5 Questions for Mirek Král

At Marketup, we’re proud to have a team full of inspiring people – from strategists and creatives to digital specialists. And now, we’re giving them the spotlight in our new monthly series: Five Questions, Five Answers and One Marketup Star. We’re kicking off with our CEO, Mirek Král, who founded the agency 15 years ago. How has Marketup evolved since then? Where is it heading next? And how does Mirek recharge outside of work? Find out all this and more in our latest interview.

1. You founded Marketup in 2010 together with Tomáš Ševčík. How has the agency changed over the past 15 years?

It has changed fundamentally. Back in 2010, digital marketing was still in its early days. We were a startup made up of two business veterans, a group of enthusiastic students, and fresh graduates. At that time, we focused purely on performance marketing, mainly PPC campaigns, and learned everything as we went. In 2012, we expanded into social media management, content creation, and graphic design. Two years later, we added brand campaigns through RTB and social media, with YouTube leading the charge.

Over time, we nurtured those students and graduates into senior specialists, project managers, and middle management. In 2016, we began building our creative and production department. By 2018, we had fully embraced evidence-based marketing principles as advocated by experts like B. Sharp, J. Romaniuk, L. Binet, and M. Ritson.

In recent years, we’ve brought in talent with international experience and diverse backgrounds – in tech, strategy, customer experience, art, or psychology. This diversity allows us to take a broader, more holistic view of marketing and has helped us build an entirely new ecosystem of services.

Today, we cover the entire marketing cycle – from research and strategy, through creative, production, media planning, and communication (including social media, influencers, and content creators), all the way to data-driven technology solutions with consulting overlap. We've grown from serving mostly small and medium-sized clients to working with major Czech and global brands across multiple markets.

We specialize particularly in retail chains, FMCG producers, and providers of financial, energy, telecommunications, industrial, healthcare, or automotive services.

2. Last year, Marketup was named “Best Place to Work”. Why do you think people are so happy working here?

We believe that great services can only come from a great team – which is why we continuously invest in hiring talented people and supporting the growth of every colleague. At Marketup, we don’t enforce strict hierarchies. Instead, we keep doors open and encourage everyone to bring forward ideas and feedback. We promote independence and responsibility, offering our people freedom and autonomy. We focus on collaboration and creating a positive team atmosphere.

Our regular Employee Net Promoter Score (ENPS) surveys show we’re succeeding – the top-rated answer, consistently scoring 9 to 10 out of 10, is always: “I enjoy working with my colleagues.” That translates into real-life friendships – our people don’t just work together, they also play sports, travel, and genuinely enjoy coming into the office.

Since marketing is one of the fastest-evolving fields, we see continuous learning as essential at every level. We regularly invest in hard-skill training, and anyone can apply to attend local or international conferences relevant to their expertise. We give everyone the chance to grow and become a leader in their field. Last year, we launched our own Leadership Academy to nurture future leaders from within.

For soft skills, we organize training in open feedback, workplace health, mental resilience, and mindfulness – all of which benefit our team personally and professionally.

Transparency, care for people, fair compensation, and the opportunity to work on meaningful projects for major local and global brands create a workplace where people don’t just work – they truly want to be.

3. What marketing trend or shift are you currently most interested in?

Over the past six years, we’ve seen a pandemic, supply chain crises, high inflation, energy price hikes, the war in Ukraine, and now potential trade tariffs under the Trump administration. Businesses face constant challenges at both local and global levels. It’s become clear that companies must be adaptable and ready for change.

Economic uncertainty affects their performance – and therefore marketing budgets and expectations. Clients today demand maximum efficiency and clear ROI to deliver shareholder value even in this tough environment. This puts agencies under considerable pressure.

The second key area is the rapid development of technology, especially AI. Clients now expect us to optimize media investments, use Generative AI to speed up and scale creative production, better target campaigns using first-party data, and provide a clear, centralized overview of marketing impact. And all of that at lower cost.

This evolution presents both a huge opportunity and a major threat. Agencies that can adapt, expand their services, and meet these expectations will thrive. Those that can’t keep up risk being pushed out of the market during consolidation.

Today, an agency must integrate diverse marketing disciplines, combine evidence-based strategy with tech tools, and truly deliver business impact for the client.

4. What’s ahead for Marketup in the coming months and in 2026?

We’ve prepared a 10-year roadmap, and our upcoming activities are based on it. Right now, we’re focusing on geographic expansion, particularly within the CEE and DACH regions. We already work for many brands in these areas – including XXXLutz, Lidl, Škoda, E.ON, AXA, FutureLife, Decathlon, and others. We aim to deepen these partnerships and expand our work with the headquarters of multinational companies.

On a professional level, we want to further develop evidence-based marketing, brand strategy, and 360° media planning using marketing mix modeling. In tech, key focus areas include activating first-party data through CDPs (Customer Data Platforms), leveraging GenAI to create and scale creative output, geotargeting, and automation for efficient performance and brand channel management.

Most importantly, we want to be seen as trusted business problem solvers for CMOs and top management – not just a source of creative ideas or campaigns. That’s why we’re developing consulting and implementation services in areas like go-to-market strategy, customer experience, and business intelligence. We want to help companies connect strategy with tangible results.

5. Where and how do you recharge outside of work?

What gives me the most energy is seeing the company thrive. It’s incredibly rewarding when we deliver on our promises, exceed expectations, and make both clients and our team genuinely happy.

That said, I also make time for my hobbies. I love spending time with my wife and two sons – we enjoy summer trips to the seaside and winter holidays in the mountains, usually somewhere in Italy. I sometimes go golfing with friends, ride my motorcycle (which I also use to commute), and stay active through regular workouts, mountain biking, or working in the garden.