Romania: Ioana Mucenic launched Maker Studio, an agency targeting Gen Z

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Ioana Mucenic launches Maker Studio, the first agency in Romania that directly involves the young consumer in the whole creative process and decentralizes the classic agency structure. Maker Studio has an innovative, flexible, role-based business model (maker, tester, evaluator, curator, consultant).

The new agency responds to the need to communicate more authentically and relevantly with the younger generation – now GenZ. So what’s unique about Maker Studio is that it doesn’t use traditional agency processes and roles, it has no art, nor copy person, no creative director and no junior-senior hierarchies.

Ioana Mucenic, CEO of Maker Studio:

“Work processes in agencies are archaic, so it’s time for a change. To be authentic and relevant to GenZ, we work with them on campaigns. And that doesn’t mean by any means that we have a few younger colleagues, it means we’ve completely rethought the ideation process. We’re working with over a hundred young creatives, changing the workflow to reduce the bias and using biometric technology to assess emotional impact. It’s all done with GenZ, for GenZ. We say Maker Studio is co-created by GenZ and proofed by data. It’s a different way of advertising, a more natural, simple and human-centric way”,

The main creative resource are Makers, young consumers, between 18 and 26 years old – at the moment, the agency works with a collective of over 100 young people, sending them briefs to which they respond with different fresh, current ideas, mostly TikTok-oriented. Most of them don’t work in advertising, but they’re just young creatives who accept briefs that they like and that represent them.

Their ideas are then structured and voted on by another panel of GenZ to assess which approach they find most interesting.

With the ideas received and the votes gathered, the curators, a team of people with different expertise (social media, influencers, strategy, creative, account), enter the scene and select the winning idea to be discussed with one or more content creators. The latter provide advice with the aim of maximising the impact of the chosen idea through the way it is creatively executed.

Only after this input does the idea reach the client, so late in the process compared to the usual workflow in advertising. This is an important aspect, this way the client receives a validated and relevant proposal to the young audience, which has bypassed the classic system with multiple feedback sessions. To ultimately validate the proposal, Maker Studio uses biometric analysis. The chosen content creator will make a demo video, which will be tested by another group of GenZs to gauge attention span and emotional engagement levels. This way, we can tell if the proposal will be impactful or needs more work.

The working process is very agile and efficient, relying on young creatives who are free of industry bias and have a natural understanding of what is authentic and representative of GenZ.

Maker Studio is changing the way we build advertising campaigns for young audiences. We build campaigns with GenZ, for GenZ, decentralising the traditional ad agency structure and changing the process between client and agency into a current, modern, streamlined format.

Bogdan Ivașcu, Business Manager of the new agency.

“Young consumers look at ‘classic’ advertising with scepticism and often avoid it. To create content relevant to GenZ audiences, it’s not enough to read reports and see what else is trending on TikTok. Maker Studio aims to offer an alternative to the traditional agency structure by co-creating with young consumers. Our goal is to connect brands with young people in the most authentic way possible on content platforms where they are both consumers and creators”,

The agency’s main product is snackable video content – short video content ideal for TikTok, Instagram Reels or Youtube Shorts. The content can be created for commercial, branding or employer branding campaigns, a growing segment. Maker Studio also offers services for:

  • Generating insights with the GenZ community, which the client can then use in campaigns;
  • Video testing to assess emotional impact (eye tracking and affective);
  • Organisation of bootcamps and content generation workshops;
  • Content campaigns for employer branding;
  • Content campaigns for brands.

The agency has already carried out the first two projects, for international brands – Philadelphia and OREO – and has new campaigns in the works.

Maker Studio’s core team consists of Ioana Mucenic (CEO), Bogdan Ivașcu (Business Manager), Marius Marin (Influencer Marketing Manager) and Patricia Bălan (Social Manager) – along with over 100 GenZ Makers.

The launch of the new agency was marked by an event that took place on June the 7th at NOD Makerspace and was attended by makers, marketers, brands, digital, content creators, journalists.

Maker Studio is a hub of creators producing snackable video content co-created with a collective of young Makers for young consumers. It’s a new way to create relevant and engaging content for GenZ audience. It’s part of the same Communication group as Minio Studio, an agency also founded by Ioana Mucenic in 2016.