Recently, Director of the ZOOM company – an advertising agency known in the Baltic countries, Vita Gaysma, visited Armenia again. In an interview with “Aravot”, Ms. Gaysma noted that it is her 5th visit to Armenia and the 2nd to Karabakh. She added that during her visit to Karabakh in 2014, she had met with the NKR Prime Minister to discuss various question related to the Karabakh leadership and Artsakh world. “I have also met with the various layers of the Karabakh society in order to possibly correctly perceive the Artsakh world, first of all, by the eyes of Karabakh people for the Karabakh brand (honorary title) must be at the same time acceptable to the people of Karabakh, the visitors and by large, the world,” said Ms. Gaysma.
Chairman of the “Antares” Media Holding, Armen Martirosyan, who also attended the meeting, explained, “Five years ago, Armenia’s advertising board had initiated the works of the Artsakh brand. Under the framework of the Popok International Biennale, we had organized the visit of the heads of well-known companies to Artsakh so that it would be clear for the brand-creating architectures in what place and building materials will be brand be built and who is the main consumer. The latter definitely is the Karabakh people.” To the question that 5 years has been passed and whether the Artsakh brand was decided, Vita Gaysma replied, “Truly powerful companies from about 5 countries are working on creating the brand, whose cost for such projects, to the point, begins from six digits. For known reasons, neither then nor now we can pay such amounts. We chose a different way. Our visit to Artsakh over these 5 years and our admiration to Artsakh turned into real love.” To our curiosity that Karabakh is a state, so what it means for one state to create the brand of the other state, our interlocutor replied, “When you create, for example, a brand for wine and do not have at least one strong feature with which your wine will be different from others, you can choose let’s say the color of the wine as a pronounced element: dark pink or we have often noticed that gold tin pieces are also added to some champagnes. As for the creation of the brand for other state or territory, we cannot take an indirect feature. Otherwise, the brand will collapse. Accordingly, it is necessary to study the history of the brand-carrier, the lifestyle and culture of the locals, how the world perceives it and so on.”
Armen Martirosyan, referring to the creation of the Artsakh brand assured that the main features typical to Artsakh always dominated in all versions, starting from the Karabakh cuisine up to the hospitality, from warring state up to the land that gave birth to famous generals and so on. “On the other hand, Artsakh as a part of Armenia at least in the historic space should somehow be connected to Armenia. At least for me, Armenia is not associated only with barbeque, Armenia is a powerful school of semiconductor physics, it is the Byurakan, it is an institute of the Universe, a powerful chemical industry, a power plant irrespective of whether a part of them is operating today or not,” – said Mr. Martirosyan.
To the question of why it was decided now to create the Artsakh brand finally after five years’ research and works, Vita Gaysma’s and Armen Martirosyan’s answer was one: the final version of the brand also requires capacious period of time: i.e. 2-3 years but today, they have come to the general description of the brand: Artsakh is a land where everyone can find a meaning…
Samvel DANIELYAN
