Welcome · Tallinn

Ants Lusti

A million whys. Why brand?

Strategist and brand builder. Service designer. Trainer, mentor and interviewer. Glad to meet you — I’m with you on this road to making the world a better place. Perhaps it will make me a little better, too.

Which challenge shall we take on? Let’s get acquainted first
Black-and-white portrait of Ants Lusti, smiling slightly
Photo: Alina Birjuk
0+new brands I have helped bring into the world as midwife (i.e. head of strategy)
0+countries where those brands are present today
0+talks at conferences and seminars
0countries’ agencies we outpaced: Creative Agency of the Year 2008, Golden Hammer
0wonderful children — the “something” worth being proud of

A selection of brands: Bauhof, IIZI, Solaris, Thermory, Vaba Lava, Airobot, Sparta, Arigato, Hestia Hotels, Operail, Vabamu, Novarc, Milrem, Nortal, Inbank, Levira, Retro FM, Cinamon, Ports, Lumillio, Proact, Familia, Rumion, Cybertec, Traffest, Unimed, Lyon, Weplay, Glassense, Intuit, Aasa and many more.

…and also Küllus, Lyon, Arcwood, Extery, Hyba, Srini, Infragate, Starry, Pagarini, Weplay, Glassense, Intuit, Aasa, Lävel, Millerhawk, Traffest, Clint, Grass, Creya, Heatit, Estply, Eqqua, Nordwood, Imprest, Prebuilt, Ports, Lumillio, Proact, Familia, Rumion, Cybertec, Unimed and more. Born over a quarter of a century in collaboration with colleagues and clients.

01 — About

This crazy mixture is, in more ways than one, a good thing.

A young Ants Lusti in the studio of the ETV show “Miljon miksi” in 1992
1992 Hosting the show “Miljon miksi” (A Million Whys) on ETV

What matters most, obviously, is that I have five wonderful children: Ats, Oskar, Kaspar, Ingel Miina and Leif Erik Johann. What an inspiring crew!

I studied theatre directing at Tallinn University, diplomacy and international relations at the Estonian School of Diplomacy, marketing at Markkinointi Instituutti, and international business administration (EMBA) at the EBS Executive Education Centre.

I have been an actor at the VAT Theatre, made TV and radio programmes at ERR (Estonian Public Broadcasting) and led agencies — Inorek Marketing, Inorek & Grey, Leo Express, Kontuur Leo Burnett, Identity, Creative Union and others.

Today I create value mainly where brand building, design, creativity and marketing meet. I value meaning, collegiality and good collaboration.

At this point, a deep bow to everyone who has been my fellow traveller on this journey — on this side of the table or the other.

  • Meaning
  • Collegiality
  • Good collaboration
  • Real value

If I could afford it, I think I would rather be a painter, a portraitist. If someone could guarantee an audience — maybe I’d start a really cool band instead.

02 — Peculiar facts

Just in case, for some inexplicable reason, it ever comes up.

  1. i

    I finished my third year of university before my second.

    Guess why and how that was possible.
  2. ii

    First job after university: actor or cleaner.

    Summer 1990 at the Loviisa nuclear power plant in Finland — a highly educated cleaner.
  3. iii

    I ended up on the marketing carousel entirely by chance — as a model at a photo shoot.

    Ha-ha.
  4. iv

    Most famous student: probably Carmen Kass.

    Acting lessons at the Sixtina model agency.
  5. v

    Host of “Miljon miksi” (A Million Whys) on ETV — and chasing whys has followed me ever since.

    There must be a point to it.

03 — Roles

Twelve chairs.

01Strategist and brand builder

As a strategist, creating brand concepts is what has earned me the most recognition in the field. Wherever I go, I run into familiar brands — more than 250 new brands with above-average resonance.

The greatest recognition — one of the highest in Estonia overall — is probably Creative Agency of the Year 2008 at Golden Hammer, the international creative competition in Riga, when Identity outpaced agencies from 24 countries. Among other things, we won the Grand Prix for my brainchild, “Tallinn — European Capital of Culture 2011”. The same work won the title of “Innovation of the Year” at Estonia’s Kuldmuna (Golden Egg) competition.

Colleagues from later years at Identity: Ionel Lehari, Maret Põdre, Meelis Opmann, Tea Teesalu, Marion Sillandi.

02Service designer

My friendship with service design began in 2012, when international guru Richard Eisermann trained Estonia’s first service designers to completion (“completion” is an exaggeration, of course).

I look for the key to a service, or a service ecosystem, that feels intuitive and seamless from the customer’s point of view and creates its own kind of wow. Projects in the private and public sector — probably a few dozen.

