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 times of the Velvet Revolution, arts graduate, and a theatre director. Following a successful, albeit short, artistic career, he decided to take on the new challenges brought by the post-revolutionary era.
In the autumn of 1992, he became part of the team that launched the Slovak branch of BBDO. In January 1993, he accepted an offer to become the Creative Director of the Prague head office of MARK/BBDO. Towards the end of 1993, he decided to launch his own business in this sector. He co-founded the J&L Advertising agency (now Jandl), which temporarily became a representative of the Ogilvy & Mather network. In January 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 footsteps of small London boutique agencies, resulted in rapid growth. The agency became one of the most successful and awarded agencies in Slovakia, even boasting numerous clients and successes abroad. This led to a name change first to VACULIK ADVERTISING and later to MADE BY VACULIK.
In 2010, he became the co-founder and Founding CEO (2010-2019) of AeroMobil, an ambitious deep tech company in the field of future mobility developing a revolutionary flying car. He is also an investor in several media and tech companies. He is a co-founder of ADC (Art Directors Club) Slovakia, as well as ADC Czech Republic. From 2008 to 2014, he served as the President of the Club of advertising agencies in Slovakia.
Juraj is the only person from Slovakia inducted into the Golden Drum’s New Europe Advertising Hall of Fame.
Alexandra Martináková
CEO & 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.”
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.
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.
Blanka Stručka Blahová
account director
Having studied graphic and spatial design at design school, Zlaté Moravce-born Blanka (a.k.a. buchta – the bun) Blanka set out to make a fortune in advertising by harnessing her excellent communication and organisational skills, and responsible approach. From account executive at MADE BY VACULIK, she slowly but surely worked her way up the greasy pole to become our account director – handling our largest client, Tatra banka, for many years. Despite her black-toned clothes, she has a cheerful and bright character, and as such is the perfect fit for any event.
Michala Zezulová
account director
Miška set her ambitious sights on advertising after studying marcom at Trnava’s University of St. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava. For three years at MUW Saatchi & Saatchi she honed her skills at prestigious account client Slovak Telekom, and then continued her growth at MADE BY VACULIK for Tatra banka. In her subsequent seven years she returned directly to Slovak Telekom as senior marcom specialist – specialising in ATL communications, before coordinating the popular Magio pláži (Magio beach) for three years. Following maternity leave, she returned to where it all began: we’re very pleased to welcome her back to MADE BY VACULIK as account director, where her loyalty to telco continues – although with her allegiance now to Orange.
And more than 60 cheerful, creative, precise, responsible, ambitious and communicative people.
