CTA komunikacije: Five Years Later

The hardest thing in life is to take stock of the past time and look at the past through an objective magnifying glass. However, it is something that has to be done at some point and can often be a bittersweet experience.

The reason to remember this time is the celebration of five years since the beginning of the CTA komunikacije agency’s work. In order to record everything we went through on that journey in more detail, it would take one thick diary in at least three volumes. In the absence of the same, I will have to take a stroll down the memory lane and possibly what has been recorded on social networks, our web and some media. Allow me to add a bit of a personal note to this whole article.

Why not?

Even the people closest to me did not know that a year before founding the agency, I seriously thought about moving to the United States, where I had been offered some new opportunities. I felt that I had done and experienced everything I could up to that point in my business and private life, and that it was time for some new challenges and, primarily, knowledge. I knew that staying in my comfort zone would not bring me long-term satisfaction and that I was slowly entering a routine and a more or less predictable life scenario.

In the meantime, a number of situations happened that reminded me that life can still be unpredictable. Plans to move fell through, and I suddenly found myself at the same table with Petar Tanta and an offer to start doing something together.

“Why not?”, I thought to myself, “that would be a whole new challenge for me.

Adventure without a safety net

Running my own agency was that next step for me and we entered the situation spontaneously, without a big plan or program. I have never planned to start something of my own in my life, nor have I considered myself that type, but circumstances and one’s own development sometimes simply lead to that.

At 9 AM, on October 25, 2018, we sat down at a table in a space of about 15 square meters opposite each other, opened our laptop and shouted in the same voice: “So, what are we going to do now?”

Namely, usually when people set up their agencies, they already have several clients with whom they have agreed to cooperate and thus ensure the inflow of money in the first months of their existence. CTA komunikacije did not have that because the two founders decided to start from absolute scratch in a somewhat adventurous way. In the first month or two, we practically exclusively worked on a vision and the direction in which we wanted the agency to go.

Road to a Full-Service Agency

As fate would have it, Otto and Miran moved into the neighbouring space a few months after us,  a graphic designer duo that had left a large marketing agency to start their own studio. For the first few months, we talked more than we cooperated, but over time, we started to receive clients to whom we could offer much more than public relations management.

We have thus unlocked the possibility for CTA komunikacije to become a full-service agency that it is today, with integrated communication projects which include elements and tools of public relations, marketing and creativity.

While creating our list of clients, along with the development of new expertise and services, at the end of 2018, the positive reaction and support of people around us helped us a lot. This optimism is certainly one of the main reasons why we have persevered on this path. At the same time, new jobs began to appear, and our team expanded with the arrival of our first two interns – Eli and Valentina.

We became mentors overnight, responsible for their professional development, while we had not yet come even close to learning how to manage a company. Despite this, in the first year and a half, together we managed to do a lot of projects and developed departments for media buying and digital marketing as two more new services. Eli, meanwhile, pursued new achievements elsewhere, while Valentina has grown into one of the CTA komunikacije’s cornerstones.

Today, she manages our internship program, with 21 students already having gone through it over the course of five years, and also involved in all the most demanding projects. Together, we decided to do pro bono tasks to help the most vulnerable groups of our society with ‘This truly matters/ Nešto zbilja važno’ as certainly the most famous one, for ‘Brački pupoljci’, Parents Association of Children with l Disabilities. We have several such campaigns every year and they reflect the values ​​that the members of CTA team stand for.

It all starts and ends with a strong team.

The years behind us have tested our patience, mutual trust, as well as faith in what we can become, countless times. In the first five years, this young agency went through the crisis caused by the coronavirus, earthquakes, as well as the beginning of war events on the eastern side of Europe affecting economic flows and shaking the world and domestic markets. Budgets were reduced, contracts became questionable, and the general fear of an uncertain financial future forced the environment to save and reduce the engagement of companies like ours.

In these challenging times, our goal was to keep the team together, raise the quality of work and thus attract as many new projects as possible. I am relieved to say that the tactic worked and allowed us to increase CTA team to 10 people who today work from a much larger space than the 15 square metres one in Savska, where Petar and I first started.

At the same time, I am most proud of the fact that we managed to gather a group of truly responsible, smart and innovative individuals who respect each other and have each other’s backs. In today’s business world, such an atmosphere is honestly rare. Ana-Marija, Filip, Ivana, Marin, Nina, Lara, Iva and until recently Hana have brought Valentina, Petra and me the new knowledge and positive energy that we could only wish for.

Thanks to its members and team members, CTA komunikacije has exceeded the number of 60 clients and projects we have worked on. Our colleagues are the most responsible for the fact that we are celebrating five years of existence and that our campaigns and way of working have become recognizable in a relatively short time.

I would like to congratulate them and thank them for their trust and daily contribution that they have woven into every hour of our agency’s life.