In November 2023, Ukraine celebrated the 10th anniversary of the start of the Revolution of Dignity – an event that significantly influenced the country’s development trajectory.
However, even after 10 years and a full-scale invasion there is still a barrier of misunderstanding between Ukrainians and Europeans. On one hand, most EU citizens agree with the statement that “Ukraine should join the EU when ready.” At the same time, russian propaganda portrays Ukraine as an incapable state and works to sow division within the EU.
A step towards overcoming this barrier of mutual understanding was to be a joint symbolic communication campaign that through the example of the Revolution of Dignity would demonstrate that Ukrainians feel and share European values. Given the tendency to avoid news about Ukraine in Germany, especially negative ones, the campaign aimed to facilitate the publication of quality materials that would reveal context and convey embedded messages.
Since Europeans do not completely believe that they are similar with Ukrainians, perhaps it is worth communicating our common values through the universal language of humanity. It sounds “right” and is understood in various social contexts worldwide. And that language is music.
During the Revolution of Dignity music united, supported, and inspired. Blue and yellow piano “Ukraine” not only served as a musical instrument but also became a physical and symbolic barrier between forces and peaceful protesters. Considering the deep symbolism of the piano the Publicis Ukraine and MSL Ukraine team proposed to create a cultural event alongside another symbolic monument, but for Germans, the iconic Brandenburg Gate.
The culmination of the event was the performance of the EU anthem “Ode to Joy,” in a four-hand rendition as a poignant symbol of Ukraine’s inevitable accession to the European family.
The campaign generated over 50 publications in leading German media, including online, print, and 11 features on major TV channels. The total non-unique publication coverage exceeded 486,100,000, with unique coverage reaching 40,500,000 — all without any media investments. Additionally, the event served as a platform for conveying important messages by official figures.
read moreIn 2022 Visa, like other responsible brands, reevaluated its priorities, focusing efforts and resources on support. The company created a non-commercial platform that served as a forum for the coordinated efforts of Visa’s social initiatives and its partners, arising in response to numerous simultaneous needs.
The establishment of the Brands Who Care enabled the consolidation of media channels, businesses, foundations, and those needing assistance for effective aid and support. Visa directed its communication investments to support the platform, emphasizing timely messages on areas requiring immediate assistance. The campaign was created by the Saatchi & Saatchi Ukraine team.
To achieve maximum visibility, the initiatives were presented as Brands who care, rather than directly under the Visa name, which facilitated more effective interaction with the audience. The project garnered significant reach, with over 50,000,000 contacts.
Since the launch of the first collaborations, over 20 initiatives have been organized, and over 80 million hryvnias have been raised. Brands who care community continue to thrive and evolve as a community of socially responsible brands.
read moreSelling OTC pharmaceuticals online is one of the most challenging ventures in performance marketing. However, with the advent of Covid-19, we identified a potential opportunity. Specifically, we anticipated a surge in online sales and a transition of users from offline to online platforms.
We took the initiative to become market pioneers, establishing the most transparent and effective collaboration with online retailers. We successfully launched Performance Marketing for Sandoz drugs, transforming the Black Box Pharma eRetail Media market into a clear, comprehensible, real-time analytical system. This allows for clear tracking of our advertising campaigns’ business results and boosts sales by attracting new users.
read moreKyivstar gain first place in the fragmented market of the fixed Internet and become “visible” for the non-beneficial algorithms of the search algorithm. Instead of classic SEO-approaches the brand left the template and optimized the landing page for each city and town, where there is a physical possibility of Kyivstar to provide the fixed Internet.
Experimental “local” tactics in SEO increased the visibility of Kyivstar’s fixed Internet in the first positions of organic search results by 3.5 times. Brand №1 has now caught up with itself in the search.
This case received Bronze Award in E-Commerce category at Effie Awards Ukraine.
read morePodorozhnyk is one of the TOP-5 pharmacy chains in Ukraine. The brand is growing rapidly, therefore, it needs an update that would reflect its fresh essence, advantages, and values.
The Publicis Ukraine team has rethought the brand identity and key message for the new Podorozhnyk. This is how the slogan appeared: “Podorozhnyk. Knows that helps”. It is based on two main brand advantages. On one hand, the brand has the necessary competencies, knowledge, experience, and resources to tell the client which drugs would be helpful in a specific case. On the other hand, Podorozhnyk cares about its client, offering high-quality drugs with no fakes. Also provides regular discount programs: “Quality available to everyone”, and provides additional services such as “Doctor at the pharmacy” etc.
Then the agency team updated the logo. Over the past years, Podorozhnyk has managed to build brand awareness, so when working with the visual component, it was important to maintain continuity, while reflecting updates and modernizing it. Thus, the recognizable medical cross and plantain leaf were visually rethought in the main green color. They merged into a single entity, where the significant element of the sign is linked to the corresponding word in the logo by color: the cross to the word pharmacy and the leaf to the Podorozhnyk. The logo has become concise and simple to understand, and the font has become lighter, neater, and more open.
read moreThis is a showcase of how Lenovo, a hi-tech electronics brand, thinks not only about the functional features of its products, but also takes care of both product usage conditions and client’s comfort.
Creating of Lenovo Meowbook – laptop for cats – added more emotions into the user-brand relationships as well as highlighting such a problem as ‘device damaging from cat’s fur’ which became communicative innovation in this category.
Virus orientation, originality, and non-standard merging of high technologies and additional customer care allowed Lenovo to be organically discussed in media and got 9.5 million impressions.
read moreIn the super-premium pet food segment where Purina Pro Plan plays, brands use rational communication that emphasizes their expertise. After all, this is what pure-blooded pets owners value, and they are the main consumers in the segment.
To stand among the competitors we drastically changed the rules of the game in the category and focused on the development of our own communication channels instead of using paid communication channels.
We developed a content strategy that was really useful for pet owners. It was a long-term thought-out strategy to be implemented in 3 stages: branded content creation; its scaling with the TV section; exclusive communication with the audience on the own cat show.
We were the first and the only in the category to choose this kind of path. And our bold trend-based solution has helped the brand to win the love of pet owners. Our market share has grown 2 times in 3 years, and brand perception has improved significantly!
read moreWe faced a challenge to break into the everyday life of people with a new product Kabanosy – long, thin sausages made from natural meat, positioned in between the meat-sausage and snack category. Until 2019 the product was unknown to both Ukrainian customers and distributors. Retail shops didn’t understand in which division the product should be sold, customers were puzzled whether to make sandwiches or eat Kabanosy with beer.
New product inspired us for a new approach for mixing media channels. We turned the classical media mix upside down and developed “DigiVision”, where digital plays a leading role in generating reach and TV is playing a secondary role. Non-standard and effective usage of media allowed Kabanosy to become a leader of the category of Snack and Meat products with minimal investment and significantly grew monthly sales.
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