Work we are
proud of

The super-premium beer brand Kronenbourg has been building its attributes in the fashion territory for several years. This required large investments, but by differentiating from the main competitors, the brand gained growth in premium attributes year after year. 

In 2022, the brand showed a decline in sales for the first time ever. Therefore, in 2023, it was crucial to resume the communication of premium attributes to deliver its added value to consumers who prefer cheaper brands in times of economy. 

Understanding the irrelevance of fashion in the war, Publicis Groupe Content team with the Zenith Ukraine team helped Kronenbourg find its renewed meaning. The brand’s communication was based on supporting Ukrainian designers who continue creating and responding to the needs of society. In partnership with Vogue.ua, we created the Resilience & Social Impact nomination and provided real help to the laureates. 

Five Ukrainian brands received awards. Among the summer months, sales in August 2023 exceeded the 2021 level and showed a peak for the entire year. We maintained leading positions in key attributes, significantly surpassing competitors as “premium” and “modern.” And, of course, we reached a target audience of 7 500 000.

As a result of the campaign, we achieved more than reversing the downward trend in sales. We solved the Brand’s strategic task and found a new meaning in the fashion communication platform that meets the needs of society during the war.

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.

53% of Ukraine’s economy depends on food and agricultural exports. Today, landmines occupy 30% of our land, which is twice the size of Portugal. Without global assistance, it will take decades to make it safe. Countless agricultural fields remain dangerous. People can’t work there. 

The Minefields Honey Project ‒ the mix of nature and tech helps us to create a product that was never meant to exist by turning unsafe areas into flourishing gardens for symbolic honeymaking. 

Personnel limited edition jars with details about our issue became a diplomatic tool and were given directly to influential people. The harvested honey became an invitation to fundraising events for Ukraine’s demining. The first 55 personnel jars were presented at special economic events such as World Economic Forum (Davos) and, USA-Ukraine Partnership Forum (Washington D.C.).

For now, the project has resulted in 175 000 000 impressions and numerous headlines with zero budget investments. It also received awards in huge international festivals such as Cannes Lions, KIAF, and others. 

In 2024, Saatchi & Saatchi Ukraine, Kernel Ukraine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, and the Union of Beekeepers of Ukraine gathered the new honey harvest to ensure the project’s continuation.

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.

Ukrainian museums are an important and one of defining parts of National cultural foundations. NAMU is a treasury of Ukrainian culture. There are 2 lions sculptures, placed as of 1899 which needed urgent help in renovation with the cost 2.08 million UAH. In order to collect the needed amount, we turned concrete lions into virtual influencers (first in Ukraine), by creating accounts on Facebook and Instagram as well as donation websites. As a result – we earned more than 4 million impressions with lion’s content in social networks and the overall media field. Thanks to that, Museum succeeded in a government program – ‘Big Renovation’, and was granted 40 million UAH on renovation needs.

Challenge

COVID-19 and the introduction of strict quarantine restrictions are events that have greatly affected all of us and forced us to change our usual way of life. Now people had to get used to living in self-isolation and connect with the world (work, friends, relatives) by various devices and messengers. The situation contributed to the surge in popularity of the video conferencing format.

Many not only locked themselves at home but in themselves too. This influenced a lot of the beauty industry. After all, people began to pay much less attention to their appearance.

 Solution

We decided to utilize this trend – and encourage people who have become hostages of their homes to be more open and “see” each other online more often. Yes, see each other! And start turning on cameras. And with the help of Garnier Fructis Superfood people who could look like whatever looked super.

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.