03Trainer · lecturer · methodologist

Since 2016, I have been lead lecturer of “Strategic Marketing Management” in the EMBA programme at the EBS Executive Education Centre. Since 1995, I have given probably more than 100 talks on a range of topics. My colleague Madis Laas thinks I am a trainer-performer by type.

Most popular talks: “State and brand. The brand as a system for managing meaning” (Government Office of Estonia) · “How to Create Strong Brands” (Tbilisi, Creative Georgia) · “Creating creativity” (Confera) · “Estonia’s opportunity?” (MELT) · “Corporate Storytelling” (Enterprise Estonia) · “Where does a trademark come from” (Estonian patent agencies).

04Coach · mentor · consultant

For 30 years, football and tennis coach to my sons. A coach actually trains his powers of observation most of all — today I can “hear” Kaspar’s serve from the other end of the hall without looking.

Public service development programmes: Children’s House service (Social Insurance Board) · Child maintenance recovery (Ministry of Social Affairs) · Short-term job system (Ministry of the Interior) · Pärnu participatory budget strategy · Personal assistance care service in Kose and Raasiku municipalities. Close ties with some twenty start-ups — one of them is a unicorn today. So far.

05Co-founder

No, I am not much of a founder. More of a conceptual co-founder. I own one of the “A”s in the R.A.A.A.M. theatre collective, and the concept for Vaba Lava began to take shape in 2010 on the black sand beach of Monterrico, Guatemala — among piglets and pelicans.

Also: the NGO Kultuurituur, launching Identity into orbit, and Creative Union, Estonia’s first marketing campus.

06Interviewer

Basketball legend Jaak Salumets once commented on a question from a cheeky young host (me, that is) on the TV show “Miljon miksi” (A Million Whys): “Nobody has ever dared to ask me a question like that.” The question was why basketball players feel so comfortable on the bench.

Between 2001 and 2011, I exhausted my supply of questions organising and hosting countless seminars and conferences under the Creative Union banner. My main partner in this was Annika Räim.

Today I continue with the life story interview format — an in-depth interview summing up a life’s work, which gains value over time.

07Producer

A small producer’s contribution to classical music: choral projects of great composers with Veronika Portsmuth’s Choir Academy, and Ülo Krigul and Sander Mölder’s large-scale work “Ookean” (Ocean) with Risto Joost and Tallinn Sinfonia (2021). Plus theatre projects at Vaba Lava.

Watch the video “Ookean” aftermovie · premiere 15.07.2021, Tallinn cruise terminal How “Ookean” was born Making-of video · Instagram
08Actor

I have always wanted to act in a play or a film. The first dream came true in 1990 when, after graduating from theatre studio, I was assigned together with Aarne Mägi to the recently founded VAT Theatre.

That spirited journey, driven by creative thinking under the direction of Aare Toikka, eventually came to an end. It continued with making programmes for Estonian Radio and teaching acting to models at the Sixtina model studio. Until the business world picked me up in 1992…

Young Ants Lusti on stage with a drum, beside Marika Vaarik in a rococo costume, in the production „Kuningal on häda”
Theatre studiesWith Marika Vaarik in the production „Kuningal on häda” (The King Is in Trouble).
09Innovator

Innovation is not born of technology but of the question “why not do it differently?”. I enjoy inventing new planning and strategy models — even when it is clear they already exist somewhere. It’s simply more interesting that way.

I have been part of my fair share of founding teams. The first was in 1999, when Madis Laas invited me to develop and build a project called B2Boffer.com — Estonia’s first online trading platform.

Although we held a utility model certificate for an online auction platform and the site ranked among Estonia’s TOP 16 best-known websites, we drove it boldly, at full speed, straight into a wall. We were young and didn’t account for the fact that the market needed time to mature.

Some twenty years later, led by Priit Vimberg, we built a shopping app that brought together 300 companies and 6,000 shoppers. The business model couldn’t sustain a transaction-based revenue model. With Postimees Group, the solution got a second life.

Today, drawing on my experience, I have created a system for assessing companies’ growth potential. I see enormous potential in it. See growthpotential.com.

  • Growth Potential a system for assessing companies’ growth potential — growthpotential.com
  • IVA Innovation Value Added — a model for making sense of value added through innovation
  • Heritage Storage the service was designed before the building — the usual order turned upside down
  • La Dolce Villa a vision of a long, quality life close to nature
10Writer

I don’t dare to define myself as an author, even though I love to write. Sometimes I wonder whether being an author can be a profession at all. I mean — we are all capable of writing, yet we often hold ourselves back, because we are not authors, are we?

