Last week’s news that we won not one, but two IPRA Golden World Awards for Excellence, took us a bit by surprise. We didn’t know how to react and behave at the moment when we found out that ‘Golden Ribbon – 7 marathons in 7 days and ‘1100 kilometres for 1100 therapies“ are this year’s winners, too. This is our second and third GWA, all at once, and the tenth award in only three and a half years of CTA komunikacije’s, if we count both national and international recognitions. This is why probably we see it as unbelievable and as if happening to someone else. Hence the somewhat nonchalant reaction of the majority of our team. However, as the days go by, talking about it we understand more and more what we have done and gone through to get here. The Golden World Awards for Excellence are informally called the PR Oscar, and it is already somewhat clear to me why the great masters of the film screen such as Al Pacino, Robert de Niro and Jack Nicholson were so charmingly confused and had a hard time speaking while receiving their awards. They knew, just like we do, how much effort and work had led them to that point in life.
First you help those who need it most
I have already written about social change campaigns and why they are important to us and it is no secret that the CTA team possessed a clear value determination and wishes to use its knowledge to help those who need it most. We worked in a 15-square-metre business space when we managed to change the law through the campaign ‘This truly matters‘ together with the Parents’ Association of Children with Disabilities “Brački pupoljci”. It was not easy, but this story showed us and proved why the involvement of professionals in helping the most vulnerable groups of our society is important. After that, we just continued to give our knowledge and experience to those who needed it most. They are our friends, and we would do anything to help our friends.
To avoid confusion, we also do other things, creative and very interesting. We are involved in projects in the pharmaceutical industry, construction, tourism, etc. We acquire new knowledge and always prepare for the next challenges. At the end of the day, it is precisely this mix of clients that makes us stronger, pushes us to find new solutions and opportunities. The world around us is changing rapidly, and we are trying to be at least half a step ahead of it. Only this way can we survive in a such market.
The young hold the keys to our future
When I was a teenager and still in my mid-twenties, this sounded like a cliché and some kind of pandering of older people to us young ones, but as time passes by, the more I realize that the combination of experience and youth bring the best results. It is possible to function in this way, to maintain an atmosphere in which young people are given a chance for progress and their thinking is not dismissed due to low years of experience in the business. In CTA communications, the current age range is between 23 and 37 and we invest a lot of time to introduce our youngest colleagues as painlessly as possible to the work of our 360-degree agency. On this path we strive to provide them with the best possible platform so that their talents, skills and ideas are expressed the best possible way. The consequences of this approach are seen in the fact that individuals such as Valentina and Hana as well as their former colleague Eli, have grown from interns to equal members of the team who confidently lead projects today and, in the end, are just as responsible for successful campaigns and awards as their more experienced CTA colleagues. After all, we firmly believe that people and ideas push the company forward, and not ego, vanity or unnecessary imposition of authority.
We are here to stay
Although within three and a half years we have grown from two to nine people, carried out a number of successful campaigns and have not been working out of those 15 square metres of space for some time, we do not get too carried away and we are still cautious and modest enough. What we know for sure is that the awards we have won have valorised all the goals and values we stand for and have shown that we are headed in the right direction as an organization. Tomorrow is always somewhat uncertain, but we know what to do. Like the top actors from the beginning of the story, we are well aware of where we came from, how long it took us to get there and who were our friends along the way.
We are here to stay. We will continue being independent as we have been so far, and do as we know we should. That is our path.
