UPS & DOWNS OF THE SLOVAK PUBLICITY ON ITS WAY TO EUROPE

Present marketing communication is the natural outcome of a promoting function that developed over thousands years. Gradually it acquired new forms and functions and became a ubiquitous and inevitable part of the market economy in Western Europe and America. Its development in our country stalled due to unsuccessful attempt to build socialism. In fact, that political regime did not need any publicity, and with shortage of quality goods the sales promotion was redundant. The publicity was not developed, it often promoted dead stock, and also scarce, bottle-neck production, and the lack of professional level was hiding behind slogans on high goals of socialist publicity.

The 1989 wind of change brought in revolutionary social and political changes and after 40 years removed what was gained in the "1948 February Victory". Two factors were important accelerators in developing the publicity during its first years in Slovakia. The emerging market mechanism, and establishment of the independent Slovak Republic, which caused that the western agencies definitely realised that their presence is needed also in this country. This resulted in subsequently growing investments in publicity and in know-how transfer of the foreign agencies.

The publicity boom can be supported by several facts. Significantly rising expenditures into the publicity since 1993, and foundation of countless new publicity agencies, their specialisation, professional attitude, and association into entities by sectors. Another example is active organisation of numerous publicity campaigns, including professional events, workshops, competitions, exhibitions, educational and training courses, legal solutions, issue of professional books and magazines.

Despite these positive facts documenting the remarkable progress in our publicity towards the advanced western countries, there are still considerable reserves in terms of quality and quantity. Standardisation of the publicity market and its approximation, accommodation to the advanced European market is often discussed by professionals. What are then the factors that could bring Slovakia closer to the European standard?

Growing publicity expenditures can be considered as a significant growth rate index. The 1993 expenditures in media were 1,1 bil. SKK, compared to 2,4 bil. SKK in 1996, 5,1 bil SKK in 1997, and 7,4 bil. SKK in 1998. Reliability of the surveyed data is obscured by disunity in surveyed sample (e.g. number of daily or weekly newspapers) but also by different understanding between the publicity volume and real expenditures, by rise and fall of some key businesses (e.g. establishment of the Markiza TV station), and specificity or replacement of the entities surveyed (e.g. Gfk - Slovakia, A-Connect, s.r.o. Praha, AC Nielsen). Nevertheless, we can say, that real significant growth in this area is a fact. Reliable 1997 real expenditures estimate is 3,7 bil. SKK and 1998 as much as 5 bil. SKK (according to A-Connect s.r.o. the AC Nielsen differentiate between the publicity costs, and real expenditures in media are somewhat lower). The sum represents funds paid for periodicals, radio, TV, and billboards. Before the Markiza TV station entered our market the most part was invested in printed media, followed by TV, radio, and the billboards. The 1998 priorities shifted as follows: printed media 26 %, radio 11 %, TV 55 %, and billboards 8 %. The most means were in this way invested to the TV broadcasting, especially to the Markiza TV station, followed by STV 1, and VTV stations. The line continues by classical printed media, with Novy cas daily newspaper having gained larger scope of publicity volume than Pravda. Further down the line can bee found the Sme daily, Hospodarske noviny, Trend, Zivot, Praca, Slovenka... In radio broadcasting the Fun Radio ranked higher than the Twist station, followed by Slovak Broadcasting and Rock FM. In billboards the Accent media was the most successful.

Despite increased expenditures it is clear that the overall publicity market growth rate is decelerating compared to the previous years. Although the above figures are only a fraction of the values paid per capita in the USA, Great Britain, Japan, etc., we should realise that the reason is in the status of our economy, or slower GDP growth.

Also other indicator of our publicity industry, i.e. publicity agencies and their associations, can prove that the situation is advancing. There were five to six publicity companies in Slovakia ten years ago, and the present-day number of companies, directly involved in publicity, is estimated to be 500 - 1000, depending on criteria used for the estimate. They specialise by fields of marketing communication and can be divided as full-service agencies, public relations agencies, sponsoring, direct marketing, sales promotion, modelling, exhibitions, media agencies, and also creative graphic studios, production workshops, etc. Not only number of agencies, their specialisation and growing professional level, is a positive sign, but also establishment of associations covering the interests of agencies by specific fields of operation.