I write when I can’t do otherwise. My opinion pieces on brands, service design, employer branding and the generational shift in marketing have appeared in Äripäev, ERR, Postimees, Delfi and elsewhere.

A book about the arrogant nineties is in progress. The text of this site, too, was born in a moment of inspiration — written in a few hours as a self-reflection.

11Musician

No, I’m no musician. And yet — I have been a musician at heart and in my head for as long as I can remember. I have created a few dozen pieces — mostly dedicated to someone, or to myself.

Of my choral works, my favourite is probably “Ood jõulule” (Ode to Christmas), born in the forest while looking for a Christmas tree. It was arranged by composer Kristo Matson. It also became the title track of a Christmas album released by the mixed choir of Veronika Portsmuth’s Choir Academy.

The greatest musical recognition I have received: my old school, Kose Gymnasium, commissioned me to write a choral work for its 100th anniversary, “Kose kool — vägi ja hool” (Kose School — Strength and Care). The arrangement is by the gifted young composer Patrik Sebastian Unt.

Listen to the premiere “Ood jõulule” (Ode to Christmas) · YouTube
12Filmmaker

I work as an independent filmmaker, bringing in professionals, under my own company brand Prime Time. I spring into action when an idea or an interesting commission appears on the horizon.

04 — Public engagement

At the table outside working hours, too.

  1. 1999Estonian Association of Advertising Agenciesfounding member
  2. 2008–10Ministry of Culturecommittee for funding performing arts institutions
  3. 2013–Kuressaare Regional Training Centreadvisory board
  4. 2015–Estonian Service Industry Associationboard
  5. 2015–Vaba Lava Foundationsupervisory board
  6. 2017–Tallinn University Open Academycouncil

One of my biggest battles: the right of board members to paternity leave. I didn’t win it for myself, but the law was changed. Not bad, as Mati Alaver would say.

05 — Major public projects

On board with a strategic view.

  1. 2010Estonian National PavilionShanghai EXPO
  2. 2011Tallinn 2011European Capital of Culture
  3. 2017EU PresidencyEstonian Presidency of the Council of the EU
  4. 2018Estonia 100Centenary year of the Republic
  5. 2022TallinnEuropean Green Capital

06 — Thought work

IVA

Innovation Value Added — value added that has been achieved through innovation.

The result of some recent thinking. I offered the concept to Enterprise Estonia — they weren’t interested. I enjoy inventing new planning and strategy models even when it is clear they already exist somewhere. It’s simply more interesting that way.

Know how to turn it into a formula? Share

07 — Ideas for the future

Thoughts waiting for their moment.

We all grow old and wish ourselves a long life, often forgetting that what we really long for is a long quality life — in the company of friends, among kindred spirits, in a quality environment. So that the rock’n’roll lasts into our late days.

The frightening backdrop is care homes, where those in the last phase of life no longer have a chance to return home, because living independently is no longer possible. How can we prevent that?

My good friend, architect Kalle Rannula, once tossed out an idea, and I picked it up and let it sprout under the umbrella name La Dolce Villa, project name The Last Quarter.

I created a vision that brings together 24 (or more) homes on land close to the city, in the lap of nature. Energy-efficient, with dimming glass and other smart solutions.

La Dolce Villa sketch: a circular two-storey building at the edge of a forest, 12 apartments on each floor, a shared inner courtyard, balconies, solar panels on the roof, dimming glass, a walking path around the house and a car park.
La Dolce Villa — vision2 floors × 12 apartments · shared inner courtyard · energy-efficient · dimming glass · solar panels on the roof · walking path at the forest edge

If you feel you could be part of getting this idea for the future off the ground, get in touch and contribute together “with us”.

Get in touch

Some are in progress, some still just a dream. If one speaks to you — let’s take it on together.

  1. In progress 01

    A book about the arrogant nineties

    The writing is in progress. It can’t be ruled out that it stays that way. But still, it’s something.

  2. Awaiting a stage 02

    To stage something extraordinary

    A fondness for theatre and a suppressed passion that has so far found its outlet in producing at Vaba Lava.

  3. Awaiting a canvas 03

    Portrait painting

    Aapo Pukk’s oil painting skills carried over into acrylics. If I could afford it, I think I’d be a portraitist.

  4. Awaiting listeners 04

    One really cool band

    If someone could guarantee an audience — maybe I’d start a really cool band instead.

Grab an idea

08 — Thoughts in the press

I write when I can’t do otherwise.

The articles below are in Estonian. A book is in progress — about the arrogant nineties. It can’t be ruled out that it stays that way. But still, it’s something.

09 — Contact

Which challenge shall we take on together?

ants.lusti@creativeunion.com +372 5624 2712