

Valentin Suciu: First and the most we want to generate results for our clients. This is the meaning of our profession. We are now preparing also to participate to festivals, especially as we accumulated a portfolio of beautiful projects. We want to go to festivals and it is important to see how we measure reported to different standard, but this isn’t a purpose on itself, but more a consequence that makes us happy.

AdH: How would you define Jazz in just one sentence?

Irina Pencea: We’re a Challenger.