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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.

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

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 ?

In Ukraine, Pride events do not have a long history. COVID-19 in 2020 made it even more difficult, as all Pride events were canceled and switched to online, which reduced the audience dramatically. Online involves only LGBTQ+ activists. Offline Pride events are a moment of visibility for a wide audience. KyivPride and Saatchi & Saatchi had a difficult task – during a pandemic they needed a campaign that spread online Pride events across the country.

We hacked the tallest European statue, the iconic Motherland Monument, with the help of drones and the Dronarium Ukraine team we attached a huge rainbow flag to its sword in real-time. The statue’s symbolism was transformed – from the protection of Soviet values to human rights protection and raising awareness of gender equality. It was an upside-down shift in symbolism that immediately resonated with society.

The task was to make our Pride event visible in Kyiv during COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. But our stunt made Kyiv’s Pride visible all over the world with more than 100 million impressions in the first three days. The Motherland Monument stunt was recognized as the EVENT OF THE YEAR in Ukraine & Eastern Europe.

The Motherland Pride won several awards in the biggest world festivals on creativity and efficiency, such as Effie Awards Ukraine 2021, Cannes Lions 2021 and 2022, Andy Awards 2021, Golden Drum 2021, AD Stars 2021, D&D 2022, and The One Show 2022.

Every year, before the Children’s Day, the Tabletochki Charity Foundation, together with Leo Burnett, launches fundraising campaigns for the treatment of children with cancer. These actions are so periodic that it is becoming increasingly difficult to reach people.

For 2020, the fund has set a MEGAGOAL in general: to shoot a video for a digital campaign that will raise a million hryvnias! And this at a time when people, in addition to the fate of cancer patients, were also worried about the virus, lockdown, uncertainty, unemployment… Additional condition: the foundation wanted to show in the video a real child who beat cancer thanks to philanthropists.

We have developed a script for the video. The main role was played by a former ward of the foundation – 9-year-old Artem. He became proof of the effectiveness of care and a symbol of a possible happy ending.

CHALLENGE

The category of female hygiene products is highly competitive, where each of the brands in its communications informs about the quality benefits of the product. Differentiation is extremely important for brands like this. It helps to build the affinitive territory. Libresse has set a goal for itself –  To create a world where women can live the life they want, by breaking V-zone taboos, and the Libresse brand will help her feel confident and protected. regardless of the day of the cycle.

INSIGHT & IDEA

Globally, powerful communication has been developed for the Libresse. All our #історіїVсередині need to be heard. To know each other. To help each other. To see each other. And no woman can be forced to hide what she feels inside. Changes in communication have also affected the brand’s appearance.

Decision: not just to scale a new brand message, but to engage women to share their own stories: to learn one, to help one, to see one. Our #історіїVсередині must be heard.

IMPLEMENTATION

To be seen: attracting coverage media: TV + Digital, connecting Discovery Ads in YT and organically received a significant number of social network shares.

To be heard: A sexual podcast with The Village, to break taboos around sex and the V-zone.

To be discerning: By making influencers the voices of the brand who told their stories by launching WOM on social media

To be informed: Drove traffic to the website with paid search by posting a fun period’s test on Wonderzine.

RESULTS

• 70% reach TA
• More than 1М views
• +3 p.p. TOM
• +1 p.p. value share of the premium period pads segment
• +3 p.p. “Brand, which breaking intimate zone taboos” attribute

For years the Chewing Gum category was represented by 2 leading brands: Orbit and Dirol. Orbit was a prominent player both in media investments and sales. Meanwhile, Dirol was #2 brand and eventually fell into the stasis where ad investment maintained the existing level of brand awareness while losing its positions in brand usage, consideration, and market share. Yet, Dirol decided to refresh its positioning and appeal to a younger audience – Generation Z.

Looking for an interesting youth territory we came upon bloggers trend. A big part of the audience is not only interacting with blogger content but dreaming of becoming one. Willing to help people with video content we created a Dirol Blogger Academy. Participants of the project had the possibility to learn how to become a blogger with special lessons from popular influencers, and the winner got 1 mln. views on Youtube for promotion of personal channel.

This project reflected the audience’s dreams vowed prominent brand slogan “Dirol. Inspires with taste” and positively affected brand sales.

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.