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14TH BIG BERRY Mastermind 2018: Maja Vukorep

It’s not every day that you have the opportunity to host a BB Mastermind from one of the strongest brands in this area. On 27th of August, we heard an interesting presentation about the story of success behind Croatian brand Jana presented by Maja Vukorep.

Maja has been working in brand management for 13 years and she’s enjoying every day at work because it represents a variety of tasks which demand strategic thinking, creativity and organisational skills.  What motivates her the most is the creation of something new in the form of products and campaigns and their efficacy shown through various brand indicators. That means that you can always see the actual results of your work and Maja can be proud of the impact she has on the Jana brand.

‘’Branding is a well thought and planned strategy with a strong emotion.’’

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Maja Vukorep3

At the beginning of the presentation, Maja asked us ‘’What do you think, how old is Jana?’’. Even though the water is filled from a source that’s 7000 years old, the brand itself is only 16 years old. This fact left us amazed, since we have the feeling that Jana has been here always. This is a great indicator of how successful their marketing efforts actually are. Maja continued explaining how their story of success wasn’t simply luck and being at the right place in the right time. Croatia is a country with around 4 million people and it takes a 5th place in the tap water quality. Despite that fact, more than 60 million liters of Jana water are sold on a yearly basis with an uptrend every year. It is water of the highest quality that received numerous awards, but in the end, it is still ‘’only’’ water. What was needed to make it more than that and to create strong emotions that make people relate to this brand?

‘’Jana is a brand that encourages people to share love between each other’’

In the beginning, Jana sent rational messages to the consumers containing benefits of water and why it is important to stay hydrated. After this rational phase, it was time for the emotional one. It was in 2013 when Jana became Water with a message and the bottles started carrying messages which inspire people to be happy and share happiness and love with others. Many famous lyricists wrote those messages during the years, including Paulo Coelho. Our BB Mastermind Maja wanted us to remember one crucial thing regarding brand marketing - positioning. It is very important to position yourself into the mind of the consumer in order to understand which emotions and personality the brand should represent.

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‘’You need to choose something that you really love. Give all your heart and the results will come naturally.’’

In order to connect even more with consumers and send a strong emotional message, it was time to show a true story of love. An award-winning campaign from 2016 that Maja is particularly proud of is a love story between two storks - Klepetan and Malena. Malena is a stork that isn’t able to fly to the south because of a broken wing, but her love Klepetan has been visiting her every year for the last 14 years. Every year she is awaiting his return, so Maja and her team organised a website to livestream the whole period of waiting for Klepetan and Malena to unite and viewers were able to send them personal messages. This story gained huge attention from the adriatic region and it was a PR success which then led to a special edition of Jana bottles dedicated to this storky love. Maja ended her presentation with a quote by marketing professional Al Ries: ‘’Marketing is a battle of perception, not products’’ and encouraged us to be creative, open minded and connect a personality to our brand in order to succeed.

By Ivan Štimac

Next BB Mastermind

BIG BERRY is looking forward to welcome its 15th Mastermind of the 2018 season, Borut Peterlin!