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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.

For over 100 years, Carol of the Bells has been synonymous with Christmas. However, many people are unaware that this iconic song originated from Ukraine. Mykola Leontovych, a Ukrainian composer, arranged a traditional Ukrainian folk song into the version we know today, in 1914.

To aid Ukrainian children affected by war, we transformed the beloved Carol of the Bells into 

a donation platform using Shazam. The new version of the song, titled Carol for Charity, encourages listeners to Shazam itself and donate for children’s needs with just a few clicks.

“Carol for Charity” went viral in 11 countries. With the help of Publicis Groupe teams worldwide, it was featured on 22 radio stations and integrated directly into Christmas movies via bumper ads. Media and TV coverage further boosted the project’s popularity, leading to the song being played over 1,000,000 times. 

The project received numerous awards at prestigious festivals such as Cannes Lions, LIA Awards, Mad Stars, The One Show, and Golden Drum.

The celebration of Kyivstar’s 25th anniversary was supposed to be the highlight of 2022. However, due to the war, traditional approaches to business and media planning no longer worked.

In the realities of full-scale war, Kyivstar reduced its media budgets by 30%. Consumer behavior changed, but the positioning of the brand “Human Connection” became even more relevant. The campaign for a new tariff for the 25th anniversary with the option of donations for the army was launched as a special crisis solution in wartime to save the lives of Ukrainian defenders and literally restore human connections in the de-occupied cities. The key challenge was optimizing the media support of the campaign.

The basis of the planning was Big Data from previous campaigns. Based on this, we created a new approach to planning, using econometric attribution modeling of users’ actual actions. Our data-driven strategy led to a significant shift in the TV and digital media split from 70/30 to a more effective 35/65. We managed to identify the most influential communication methods, thus increasing the amount of direct communication (SMS, push notifications, etc.) and additionally the share of display components in digital tools due to its economic efficiency and higher conversion rates in donation activations.

For continuous tracking of results and accuracy, we created live dashboards.

Results:

x2.5 Activation of the superpower “Helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine”

+20 p.p. Contribution to the restoration of Ukraine

+4 p.p. Brand connection

+4 p.p. Market leadership in mobile communications

Kyivstar 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.

Podorozhnyk 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.

Save Wild is a fund that rehabilitates wild animals after the captivity. By creating close to natural conditions, the foundation helps animals recover physically and morally. We have developed a corporate identity that best conveys the essence of the fund’s activities. We have chosen the forest as a symbol of the natural environment, depicting it in the form of tree rings that protect wild animals, emphasizing the value and vulnerability of life.

Against the backdrop of a difficult situation in the hair care category, we faced an ambitious task: to bring Fructis out of the prolonged period of stagnation thanks to consumer rejuvenation. To achieve the goal, we worked with the most difficult audience for communication – Millenials.

Thanks to the insight developed on the basis of the specially conducted research, we brilliantly coped with the task set before us, which affected the results of the rebranding: the growth of the Fructis market share, the attraction of a new audience, most of which are girls under 35 years old.
Fructis relaunch is an example of a successful strategy built on the interaction of deep insights, vivid creativity, and exciting implementation.

tvlab – creative partner of the project.

We 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.