1. L AT V I J A S
S A B I E D R I S K O AT T I E C Ī B U
G A D A B A LVA 2 0 0 7
Konkursa darbu pieteikuma anketa
Iesniedzējs: Komunikāciju aģentūra/Edelman Affiliate
Kontaktpersona: Ilona Zacmane
Adrese: Kr. Barona 13/15, Rīga, LV-1011
Tālrunis: 6720 1460
E-pasta adrese: ilona.zacmane@ka.lv
Kampaņas pasūtītājs: Jānis Loze un SIA „Alerts Plus”
Kampaņas datumi & realizācijas laiks: 2006. gada maijs
Kampaņas nosaukums: Starptautisks arhitektu plenērs “Jūraslīča” teritorijai
Kampaņas kategorija: problēm-situācijas ilgtermiņa risinājumi
Papildus iesniegtie drukātie un elektroniskie materiāli:
projekta apraksts, fotogrāfijas, publikāciju izgriezumi
Darba iesniedzēja vārds, uzvārds un paraksts: Ilona Zacmane
Kampaņas pasūtītāja pārstāvja amats, vārds, uzvārds un paraksts: sk. pasūtītāja vēstuli

2. I N T E R N AT I O N A L A R C H I T E C T S ’
S Y M P O S I U M AT J Ū R A S L Ī C I S
CAMPAIGN DESCRIPTION RESEARCH
Client: Owners of the Jūraslīcis site – three compa- KA/Edelman analysed the earlier flow of public
nies belonging to Jānis Loze. information and media coverage relating to this
subject and identified the critical aspects. Similarly,
Programme name: long-term resolution of a prob- through an informal survey of media and commu-
lem situation (or post-crisis recovery of reputation nity representatives, it was established that there
or brand) was an overall negative attitude to this subject in
both the media and the public.
Description of situation:
In August 2005, lawyer and businessman Jānis STRATEGY
Loze acquired, from Edgars Šīns, three companies
which owned the site of the bankrupt sprat can- Having acquired the site, the owner had decided to
nery Jūraslīcis and leasing rights to 23 ha of land in invite the best and most talented international and
the town of Lielupe, not far from where the Lielupe Latvian architects to become involved in the devel-
river flows into the sea. opment of the project.
Unfortunately, the companies had a history of
ownership transfer which had not been transpar- Utilising the positive image of the International
ent and which had been associated with a number Architects’ Symposium
of prominent political names. This was sufficient KA/Edelman pointed out that the international
reason, in autumn 2005, for an avalanche of articles high-level architects’ symposium presented an op-
in the press and TV items, all of which hinted at pri- portunity to achieve the communication objectives,
vatisation ‘schemes’, and the new owner’s links to because a cultural event such as an architects’ sym-
the previous owners. posium enables the creation of an image of a signif-
Nevertheless, Jānis Loze did not hide his in- icant occasion and the promotion of the architects’
tention to privatise the land, as was his right as the visions alongside the business objectives.
legal tenant and stated that he wanted to create a
stylish leisure, business and residential location of Individual cooperation with target media
high architectural quality, of which Jūrmala could Individual approaches to target media were strate-
be proud. gically important in achieving the objectives, using
In this situation, there was a risk that similar very subtle and finely nuanced communication,
unjustified and unpleasant reproaches could re-ap- given the sensitive nature of the project.
pear at the same intensity. In this case it was also necessary to develop
The land was privatised in spring 2006, in full public communication with a high intensity of indi-
compliance with the law, at a cost of millions of vidual communications.
lats, however the media did not pick up on this The strategy provided for public transparency
publicly available information at the time. and for communication to commence with the
In turn, in the spring of 2006 the whole of Jūrmala Diena newspaper whose editorial staff value good
found itself at the centre of a corruption scandal, architecture and is a leader of public opinion in this
and any development in Jūrmala automatically sphere. The second target medium was TV news,
came under suspicion of corruption. which has a significant effect on public opinion.
