It was finally time the Croatian marketing community came together after the pandemic. Croatia’s COO Vjeko Srednoselec writes about Dani Komunikacija 2022 from lovely Rovinj.
After being cancelled two years in a row, it was finally time to travel again to the coastal town of Rovinj to the ‘Days of Communication’ festival, organized by HURA, The Croatian Association of Marketing Communication.
We combined our dentsu wellbeing day (additional day off to support our people’s mental health and wellbeing) and came to town with almost a full team, where we met our international quest. We in dentsu were proud to sponsor our wonderful Chief Creative Officer of Asia & Pacific region Merlee Jayme to talk to the Croatian marketing community.
Did you know, that 57% of dentsu Croatia leadership are women? We have been breaking glass ceilings for years, are we were excited to work with HURA to bring Merlee to Croatia.
Merlee is from the Philippines, and has been the chairmom of an awarded agency Jayme Sufy, which is owned by dentsu. Read more about her accolades and work here.
Merlee inspired everyone in the audience to think about the position of women in business and society, gave advice to young professionals and left us more motivated to build a better tomorrow.
She gave a few powerful examples about how they have worked to make working life better for working mothers. Also, she noted that it’s important to get out of the comfort zone and, when facing injustice, be loud. Ask to be assigned to work on projects that you want to work on. Just by waiting for the world to change you won’t change anything.
Metaverse is already here
It is clear, that the buzzword of the year is metaverse. I was glad to join to talk about on Friday on the metaverse panel.
In the panel it was a lively discussion with Branka Bajt from Hrvatski Telekom and Matej Lončarić from 24sata, moderated by Davor Bruketa from Bruketa&Žinić&Grey. We talked about metaverse being a lot of things, and mainly all of them are from marketing perspective investments to the future or future consumers.
Putting it very short: When computers talk to each other, we have internet. When virtual worlds talk each other, we get a metaverse. It is something where we can be in full in the future, we have by now just seen glimpses of it.
One of the key issues was how brands and advertising can be linked with the new experiences that we have now in gaming 2.0 and 3.0, powered by more and more blockchains, and for example cryptocurrencies becoming more familiar and used.
In the lifespan of the panelist’s lifetime, communication and social interaction has changed already quite a bit. Social life, which used to mean meeting face to face, can now be reduced to adding a heart on a friends’ social media post. What will it be in metaverse platforms like in the future and our interaction in there?
In general, we all agreed we have seen just a short intro on what metaverse will be in 15-20 years and predicting the development of technology and people’s behavior is just wishful thinking. What we know, is that web 3.0., a decentralized internet which we need for the future metaverse usage points to run on, is still years away from coming.
We’re excited to see the future coming today, and we’re happy to discuss opportunities over a coffee!
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Busy Friday ended with awards celebrations, and from our shortlisted cases in Effie and IAB Mixx Awards, we got a chance to celebrate with our client Wiener Osiguranje a Silver Effie award. Read more of that campaign here.
Overall, the experience being back in Rovinj was a welcomed stop to a busy spring for all our people. Thank you to HURA for inviting us back to ‘normal’.
See you again next spring,
Vjeko Srednoselec
COO, dentsu Croatia
Ps. If you want to hear more about metaverse don’t hesitate to contact me or my colleague, dentsu Southeast Europe Business Development Officer Heli Ruotsalainen. We are showcasing what metaverse actually and in practice means now, and what are the best cases from brands around the world who have adopted parts of it to their marketing mix.