Trendseter is an advertising agency that serves a group of companies affiliated with Andrei Jicol. It’s a professional seller of outdoor advertising—on ice rinks and billboards. The agency also places ads on radio, its own digital media platforms, Telegram channels, TikTok, and offers media content creation services as well as strategy and promotion consulting.

Andrei, good afternoon. There aren’t many players left in the Moldovan ad market who, like you, own or co-own an entire group of companies. Do you mind if we start this interview by talking about the group? Let’s begin with Trendseter?

Trendseter today is something like a sales department for a whole set of advertising divisions. The difference is, those divisions are actually separate companies. So you could say Trendseter is the integrator that leads the group and sells all the products behind it.

Let’s talk about the group, then. I know you’re a co-owner of Varo Inform, one of the oldest players in Moldova’s ad market. What other companies are part of the group?

Let’s start with Varo Inform. For many years, the company worked in both outdoor advertising—with its own network of ad spaces—and in the information market, publishing an annual business directory. When I joined the company, we decided to split those areas. Varo Inform continues to focus on the information business, and the outdoor segment moved to Media Gallery.

But as far as I know, the group includes another company that also handles outdoor advertising?

That’s right. I also own the advertising agency Vendostar, which has built its own network of outdoor ad spaces in nearly every region of the country. We operate in 32 districts.

So far, we’ve mostly talked about outdoor advertising…

Another direction is radio. Honestly, starting a radio station was a childhood dream of mine. When the 93.3 FM frequency went up for auction in 2011, I submitted an application and, to my surprise, won. That’s how Radio Zum was born. Then, that same fall, the 91.1 frequency suddenly came up for sale. It was hard not to associate that number with “911,” the emergency service, and I decided I wanted to run two radio stations. Since there are limits on how many stations a single person can own, I’m officially a co-owner of the second one, though I fully represent it.

And how did the idea to name the stations Zum 1 and Zum 2 come about? A direct nod to BBC 1 and BBC 2?

There’s a fun story behind the second station. We had already picked a format for it—let’s call it “neo-retro,” music from the 2000s. That format helped it quickly build a solid audience—nearly half the size of Zum, which had launched earlier—and it entered the top 10 radio stations in Moldova. But it still didn’t have a name. At some point, we thought—and your BBC reference isn’t far off—why not have two Zums on the market? And that’s how Zum 1 and Zum 2 were born.

By the way, Zum 2 is where we plan to launch a business mentoring program and turn it into an information channel with a trendy fintech angle. From what I’ve observed, a new wave of young entrepreneurs is forming in Moldova right now, and they’ll be interested in the topics we’re covering.

Today, both stations are 100% local products. Zum 1 has an audience of around 100,000 unique listeners, and Zum 2 has about 60,000.

Besides Zum 1 and Zum 2, does Trendseter also sell ad space on Avtoradio?

That’s another one of my investments, together with a group of partners. Avtoradio is a strong brand with a long history—it's always been in Chisinau’s top 7 radio stations. Today, it also produces 100% local content.

I’d also like to ask about another one of your projects—maybe more of an informational one. Like over 2,000 Moldovan businesspeople and managers, I’m subscribed to your Telegram channel, BusinessPages. But as I understand it, that’s just one piece of a larger media project focused on business?

That’s our joint project with Varo Inform—an online news portal about business, money, and investment: BusinessPages.md. We have our own team of journalists, a studio for shooting TV-style content, Telegram channels, and—our latest media innovation—a TikTok page. To be honest, TikTok completely surprised me. Even though we post “heavy” content there—talking about finance, taxes, loans—while the more “entertaining” side includes street surveys and infographics, our videos still get millions of views. So now we’re offering TikTok channel support as a service too—since we’ve already built up the experience ourselves.

You’re not afraid to dive into new media environments?

I’ve always enjoyed experimenting with new directions. One example is a standalone Trendseter project—creating personalized children’s books and toys.

AlpacaBox.md? We talked about that once. How’s it doing?

It’s going well. We’ve written several stories—I think we’re at 7 or 8 now. To give a child a gift, you can go to our website and personalize the book based on the child’s gender—boy or girl—hair and eye color, and name. We print and deliver a fully customized book made just for your order, and the character isn’t only personalized on the cover—it’s reflected throughout all the illustrations. You can also order a cute branded toy—an Alpaca or a Unicorn—that we produce ourselves in Moldova. The project started as something “for ourselves,” but now we’re preparing to enter the Romanian and English-speaking markets.

By the way, are you planning to expand Zum Radio into Romania too?

We’re gradually moving in that direction. More and more people are listening to radio online, and average listening time has reached almost an hour a day per listener. With those kinds of numbers, radio becomes a serious advertising tool. In general, after more than a decade in the advertising industry, I’m once again seeing major shifts in audience behavior across different media segments. So we need to stay on trend. At the end of the day, what we’re selling are connections and people’s attention—which is why Trendseter is planning a full reboot of its sales system this year.

Let me add a personal touch. In our last interview, we talked about your love for coffee and shared our favorite spots. Any new passions since then? What would you easily start a conversation about at a business event?

I’d love to meet someone on the same wavelength. Over the past five years, somewhat by chance, I’ve gotten deeply involved—as an expert—in structured work on legislation and regulations that affect the advertising industry. I believe that once a business reaches a certain level of maturity, it has to start knocking on the government’s door. We shouldn’t assume that all government actions benefit business—the market often moves faster than the legal system adapts. If business wants to grow, it needs to take the initiative and help bring legal frameworks in line with market realities.

If we want to create an investment-friendly environment—for both local and foreign investors—we have to be able to convince the government to align its legislation with the direction the market is headed.

Then, one final observation from me—a bit of subconscious branding. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the name “Trendseter” was chosen. It really captures your approach to business. Consider that a compliment—and a thank-you for introducing me to some great new coffee spots in Chisinau.