About us
„Ideas create a good name of our agency, and good ideas come from great people.“
Juraj Vaculík
FOUNDER
A student leader from the time of the Velvet Revolution, a graduate artist – theater director. After a successful, but short, artistic career, he decided to embark on the new challenges brought by the post-revolutionary era.
In the autumn of 1992, he became part of the team that launched the BBDO branch in Slovakia. In January, he accepted an offer for the position of Creative Director of the MARK / BBDO headquarters in Prague. At the end of 1993, he decided to do business in this sector. He was a co-founder of J&L Advertising (now Jandl), which for a time became a representative of the Ogilvy & Mather network. In 1996 he decided to establish his own company Juraj Vaculik – Creative Studio.
The immediate success of the newly established entity, originally intended as a creative hot-shop, following the example of small London boutique agencies, led to rapid growth and the agency became one of the most successful and valued agencies in Slovakia, with numerous clients and successes abroad. This led to a change of name to VACULIK ADVERTISING and later to MADE BY VACULIK.
In 2014, he handed over the management of the agency to Zuzana Ďurčeková, and under her leadership, the agency continues to grow successfully. In 2010, he became the co-founder and CEO of the ambitious deep-tech company in the field of future mobility AeroMobil, which successfully develops a revolutionary flying car. In addition, he is an investor for several companies in the field of media and technology, as well as a co-owner of LokalTV. He is a co-founder of ADC (Art Directors Club) Slovakia as well as ADC Czech Republic. From 2008 to 2014 he was the President of the Club of Advertising Agencies of Slovakia.
Member of Golden Drum’s New Europe Advertising Hall of Fame.
Ronald Lupták
CEO
Graduate of the Department of Finance, Banking and Investments of the University of Economics in Bratislava, originally a journalist, is now a foolproof marketer to the core. He has rich experience from both client and agency background and after several years he has returned to the side of the agency. Several colleagues, who worked with him while he was still on the client’s side, were also looking forward to his „homecoming“. He has been working in advertising and marketing for more than 20 years and has worked in several important positions in Slovakia. He also has extensive international experience – he was a part of the global team for cider at Heineken headquarters in Amsterdam. For the last two years, he has been managing marketing strategies at Molson Coors in Central and Eastern Europe. He worked for several well-known advertising agencies in Slovakia. His portfolio includes brands such as Heineken, Zlatý Bažant, Desperados, Strongbow, Orchard Thieves, Staroprameň, Ožujsko, Jelen, Stella Artois, O2, SkyEurope Airlines, ČSOB, Rádio Expres, Marlboro, VÚB banka, UniCredit, Orange and Peugeot.
Rony already had a strong connection with the MADE BY VACULIK agency during his career at Heineken, where, among other things, he held the position of marketing director. Back then, together with the agency they were responsible for very successful campaigns such as Hit from ’73, the launch of Strongbow cider and the CSR campaign Lišiak bez sadu.
In addition, Rony is an enthusiast of tram transport and in his free time he fulfills his childhood dream and drives a tram around Bratislava. As a convinced philanthropist he sends all his earnings from driving the tram to the charity organization DOBRÝ ANJEL. If you are not lucky enough to meet him driving a tram in one of the districts of Bratislava, he is probably working full-time in the advertising industry.
Ada Šimšíková
account director
After graduating from university, the Slovak junior volleyball representative threw herself straight into the world of advertising. During 2007, at the Roland Torsten Advertising agency, she searched for her dream agency VACULIK ADVERTISING and sent her CV. The mission was successful, and Ada worked for 8 years in the agency as a Manager of the creative department.
In order to explore a world outside of advertising, she made a short detour in 2017 and 2018. She worked in the .týždeň magazine as the director of the WPRESS publishing house. This opportunity was a great benefit for her, not only in the experience with the leading position, but also in meeting interesting people from the social sphere. However, one can’t say no to the heart, and this was the reason for her return to MADE BY VACULIK in 2020. This time to the position of Account Director.
Milan Bielik
Creative director
He wanted to do advertising from an early age. He literally devoured all the commercials of the 90s and knew them all by heart, even those from Vaculik. He studied economics, but already during his studies knew that something else was waiting for him. He got his first job in advertising in 2007 at the MUW Saatchi & Saatchi agency of Rasťo Michalik, who left the VACULIK ADVERTISING agency. During his 8 years at this agency, he received more than 30 Golden Nail (Zlatý Klinec) awards and a number of foreign awards and became a creative director.
After a short break, in 2016 he started working at MADE BY VACULIK as a Senior Copywriter for clients Raiffeisen, Tatra banka, Union, Dobrý anjel and Zlatý Bažant. He is the author of Ralph or Hit from the year ’73 (for Zlatý Bažant 73). He prefers to relax in the cinema or with a good book. He is a member of the ADC. He currently works at MADE as a Creative director.
Peter Ižo
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Peter was born in 2002 as a junior copywriter at MUW Saatchi & Saatchi, where he also lived his juvenile years. Times of almost incorrect, double-meaning, often sexist-tuned humor contributed to his youthful nature. This is where his nickname Empeg was born, and his first, now forgotten advertising slogans.
