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Author: Dobre Zgodbe

9 Nov 2021

A virtual spectacle instead of a press conference

Event concept and execution on a digital platform

Naročnik

Mercator

Leto

2021

Avtor prispevka

Kristijan Radikovič

Mercator is a significant driver of the Slovene economy. Not only is it the chain store operator with the longest, 70-year tradition and one of the first self-service stores in Slovenia – it is also the best partner to local suppliers. Mercator is also one of the most prominent regional innovators in the field or retail. Its turnaround strategy has set an example for other West Balkans retailers to follow. In 2021, Mercator’s shares were bought by a Croatian powerhouse – the Fortenova Group.

Background

In 2014, Mercator was acquired by the Croatian Agrokor. Three years later, various circumstances forced the new owner of Mercator into a difficult position, which marked the beginning of the most complex restructuring of any European company in 2017–2018. Out of Agrokor’s ashes, a new company arose – the Fortenova Group, which successfully restructured Agrokor’s debt within a year.

But despite the fact that Fortenova acquired most of Agrokor’s retail, food, and agricultural companies, Mercator remained under Agrokor for a number of reason. In this time, Mercator revamped its turnaround strategy, kept repaying its debt and innovating its business models. In 2021, Fortenova finally acquired Mercator, which further strengthened Mercator’s presence on the regional markets.

For this occasion, Mercator and Fortenova Group wanted to hold a press conference, but they had trouble organizing it due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They ultimately decided to move the conference online with a livestream in four languages: Slovene, Croatian, Serbian and English. To help them develop the concept and stream the event, they contacted our team, since we haver all the necessary journalist and production knowledge.

Solution

The one-hour press conference on the acquisition of Mercator by the Croatian Forenova Group was streamed live frrom the Ljubljana Castle. The features, statements by the management and questions from Slovene suppliers for the CEO of Forenova Group and the President of Mercator’s Management Board were pre-recorded. This combination of livestream and pre-recorded material made the execution of the livestream easier for both our production team and the client.

The project was implemented in cooperation with Herman & Partners and our partner Confivo, which is developing a platform for online and hybrid events. This platform enabled journalists to attend the digital event and pose questions to the CEO of Fortenova and the President of Mercator’s Management Board in the second part of the event.

The press conference was attended by a total of 100 accredited journalists from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro. The quality of the concept and livestream execution was also recognized by Pop TV, a Slovenian commercial media, which stated: “Fortenova held a true multimedia spectacle to forecast a different, brighter future for Mercator.”

1 Sep 2021

The Faculty of Arts in the eyes of former students

Studying brings not only professional knowledge, but also valuable life skills

Naročnik

Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana

Leto

2021

Avtor prispevka

Kristjian Radikovič

The Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana is the cradle of critical thinking in Slovenia. It also happens to be the place where one of our team members finished his studies. We were thus absolutely thrilled when we got a call from the Faculty management, who wanted us to produce a video that would present the largest member of the University of Ljubljana.

Background

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Faculty of Arts, which enrols thousands of students each year, was forced to move the study process to a virtual environment. Not just studies, the information session for high-school graduates also had to be carried out online. For this occasion, the Faculty wanted to produce a video that would present the Faculty and its departments to year-four high school students.

And while the client wanted us to make a few-minute-long video, the Faculty comprises a total of 21 departments and the Physical Education Division. An in-detail presentation of all the departments was out of the question as they wanted each department to be equally represented. This meant we had to approach the project a bit differently. Since we believe in the power of stories, we decided to present the Faculty through storytelling.

Solution

After a few initial meetings with the client, we decided to invite former students at the Faculty of Arts, who are actively engaged in different areas of the Slovene society – culture, non-governmental organizations, media and entrepreneurship. By doing so, we wanted to show that the Faculty of Arts opens up doors to a plethora of different careers paths.

We conducted short interviews the speakers. We asked them to share some memories of studying at the Faculty of Arts and to comment on the current events in the Slovene and international culture and politics by viewing through the prism of the knowledge and experience they gained during their studies. After all, the common ground of all study programs at the Faculty of Arts is that they encourage the development of critical thinking skills among students.

“The 21st century will either be a century of humanities, or it will not exist at all.”
― Claude Lévi-Strauss

As a cherry on top, we invited Vlado Kreslin, who is also a former student at the Faculty of Arts, to cooperate on the project. He accepted our invitation. Especially for this occasion, he recorded a remake of his song “Nocoj bomo mi prižgali dan” with the Kombinat female choir. We filmed his performance on the roof of the Faculty, and Kreslin also used these recordings to produce a music video for the remake of his track.

Outcome

Our client posted short and long versions of the video on Facebook and Youtube. To this date, the initial Facebook post, dated 10 February 2021, has garnered over 38,000 views, 771 likes and 15 comments. We are proud that our video has become the most viewed and engaged-with post by the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana.

We are constantly on the lookout for good practices by other production teams and agencies, and we would like to point out the trailer Poljane Grammar School’s video, which was released on the same day as our video for the Faculty of Arts. No, it wasn’t us who produced the video, but we like it nonetheless. As we keep emphasizing – the stories and faces of people are the best and most personal way of presenting any institution, company or organization.

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