The opinion of the Rīgas balss newspaper was also
Objective: important because its readership included Jūrmala
• To convince the public, including local residents, residents (the Jūrmala supplement)
that the intention was to develop the site in a pro-
fessional and quality manner, balancing public and Execution
private interests. The client organised the Symposium for which
• To convince the public that Jānis Loze’s intention eight architectural practices were selected from 40
is the long-term development of the site, not the candidates. They included a number of the world’s
popular Latvian pursuit of land speculation. leading architectural practices.

3. Symposium architects – the stars of the designs, were sent to the media, architecture
A soon as the best-known of the participants, Lon- portals, which in turn secured KA/Edelman further
don’s Zaha Hadid Architects confirmed their atten- individual contact opportunities with their read-
dance (a week before the symposium), KA/Edelman ers – for example, Diena journalist Ieva Zībārte,
informed the most important target media about who, while living in Australia, was writing an article
the planned Symposium, sending an outline press for an international architecture journal and who
release and previously collated information about needed high-quality illustrations.
all the architectural practices.
When the press release was supplemented Transparency
with the name of jury member Sigurds Grava (town In relation to the fact that the land had already been
planner, Columbia University, USA), it was sent to privatised, KA/Edelman mentioned this among the
other media. other information in press releases about the Sym-
posium and unequivocally confirmed it to all who
Symposium closing and prize-giving ceremony – enquired.
invitation of media and ensuring of information
Printed invitations to the Symposium closing and RESULTS
prize-giving ceremony, held in Jūrmala on the Sun-
day evening, were sent to journalists in the name of • All media that covered the Symposium wrote
Jānis Loze. Even though there was no expectation and broadcast about it positively. The Latvian and
that many journalists would attend an event at a Russian daily press and the three largest internet
place and time so inappropriate for the press, the news portals had an average of one article before
purpose of the invitations was to stress the impor- the Symposium , another afterwards – already with
tance of the event, so creating a positive attitude. pictures and accounts of the concepts. As a result
At the Symposium closing ceremony on the Sun- of the Symposium, the media created a convincing
day, KA/Edelman familiarised themselves with all portrayal of the site development solutions for their
the designs, listened to the architects’ presenta- readers.
tions, and obtained the architects’ project visualisa- • All three targeted media published original ar-
tions in electronic format, so that a summary of the ticles. Diena – twice. Both articles were positive,
results, with a competent and persuasive report, reflected the views of Jānis Loze and made no refer-
could be prepared for the media as soon as on the ence to earlier criticisms. The TV news items also
Monday. showed the event and the owner in a very positive
light.
Emphasis on target media • Reading other publications, it was clear that some
During the Symposium, KA/Edelman communi- journalists had also referred to the information
cated with the media, including Rīgas balss, Diena in Diena. This reinforced the successful choice of
(helping their journalist to meet all the architectural strategy.
practices) and Panorāma – all three media attended • All other articles were 95% based on the informa-
the Symposium closing ceremony. For example, the tion and pictures supplied by KA/Edelman.
jury completed its deliberations and announced the • A week after the Symposium, the Delfi portal, as
winner only a few minutes before the deadline for the result of information supplied by a third party,
the Panorāma film crew to return to the studio from published an article about the site’s privatisation,
Jūrmala. To enable Panorāma to prepare their story repeating some of the information seen in the au-
(in creating it, they attended the Symposium both tumn. This year, however, the information gained
during the day and on Sunday evening ) and film minimal response (one follow-up). A very different
the winners, KA/Edelman hurried up the jury and story to autumn 2005.
provided the journalist with the information she
needed to develop her story even before the official
announcement of the results. Had that not been
done, the story would not have gone to air.
Communication of the striking development
of the site
The Symposium was a success and very striking
development visions had been created for the site.
KA/Edelman prepared a press release describing
the most colourful and innovative elements of the
winning concept – by Danish architectural practice
HLK. These materials, together with many pictures