Cristian Burci, 44, a pioneer of advertising in Romania and founder of Graffiti BBDO advertising group, who through his carriage operations has turned Romania into a European leader in the field, says that in the current market context finding new markets is the only way to survive.
Burci started doing business in Romania right after the revolution on an advertising market that did not exist at that time, and then got involved in carriage production and freight transport, setting up International Railway Systems (IRS), a European leader. The group he controls last year reached turnover worth some 500m euros ad had around 7,000 employees.
His early strategy was very simple, as he says: filling the void on the Romanian advertising market, a place with no competition.
Around 1992, he started the first advertising agency, Graffiti, which was the first full-service agency in Romania, in the wake of initial investments worth 60-70,000 dollars.
He then further expanded the group. He set up several agencies, split the media operations from Graffiti and took to the outdoor segment. He subsequently linked up with BBDO US advertising giant, which took over 20% in the agency for 500,000 dollars, and he thus became a millionaire for the first time.
The group then moved to television and in 1997 bought a small license in Bucharest, which it repackaged and rearranged and the next year it launched it as Prima TV. In 2005, he sold it together with the two radio stations he had bought for around 32-33m euros in the meantime.
"By mistake, I got into the carriage business, but the mistake turned out to be highly profitable. Being born in Turnu-Severin, he was asked to get involved in rescuing the carriage plant in the city, about to be closed down. In 2004, he managed to take control over Severnav shipyard of the same city.
In 2004, he bought Romv
