It All Depends On Lifestyle

By Bridget Kelly

My most highly anticipated media visit scheduled for the Europe Tour was McCann-Erickson in Prague, Czech Republic. My emphasis area is in strategic communications and I can only dream of working for an advertising agency like McCann-Erickson one day. I had been looking forward to this media visit since I read our Europe Tour itinerary. Excitement had been building up inside of me as I imagined everything we would learn about advertising in a different part of the world. Immediately we learned that the McCann-Erickson Prague office consists of six interconnected marketing solutions to benefit its clients, including: McCann Erickson, McCann Digital, Momentum, Universal McCann, Weber-Shandwick, McCann Buzzzer and MRM. Together these components allow McCann Worldgroup Prague to fulfill the visions of its clients through a dynamic brand strategy. However, I soon learned that this dynamic brand strategy is vastly different than what I perceived it to be.

The Language Barrier

By Kayla Meyers

Hello! Ahoj! Bonjour! Hallo! Ciao!

English, Czech, French, Dutch and Italian. These five are just a taste of the languages that we encountered on our trip to Europe. While I had visited Paris before our trip, I was unsure what to expect in the other three cities, as I had never communicated with people who speak languages other than English, Spanish and French. Personally, I can't speak any language other than English, so I relied on Google Translate to learn key phrases that would help me get by at restaurants and shops, but this barely scratched the surface. After visiting each of the four cities, I realized that each has a very distinct culture that communicates not only verbally, but non-verbally as well.

Delicious treat from Prague.

On our first day in Prague, I started to pick up on some of the Czech body language and communication styles. It seemed as if the locals in Prague were a bit cold to our loud American ways. I felt as if not many of the people that we met knew how to speak English, or at least, very little. However, at McCann-Erickson (an advertising agency), I noticed that some of the commercials we saw had English-speaking characters with Czech captions. This is something I don't commonly see in America - the advertisements are usually always English-speaking characters. The advertisements shown were also able to connect with people other than purely Czech audiences. For example, the Fidorka commercial shown influenced quite a few of us on the trip to visit the supermarket and purchase the delicious chocolate treats. On our free day in Prague, we were able to see more of the culture and experience more of the locals and how they communicate. I still felt a sense of coldness at times, especially when people realized that we were Americans and couldn't speak a bit of Czech, except for the simple "hello", "goodbye", and "thank you" that we had learned from Google Translate.

Czech the Difference

By Ilyse Cohen 

After getting back from our two-week journalism study abroad program to Prague, Paris, Brussels and Rome, I have learned so much about how different countries handle different aspects of the media. One of the differences I found most interesting was how the Czech Republic advertisements were targeted and regulated. In Prague, we visited McCann-Erickson, a worldwide advertising agency network with eight different media companies all geared toward helping their clients and growing their business.

The Secret Sauce Is There Is No Secret Sauce

By Peter Kampschroeder

This picture to the left sums up what I learned on the trip quite nicely. None of the newsrooms we saw had exactly the same approach, even among exceptionally similar services. There were always subtle differences in how they ran themselves, little niggling differences in what each company focused on. What’s more, all these companies were still experimenting, to try to find a solution to the currently shifting media paradigm that works for them.

You Don't Say...Censorship in the European Media

By Tayler Overschmidt

Our recent two-week adventure through Europe was an eye opening experience regarding European media practices and styles. As we toured Prague, Paris, Brussels and Rome, we also toured new perspectives regarding journalism ethics.

Prague's Astronomical Clock. (Tayler Overschmidt)

In Prague, we visited McCann-Erickson, where we saw some examples of some famous—or infamous—advertising campaigns in the Czech Republic. A representative from the company presented information for us regarding some of the most well known advertising campaigns in the country and other information on the “Czechness.”

During the presentation, I asked what campaign from McCann-Erickson made the representative the most proud. His answer was a commercial for a dessert called Fidorkas. In this commercial, a little girl hits a car with her doll and makes the airbags inflate. Then she steals the dessert right out of the car passenger’s hand. The thing is, this commercial had a very short time on the air because it was banned.