Poznań, February 1st, 2017

Established in 1999 and based in Poznań, Poland, Merixstudio is a creative software house that focuses its core competencies on cutting-edge web application development, rich UI/UX design and HTML5 game development. In a nutshell, Merixstudio is a full-stack team ready to plan, design and develop every web app and digital product.

A truly modern creative house, Merixstudio has collaborated with international firms, such as Toshiba, The Juilliard School, HSBC, Volkswagen as well as small, ambitious startups. The brand especially enjoys partnering with startups and helping support other creative & marketing agencies who don’t have development skills in-house. With more than 50 specialists, the team is composed of Front-end developers, UI/UX designers, Python/Django Developers, Testers, and Project Managers/Scrum Masters. While the team started out serving mostly Polish projects, the majority of the clients today international and come from other Western European countries.

To better understand what exactly Merixstudio is doing and the themes that make them successful, we chatted with two of the team’s leaders — Kamil Kaniuk, Business Lead, and Anita Soczka, PR Manager. Both Kamil and Anita have a shared passion for all things digital and working with startups to create new and inspiring concepts. Check out their full interview below:

In your opinion, what ingredients are key to create a successful digital campaign?

Kamil: It’s going to sound obvious but… idea and perfect execution are essential. And to be honest, you need to be more of an executioner to get it done right. It always strikes me when people are so protective about their ideas. Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. That’s a golden rule of any digital activities I like to bring up whenever have a chance.

Anita: At first, competitive analysis and your own strategy. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, a Chinese general and philosopher, “Know yourself and your enemy and you shall win 1,000 battles.” Nowadays, we can’t afford to ignore what our competition is doing with their digital campaigns. So, use different tools to find your competitors’ traffic rankings, note who comes up on the first page in the SERPs, list out what social media channels your competitors are on and how many followers they have. These and much more information can help you to understand better how you can and should position yourself on different channels, and stay one step ahead of your rivals. The more details, the most successful campaign of your own. Just remember – you need to stand out from the crowd, do not be a copycat.

The second thing is keywords. Every digital marketing campaign needs effective keyword research and targeting. This is what you have to do to make sure the right people will find your brand online. Keywords got to do with SEO audit. Optimization of your site is also a key to the successful digital campaign. Social Media presence is also crucial. Social Media has been on the rise since 2012, and nothing suggests that it will change in a short time. We have no choice; we must be there. And if we are, we need to use analytics tools that will gather valuable data from different platforms. This is how we get to know what type of content our fans prefer. It is also good to consider Social Media advertising. I could go on and on, but maybe one more thing that is the key to a successful digital campaign. Use forms such as infographics, webinars, e-books, and videos. They are always catchy. Stay creative and up to date with technology.

If you could describe your agency in 3 words (descriptive adjectives) what would those be?

High-tech, funky and nimble.

What project/client presented the hardest challenge for you?

Kamil: We have this luck to work on very unique HTML5 apps that, in its nature, go far beyond typical web-based applications. In our fairly diversified portfolio, you can easily find wide range of products, from the ones connecting offline and online worlds, such as U Project – a multi-touch interactive whiteboard built to improve and explore new learning models to teach sciences in Primary and Secondary Schools, through powerful Chrome extensions supercharging Google Classroom, to fully playable cross-platform HTML5-fueled arcade or sports games. Many of our apps can be considered as innovative digital retail tools that make the physical shopping experience more personal, efficient and compelling.

What is a campaign you worked on that was especially successful and why?

Kamil: A side-project called “Polish Christmas: interactive guide” because it went viral far more than we expected. We created a horizontal scrolling, visually rich, illustration-driven HTML5 journey explaining Christmas traditions in Poland… and people loved it! Our goal was to educate users (including our foreign clients) about traditional Polish Christmas celebrations. We’ve come up with a highly interactive and engaging scrolling site full of fun, SVG animated graphics.

What is your story with working at Merixstudio?

Anita: I’ve been working at Merixstudio for over a year. My start at Merixstudio was quite painless. Mainly because I had known at least one of the folks before. Besides, this is the team with which you get in sync immediately. During this time I’m working here, I’ve learned a lot — Including the backstage of the Internet. I had some tech background when I came here. But the lion’s share of what I know about new technologies, programming languages, frameworks and other mysterious things, I know thanks to working in Merixstudio.

Kamil: An Internet veteran born in the 1980’s, I’ve been at Merixstudio for more than 8 years (!). I’m also a Jury member at the Awwwards & actively involved in many agency’s projects.

How did you both become interested in this field?

Anita: I decided to study Journalism and Social Communication in my hometown of Poznań at the AMU. There I chose my specialization which was Advertising and Promotion. I’ve always been very creative. These studies just helped me to develop my cranky skills. And I liked it, so here I am. Since I have no specific background in IT/tech, there’s something new to learn every day.

