In the last week of April, the participants in BASE Blagoevgrad’s Module 5 dived into the exciting world of advertising and marketing.

Gergana Ivanova, founder and owner of The Smarts, Paragraph 42, Shoot and member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Women in Business in Bulgaria, presented in a fascinating and fun way this vast and always interesting topic.

BASE Blagoevgrad’s students learned how to build their marketing plan, advertise their product or service as well as what digital tools to use.

Gergana Ivanova introduced the entrepreneurs to:

• The rules of the 4 “Ps”
• The steps for choosing distribution channels
• Communication strategy and the importance of getting the message across to the right audience

After that, the future entrepreneurs were divided into four groups, and each of them had to prepare and present a marketing analysis on a specific topic: Blagoevgrad as a tourist product.

At the end of the lecture, Gergana Ivanova received thunderous applause and then answered questions from the audience.

About the lecturer:

Gergana Ivanova is a founder and partner of The Smarts communication group, which includes The Smarts creative agency, the IQMedia media agency, the Paragraph 42 PR agency and the Shoot! production studio. She has over 21 years of experience in the Bulgarian communications industry. Gergana Ivanova is a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Women in Business in Bulgaria and of the Board of Directors of The Bulgarian Association of Public Relations.

In 2008, she and her colleague Rado Bimbalov founded The Smarts, an independent creative agency, which today is among the market leaders. Top clients of the group are a number of large Bulgarian and foreign advertisers and their brands. The agency has been repeatedly awarded for advertising effectiveness at the Effie Bulgaria contest, is a winner of three EPICA awards from the international EPICA AWARDS contest, as well as of awards from the national FARA advertising festival.