The FINANCIAL — As a result of 20 years of work, advertising company GAA Holding has created a stable advertising market in Georgia, according to Gia ALIKHANASHVILI, the President and founder of the Holding.
The FINANCIAL — As a result of 20 years of work, advertising company GAA Holding has created a stable advertising market in Georgia, according to Gia ALIKHANASHVILI, the President and founder of the Holding. Starting from zero GAA Holding brought innovations to Georgia and, as its slogan says, created modern standards on the market.
“I and my team’s achievement is that there is a good, stable advertising market in Georgia,” Alikhanashvili told The FINANCIAL. “After twenty years of experience working in Georgia we continue to contribute to the advertising market’s development in the country and offer some useful advice for the state. To develop middle business, rapid increase in sales and increase in turnover is necessary. For this it is important to conduct a sales promotion campaign. Promulgating a law as soon as possible will be helpful for conducting a sales promotion. We are ready to participate in these processes. For this reason my colleagues and I are going to establish an association of advertising agencies in the nearest future. The association will work on improving advertising law in cooperation with the state. Another issue is that the market is partly monopolized from time to time. That should be suppressed,” he added.
GAA Holding has been operating a union of business and marketing companies in Georgia since 1992. It was the first advertising company on the Georgian market with whom American and international companies started cooperation. Year after year the company integrated different international companies.
The companies united under GAA Holding today, are: Torrent FZCO Dubai, SENA MOTORS, McCann Erickson Georgia and Armenia, Advertising Group BAGEBI, MPG Georgia and Armenia, Star Group and MSG – Internet Media Marketing Agency. All the companies cooperate with local as well as international companies. In total 250 people are employed in the Holding.
Q. GAA Holding is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Could you please summarize the company’s activities in Georgia?
A. Staying in business for 20 years is one of the biggest achievements as it has not been easy, especially in the years 1992-2012. We tried to keep balance and have maintained neutrality. In the management is same team of people after 20 years who we had at the beginning of our activity. Therefore, we are attracting young people to our staff force. After moving in and up the chain they then give consultations to new arrivals. This is a constant process at our company. 250 people have been working at GAA Holding in three countries – Georgia, Armenia and the United Arab Emirates. Their number will soon reach 300. We have implemented many good projects and have the best plans for the future.
First of all this depends on investments and also on local investments. We have carried out negotiations with so many multinational companies on entering the Georgian market. Every investor looks at the political situation and economic parameters and then decides whether to enter the market or not; especially when it is about a small country where political and economical directions are often intertwined. And Georgia often faces different political and economical crises.
In these conditions KEDI Studio was able to become a partner with McCann Erickson, the American advertising agency, for the first time in Georgia. By that time we have already had a well-developed team and quite a few clients. Coca-Cola, one of our clients, supported us in being selected by McCann Erickson as their partners. From 1998 this partnership underwent great changes and finally two agencies, UM Georgia and Momentum Georgia were added to McCann Tbilisi Group. Nowadays three agencies provide full advertising service to McCann networking clients as well as local and international ones.
I recently started formation of an office in Armenia as we have been working on that market for ten years. We will open a new, modern type office in Armenia on the anniversary.
We can offer advertising and PR service to our customers in 133 countries through the network of McCann. This is useful for local entrepreneurs and for the state for representing their image and tourist potential. Unfortunately this opportunity was not used before and the state was appealing to different foreign companies directly and a lot of money was spent on it. Local representatives and Georgian professionals remained unemployed. Today it is time for the method of approach to be changed and more locals to be employed, who do not have less knowledge, potential and contacts. The money that the state pays for others is mainly collected from our taxes.
There are other companies represented in GAA Holding, which cooperate with more than 500 international and local companies. Such cooperation gave us the skills that not everybody has on the market.
Q. You have two other business directions – AUTO Business and General trading. What are the achievements in this regard and what are the future plans?
A. The company LTD Sena Auto Service has been operating on the market since 2006. It has brought to Georgia Japanese producer Mitsubishi Motors and Suzuki Motor Corporation. From 2008, during the crisis in Georgia we interrupted this business for a while and turned to the auto service sphere. The reason was that the sales of new cars actually stopped. From that time the company has been developing the following brands on the Caucasian market: American brand POLARIS , NIPPARTS from the Netherlands, ENOC –premium quality lubricants from United Arab Emirates.
We have renewed cooperation and as a result Japan’s Honda Motor Company will enter the Georgian market in 2013. Its auto dealer will be SENA Motors LTD. We are already getting orders for the 2013 models. The Honda 3S auto centre will soon be opened.
Chinese premium brand Great Wall Motors and Japanese SUBARU are already available for sale in Georgia. Despite the high competition we are starting to fulfil all our plans and hope that everything will develop successfully.
GAA Holding unites the interesting and cheerful three-year old brand Radio Star FM 93.9. It has the biggest audience numbers, all people who want to entertain and listen to good music. We will soon be offering new shows to our listeners.
Q. As you manage some companies in Armenia as well, could you please compare the Georgian market to its neighbour markets?
A. Activities in Georgia are the most simple for the local private sector as well as for international organizations. Usually there is such bureaucracy involved in starting a new business in many developed countries that even businessmen do not have any desire to do business. In Georgia it is the opposite – starting a business is simple, continuation is more difficult and cancelling a business is almost impossible. These are the problems that lots of investors complain about. Unfortunately none of the governments have improved this issue.
Also one of the problems Georgia should solve is the very large and unfair fines for businesses as well as private entities.
Administration is in electronic form, a lot of innovation is being implemented in terms of monitoring. The vicious relationship between the state and business has been eliminated. Neighbouring countries are backward in this regard and they admit this fact. Though Georgia brings a lot of innovation to the region.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of our employees on the 20th anniversary of GAA Holding and wish them further development and success! Also, I would like to say thank you to all of our customers andsuppliers for their kind cooperation with us.