Kamil: At first, I was messing with cassettes on C64, formatting floppy disks on the Amiga 600 and reading “Bajtek” and “Secret Service”. As PC fan I stumbled upon the HTML course of Paweł Wimmer. I went through Pajączek (the Polish HTML editor ), Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe ImageReady and Dreamweaver. I started working with Apache and wrote my first loop in PHP … then I came to the conclusion that coding is not for me. In the meantime, I became interested in web design. I was really excited when I browsed through websites such as Towar.org, Webesteem or MocnyWeb, but only the CSS Zen Garden had truly opened my eyes. I admired aesthetics of Polish Flash experts, such as Mondo, or the Gmunk’s courage to experiment with digital. As the real dinosaur of web design, I really liked Kaliber10000 (K10k), Surfstation, Design Is Kinky or Holodeck73.


What does the word creativity mean to you, in your own words?


Anita: To me, creativity is standing out from the crowd and pushing aside fear to allow the craziest ideas to appear in your mind. It’s the process of turning new, sometimes weird, ideas into reality. It’s also the ability to look at the world in new, different ways and finding gaps or hidden benchmarks in order to generate freaky solutions.

Kamil: I’d love to hear that answer from Oliverio Toscani :). For me, creativity is always strictly connected with “raising” emotions.

Are there online publications or industry leaders you follow to stay current?

Anita: In this industry, you need to be up-to-date. So the best resource for inspiration is… Internet! It’s a cliche, but you’ve asked. It’s also good to look at traditional, old mediums. Just look around, take a walk, get away from your computer and get some fresh air. Content Marketing Institute‘s blog is a place which every marketer should visit from time to time. If you’re looking for some marketing inspirations, you can follow the HubSpot Marketing Blog. They have a ton of resources. When it comes to web design, a must read is Awwwards — that is not in dispute. I would also recommend Buffer Blog, Conversion Blog (Polish one), Sotrender Blog, The Next Web… Please, somebody stop me!

Please list a few of your favorite digital brands:

Anita: Oreo rocks when it comes to social media presence. They’re creating amazing content! It’s fresh and relevant. Dove is doing a great job too. They inspire people globally and continuously create content that makes women feel good about their body (and in general, about themselves). I am also adding Buzzfeed. I would not be surprised if it were the most clickable content ever. People are just addicted to Buzzfeed and nobody can help it. On our, Polish, field, Play. They have hard job to do as they are telecom brand, but they’re doing it well. Especially, when it comes to real-time marketing.

Where do you see the industry heading in the next few years?

Anita: Marketing scene is deeply attached to new technologies which are developing very rapidly. It’s really hard to predict something in this case, but I can try. For sure marketers should react to these new developments as quick as possible.

I’ll lay a wager that some now-familiar trends will be continued their growth, for instance, mobile and its impact on how brands communicate with their customers. A smartphone is the number one thing people have. Mobile is the way people interact with each other and with brands. Communication with customers will be more and more individual and transparent. Looking at technology (in terms of mobile), I’m sure that websockets and real-time data streaming will enjoy success.

I’m sure that video will still rise. It’s connected with a mobile growth. People love visual storytelling. Just look at Snapchat! Brands will need to become faster because content will need to be produced more and more quickly. It, of course, will have an enormous impact on brand-agency relationships.

Virtual reality will go real. It’s a great communication and storytelling channel. It gives marketers an incredible way to show their businesses. The biggest challenge for marketers will be winning a battle for users/customers attention. The solution is to make marketing as valuable as the product/service. Summarizing it all, the complexity of modern marketing is only going to keep increasing and growing.

What advice do you often give to people who are starting to work in 
your same field?



Anita: If you want to work in the marketing industry or specifically in digital marketing, you have to be open-minded. The key is the willingness to learn because this market is both fast growing and competitive as hell. If you feel passion, if you try to stay updated with major digital marketing sites and influential people on social media, this job is for you. Fresh marketers often forget about metrics and measures. They think “oh, my idea is brilliant, it has to work! It’s so creative!” and don’t analyze anything before and after the campaign. You have to remember that metrics are king! You really need to understand how each marketing channel has performed.

Kamil: I’m more an old-school type of guy. Before you learn something new, get to know fundamentals of the web. Advice is simple: be selective in materials you read over the web. The Internet is full of poor journalism, so value your time!

What is your communication style with your team?

Kamil: We tend to stray away from corporate culture, and instead prefer dynamic and open communications, offering more of a flat hierarchy. At the same time, when you have more than 50 people on board, leaving too much freedom or room for guessing is not good. Every department has a team leader that knows their roles are motivating the team and monitoring progress. But we are still far away from a stiff structure and try not to be too restrictive.

What do you look for when bringing new people to the team?

Kamil: That person needs to be a team player and able to integrate into the team quickly. A good fit for the team is someone who adds value to the team. This is oftentimes more critical than actual technical skills.

By Geny Caloisi.
genyc@topinteractiveagencies.com

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