BIZLife interview: Miro Antić, M2Communications

CREATING AUTHENTIC EXPERIENCE

Miro Antić, Partner and Co-Founder of M2Communications

Creating a brand experience is a project with long-term goals and nowadays it is a key factor of strengthening relations with current and future customers.

Building a quality brand experience has become a global trend and the Serbian market is trying to follow suit. Companies increasingly start to realize the importance of direct communication with customers, with the aim of fostering a deeper link between the brand and its users. Brand experience is a set of notions, feelings and reactions which are prompted during an interaction with a particular brand and brand-related activities,” explains Miro Antić, the Partner, Co-Founder and Creative Director of M2Communications, an agency distinguished in the region for its creative approach to event management and design of authentic communication projects.

Brand experience impacts customer satisfaction and loyalty, both directly and indirectly, through associations and interactions with the brand itself. Since it impacts customer experience at multiple levels, we can use it to determine our current position, level of satisfaction and exact achievements in relation to our present customers. In this context, customer experience is part of a brand experience, but one should bear in mind that brand experience may not necessarily shape a particular user experience. It is through the brand experience that one creates experience both at practical and emotional levels,” Antić explains. “In order to succeed and make your clients or customers feel that they are part of your brand, you need good strategic planning and creative designing of a set of activities that target specific communication channels and event is certainly one of these channels”.

In designing projects like this, communication and trust between the agency and its clients are essential. “The clients should know what they want in order to be able to give guidelines to the agency. The concept design must not be some fairy tale that is impossible to fully materialize in practice. What is even more complicated in event production is the fact that there is no room for mistakes,” says Antić whose agency boasts a rich track record in organizing highly complex events, such as the Mercedes-Benz S Class launch, which was staged at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre in Belgrade. “This has been a very ambitious and demanding project to produce, where every single detail of the creative concept had to be fully complied with. Good planning, choosing high-quality suppliers and setting up a team, which in this particular case had over 100 people, are the key factors for successful production of such events, especially when deadlines are short. On the other hand, our team finds low-budget projects equally exciting and challenging because then they can fully express their creativity, as was the case with the Asus retail campaign ‘Mad Scientist’s Laboratory’ or Fiat 500X presentation at the ‘Star Wars The Force Awakens’ opening night.”

M2Communications fosters a characteristic approach to work. Creative power, artistic sensibility, placing focus on details and attitude that instead of trying to simplify things which may seem too complicated to achieve one should try to push the limits of feasibility – these are just some features that the good reputation of M2Communications is built upon. In addition to numerous clients in Serbia and abroad, like FCA Serbia, Microsoft, Asus, Jaffa Crvenka, Calzedonia, MK Group and many more, M2Communications is also active in what is called the luxury segment where it is quite challenging to create experiences that would cater to sophisticated taste and expectations of clients who are used to attending exclusive events all over the world. A major project last year was a BMW event for which M2Communications was directly commissioned by the BMW headquarters. It was an international training for new models of BMW cars and M2Communications was commissioned to organize a four-day event at multiple locations in Serbia. “This global training was conducted in several countries of Europe, South East Asia and Africa. BMW gave the highest marks to the organization of the training in Serbia and described it as a best practice event. At the end of the year we received a golden award from UEPS (Association of Serbian Market Communications) in the corporate event category,” Antić said.

An interesting client of M2Communications is Porto Montenegro, which had chosen M2Communications as the event agency amidst stiff competition of marketing agencies from London, Dubai and our local region. M2Communications organizes a specific type of exclusive events with a focus on creating authentic and captivating experiences for Porto Montenegro’s customers who pursue a particular lifestyle. “From a creative point of view, it is always a pleasure to design such events and our team embarks on such projects with great enthusiasm. Although the nature of these projects is mainly entertaining, their ultimate goal is in fact to build closer customer relations and advertize new plans of the Porto Montenegro marina. It is important to note that the ‘packaging’ of these events must be highly sophisticated and appealing, which is a particular challenge”.

Professional experience and constant process of learning and consulting international best practices allow M2Communications to set certain standards and create new opportunities both at the local and regional markets. “What matters to us is the fact that we are recognized as a reliable business partner also beyond the borders of our region and that our originality and our quality is something that distinguishes us from other agencies. Together with our clients we work towards creating unique brand experiences in an effort to better link our clients with their customers and to support their business goals,” says Antić in conclusion.

Source: BIZLIfe