Also other indicator of our publicity industry, i.e. publicity agencies and their associations, can prove that the situation is advancing. There were five to six publicity companies in Slovakia ten years ago, and the present-day number of companies, directly involved in publicity, is estimated to be 500 - 1000, depending on criteria used for the estimate. They specialise by fields of marketing communication and can be divided as full-service agencies, public relations agencies, sponsoring, direct marketing, sales promotion, modelling, exhibitions, media agencies, and also creative graphic studios, production workshops, etc. Not only number of agencies, their specialisation and growing professional level, is a positive sign, but also establishment of associations covering the interests of agencies by specific fields of operation.

Extremely significant was the 1995 establishment of the Publicity Council as a top ethical self- regulating body in Slovakia and striving for settlement of other hot issues with members not only from among the publicity agencies, but also other economic entities throughout Slovakia.

In addition to the representation of its members and their interest and establishment of ethical codes etc. the operations of the publicity agencies are documented also by several events organised in the marketing communication area. Significance of the most important ones is another factor of efficiency of our publicity industry. Among them is especially the International Marketing Communication Fair INTERMEDIA including the supplementary events and the "BRATISLAVA PUBLICITY FORUM" (the fourth annual event took place in 1998). The creativity level of our artists and the level of their means of promotion is represented at the GOLDEN NAIL (fourth annual event took place this year), as well as their success at events abroad. KRAS achieving a licence to participate in the most prestigious world competition EFFIE focused at publicity efficiency is a positive European signal for our publicity.

Also the area of law and education is a part of the publicity market or standard national level of publicity. In comparison with other post-socialist countries we have no grave reserves in this area. Apart from several older and innovated laws (e.g. parts of the Civil Code and Business Code, etc.) a partially controversial Publicity Act was passed in 1996. This Publicity Act stipulates general requirements for publicity, provides personal protection in general, and primarily for youth below 18, prohibits promotion of some products, and also identifies relations among the associations for ethics protection and inspection authorities. The ethic principles of the promotion practice, valid in the Slovak Republic, were adopted at the Publicity Council meeting in 1995, and an Arbitrary Commission as its executive body was founded in 1996, with authority to decide on breaches against the Code.

Specialised marketing communication course, called Publicity and promotion, was established as part of the CSFR in 1990 at the Comenius University, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Journalism. In combination with foreign languages and other subjects it is presently on the curriculum as a 5-year master degree course, and since 2000 it will become a separate course. In 1997 this field got also on the curriculum of the new Trnava University. Considering the number of companies operating in the marketing communication area the number of graduates cannot meet the requirements of the profession. Most of the presently active professionals in the field have no adequate professional training, owing to the absence of the pre-1989 publicity education. This is why the Slovak Publicity Society (SOSPRA) organised a four-year publicity manager course jointly with the Faculty of Philosophy, Publicity Department, and the Publicity Council. In 1997 the education options for the staff of the agencies increased in the new Publicity Academy and Academy of Publicity facilities. The education is directly linked with the publishing of professional books and magazines. In the studied period were published or marketed Czech translations of several foreign experts, and luckily, also original works of Slovak authors (Psychology of publicity, Publicity and law, The first publicity dictionary). Also the professional periodicals market can be considered quite positively, especially the Strategy, Trend and other journals.

Along with this information also less optimistic facts with adverse impact on our publicity market should be mentioned. They result mainly from the overall economic relations. The transition economy situation was rather challenging and nine years later, i. e. six year since the country independence the situation seems to be far from satisfactory, as claimed by the present coalition. Quite in contrary, restrictive measures signalling significant economic growth reduction will hamper to large extent also the publicity market development. In addition, high price of the periodical and economic problems of the editors should be taken into account, and in this context also a large-scale drop of the periodicals issued (luckily not a proportional drop of their readers). Another problem that separates us from the standard publicity markets is the transparency of our media. This concerns the verification of the declared periodicals editions, a problem presently addressed, as well as the media viewer/reader rate surveys.

Doc. PhDr. Pavel Hornak, CSc.,
president of the Slovak Publicity Society

Slovak Trade FORUM