Work we are
proud of

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

The “Finance” category was rapidly declining, and the client set an ambitious goal – to increase website traffic from organic search by 80%, to increase the number of applications for the top 6 products by at least 2 times (+100%), and to increase the average monthly revenue per consumer of these products by at least 20% in the category.

We predicted the formation of pent-up demand in this category and, using AI technology, discovered the opportunity to cover a wider range of search queries to attract more potential clients.

We planned an unconventional SEO tactic “To search as they search” – create a website specifically for service consumers and optimize it based on how they search. It worked wonders in scaling PrivatBank’s presence in organic search results.

We conducted a detailed analysis of search queries based on the principle of “search as they search,” created new pages on the website according to them, generated ideas for relevant content using AI, and promoted these pages using links.

We exceeded the website traffic goal by 89% and the application submissions for the top 6 products by 96%, but more importantly – we increased the average revenue from the top 6 products by 28%, surpassing the average annual inflation rates in Ukraine.

There are problems too uncomfortable and embarrassing to talk about. It is unpleasant even to think about them, nor to say out loud that you have constipation. Even in the circle of close ones, you’d rather hide somewhere than talk. But you can’t hide from it.

Guttalax picosulfate is a drug created specifically to solve this delicate problem of constipation. And Publicis Ukraine team with Sanofi Ukraine has had to create a concise communication for it.

The team faced a task to carefully uncover the problem and at the same time work with the stereotype that digestive problems arise solely from an unbalanced diet. The truth is that constipation can rise because of several factors such as stress, traveling, climate change, lack of physical activity, and after the course of specific medications.

The team chose plasticine and animation. And the whole process was made by a team in-house. They composed the plasticine, wrinkled and shooted everything ?

This 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.

CHALLENGE

The male deodorants market is driven by 3 strong brands-mastodons both in sales & in media activity. Each leader plays on its own clear territory with different male groups.

Men Expert is a young brand in the category with still low brand awareness among men as weak media support doesn’t build wide TA reach & involvement into the brand niche for a long period.

INSIGHT & IDEA

More than 60% of the core male audiences are interested in computer game playing. In Ukraine, the cybersport niche is still unoccupied. Each Men Expert franchise has its own unique property as DOTA heroes have their own unique power.

Decision: to conquer real male territory with high reach potential to differentiate Men Expert among strong & active competitors.

IMPLEMENTATION

Zero stage: teasing OOH & digital campaign to stir up TA interest declaring new brand territory.

Semi-finals: strong TA reach achievement due to 2 non-stop days of DOTA Minor streams with Men Expert as main partner & digital campaign support led on a game console raffle to build link with business.

Grand final: active TA involvement into Grand final and native reach building driving by engaged bloggers.

RESULTS

• 70% TA reach in TOP-5 cities
• +5 p.p. Brand Awareness growth among the young male audience
• +2 p.p. Brand Consumption growth among the young male audience
• record deodorants sales* in units & value in the e-com channel during the campaign

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.

Pandemic is a hard time for people: we are flooded by bad news and sad thoughts. We all need a source of calmness and harmony during these times.

Therefore we created a new philosophy “Take it smoothie”, which helps to deal with bad moods and tough problems.

We used only social networks to promote our campaign and created bright content, interesting copy, and super cool Insta-masks.