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23 September 2009 /

Saffron Vienna

by Ben Knapp at 1:30 am 23 September 2009
Filed under: Branding, Identity, Nation Branding

Wally Olins and Jacob Benbunan announced the launch of Saffron’s Viennese location today. In cooperation with St. Stephen’s advertising agency, Saffron will be exploring central and eastern Europe from Vienna. Says Jacob Benbunan “having worked for Raiffeisen International all across CEE, for Rompetrol in Romania and Vestel in Turkey, it quickly became clear to us that we needed a local presence.”

“The team in Vienna will be building on our various existing client relationships and partnerships to build a real presence throughout CEE over the next months” adds Wally Olins. Saffron will also be actively trying to form new friendships and partnerships with “agencies and consultancies throughout the region that talk and behave like we do” Wally continues.

Building on jobs such as Litro, Turkcell and Rompetrol the Saffron Vienna team are already in conversation with various concerns and places in the CEE region. Wally and Jacob will both be closely involved with work handled by the Vienna location.

If you’d like more information, please get in touch under servus@saffron-consultants.com

27 March 2009 /

Selling Lithuania smartly

by at 8:50 pm 27 March 2009
Filed under: Identity, Nation Branding

Lithuanian image and identity by Saffron

Saffron’s six-month project with the Lithuanian Development Agency to devise a six-year strategy and action plan for developing what the client called ‘the economic image of Lithuania’ (and what Wally and I thought of as ‘the image of Lithuania, particularly with respect to commercial considerations’) has wrapped.

We had a press conference in Vilnius yesterday. The twin themes we suggested form the heart of the strategy — the core ideas — are lively and ‘romantic’, and thoughtful and reliable. Both are genuine sides of the genuinely interesting nation that is Lithuania.

And for crying out loud, no slogans! You can see what we advised instead in the communications guidelines section of our full report, which is available as a hi-res PDF no less, on the client’s site.