This was also the time, when he began to be drawn towards famous advertising awards. The position of a Creative Director did not stop him from continuing his journey, and after an adventure at Roko that lasted a year, he joined Wiktor Leo Burnett in 2009 as Creative Director. He was reaching creative adolescence, aiming for an even shinier and more prestigious awards. His work and name started to reach beyond the borders of the country.
All his acquired skills and experience are now used by the agency MADE BY VACULIK, with which he continues since 2012 the longest and most serious relationship so far. Adolescent in terms of creativity and management, and as a Creative Director, he devotes himself with immense love, patience and insights to all the agency clients, from Tatra banka through Heineken to Dobrý Anjel (Good Angel).
During his work so far, he has won many awards at home and abroad (Zlatný Klinec (Golden Nail), Effie, Zlatá Pecka (Golden Peck), Golden Hammer, Golden Drum, New York Festivals, Epica, Eurobest), he has judged at various competitions and festivals (Zlatný Klinec, Louskáček (Nutcracker), Golden Drum, Golden Hammer, ADC Europe Awards), is a member of the Art Directors Club Slovakia and is the holder of the Filip award.
Stella Vodová
CFO
Numbers in any value, currency and unit of measure accompany her constantly. She lives by the Little Carpathians, where she discovers forest roads and paths and so practices her ability to use simple mathematics – counting and subtracting numbers, especially in units of km / h, min / km. At a time when she has room for a work, she focuses mainly on numbers in Euro units. At the turn of the decade of this millennium, she made important career decisions, and they were located to the Horský Park in Bratislava.
For the second time in her professional career since 2010, she has held the position of CFO at the advertising agency MADE BY VACULIK. During these decades, she practiced her Excel talent with the vision for the future – in the pension management company CREDIT SUISSE Life & Pensions, which underwent a rebranding to Winterthur Life and Pensions. In the position of Head Accounting, she also managed a team of accountants for the subsidiaries of this global company, including a life insurance company or a supplementary pension insurance company. The biggest contribution to her personal growth was the finding that numbers that have seven or more zeros are also addable. At a time when this company was undergoing another change to AXA, she was already focusing on a personal family and relationship agenda.
Alexandra Martináková
STRATEGIC DIRECTOR
Just one little change in life and our Saška would have been teaching mathematics in elementary school rather than presenting graphs and data to the clients. Her love for numbers was evident from an early age but it was originally heading towards her dream carreer as a teacher. However after studying at the gymnasium specialized in mathemathics in Bratislava, she has discovered that she can work with numbers also in the world of human sciences, therefore at the end she has decided to study sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Bratislava. This combination has made an ideal basis for her work in marketing. During her studies at university she tried working in the personal agency Trenkwalder. However, she was always more attracted to data and research, therefore as a recent graduate, she took the chance to work at the research agency TNS SK.
During those several years while she was working for the agency she was progressing in terms of her carreer. From her initial position as a project manager she was finally leaving as a Senior Consultant/Client partner. The agency has changed as well through the years and it is currently known as Kantar. At Kantar, she was in charge of research and consulting related to brand strategy, communication and innovation testing, but also to customer experience. Even then, she worked with clients such as Tatra banka and Raiffeisen banka, Heineken Telekom, Orange, I.D.C. Holding, Stock Slovakia, YIT, HB Reavis, ZSE or STEFE. Therefore she had an excellent work experience backround for the strategy position in our agency.
Saška not only comes from the same working environment as our previous strategist Adam, but she has also the same family background. It is a common practice for siblings to go to the same school – in our agency it is a common practice for siblings to work in the same strategic position. Years ago when Adam followed his older sister to work to Kantar, nobody probably knew that Saška would replace him one day in the position of Strategic Director. It will be a year since Saška started to lead our strategy department in MADE BY VACULIK. After the work, she enjoys observing the marketing trends of her children, and in her spare time she likes to watch TV series and movies because, as she says, “They will not watch themselves.”
Marek Krištof
Head of digital
From young age, he longed to be a professional football goalkeeper. He therefore always had a clear choice of schools – a sports grammar school in Banská Bystrica and later the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport at Comenius University in Bratislava. Even before starting his studies, he thought strategically and did not want to rely only on his football talents. The Department of Sports Management aroused his interest in project management and digital, which he further discovered at the Faculty of Management in the field of international management.
After college, he started as an online project manager for digital projects in the SME daily (WE ARE Daily). Without receiving a red card, he decided to try advertising and joined MADE BY VACULIK as a Digital Account Manager for Tatra banka.
From the beginning, however, it was clear that he was strategically thinking of a different position, and after less than a year, he became a Digital Strategy Planner in our strategic department. The move to the position of Head of Digital was so far his last move to the goal. He currently trains the digital team and ensures the functioning of our clients’ campaigns in the online space.
And more than 40 cheerful, creative, precise, responsible, ambitious and communicative people.
