The work of Ukrainian creative agencies at the beginning of the war

Most of the creative agencies that are members of the All-Ukrainian Advertising Coalition are located in Kyiv, where business processes are gaining momentum. And how do agencies located in other parts of Ukraine live and work now? The All-Ukrainian Advertising Coalition (VRK) has agencies located in Lviv, Zhytomyr, Dnipro, and Odesa. So we asked them how they lived through the difficult period of war.

Lviv

• Dmytro Linnyk, founder and creative director of Linnikov agency
• Oles Kucherenko, co-founder and creative director of Bambuk Studio
• Orest Zahorsky, partner and Account Director of VTMN agency

Zhytomyr

• Pavlo Shyshkovskyi, managing partner of Doris Advertising
• Oleksandra Didkovska, director of Flow Communications

Dnipro

• Oleksiy Simanovych, founder and creative director of Kryla FMCG Branding
• Vadym Pylypenko, head of #ADINDEX
• Nikita Zakrevsky, creative director and founder of Verlox Branding Agency

Odesa

• Oleksiy Mamontov, CEO of the Inweb agency

The beginning of the story is probably the same in most of the Ukrainian advertising business. In January and February, work gained momentum, and on February 24, everything stopped. Constant monitoring of the news and active volunteering are the realities of the first weeks. But what is happening now with the creative agencies in different cities of the country?

LVIV

Lviv became a shelter for many internally displaced persons, and several companies also moved their offices there. The city became a transit point to Europe. Millions of people passed through the city. Therefore, it was important for local businesses to create conditions for them to feel like home. Local companies work, quickly adapting to new realities. Companies have reduced their advertising budgets compared to the pre-war period, but they are still doing ads.

So creative agencies from Lviv told about the following:

Linnikov Agency 

An international branding agency

“The work of the creative agencies has changed radically,” recalls Dmytro Linnyk, founder and creative director of Linnikov agency, “We stopped working with clients from Russia and Belarus. Undoubtedly, the decline was evident in every aspect. And we stopped communicating in Russian, in general, even those who grew up in Russian-speaking families.”

No one was fired, but the team was reduced by 40%. Because some team members who went abroad resigned themselves. During this time, they hired a new guy who works remotely from Dnipro.

The team now works remotely, some in Ukraine, and some abroad. The office has been closed since the beginning of the war, so we took the equipment to our homes.

The structure has changed slightly, functions have been added to the management team. But Dmytro notes: “We have become more integrated and stronger. We work more cohesively.”

In general, the number of clients in the agency decreased by almost half. The majority of clients are foreign companies (about 60%), and the rest are from Ukraine, mainly Lviv and Kyiv.

According to the experience of the Linnikov agency, foreign clients behave cautiously, they first ask about the situation, how and where the creative agencies work, about the team. Then, if the agency covers its main concerns, they start talking about its projects and possible cooperation.

Dmytro recounts the scenario when the air raid alarm persisted for 5 hours, while the client urgently awaited files for an exhibition with strict printing deadlines. Since the designer was in shelter, she could not send the files. “We all got nervous then,” recalls Dmytro, “because the client called and wrote many times during those 5 hours. Ultimately, he succeeded in printing everything, despite the circumstances being force majeure. We have now made it a rule to put time in the schedule for such situations.”

The Linnikov agency team is working on the branding of Aromanty home fragrances, the concept is based on the elements of nature and was created after a detailed study of the target audience – creative personalities, initiators of changes, and transformations in the home. “We created an emotional brand. The brand platform is based on the metaphor “Magic Particles” and the archetype of the Magician,” Dmytro shared.

Bambuk Studio 

Full-circle studio

“In two weeks, we fully resumed work and began to close overdue tasks,” says Oles Kucherenko, co-founder and creative director of Bambuk Studio. – The first month led to a lot of burnout because along with the commercial workload, everyone was absorbed in volunteering.”

Oles notes that the agency’s team even expanded during the war. The majority of the team remained in Ukraine. Several people have moved abroad and work there. At the beginning of the war, one worker was taken out from Kharkiv. And the new one, who was still on probation, was taken out of Kherson.

Now the office works 50/50. About 15 people from the 36 team members come to the office every day. Changes have been ongoing since the introduction of SCRAM three years ago. The staff has matured concerning work. They actively pursue skill enhancement through various courses, while we focus on English training with native speakers. The biggest problem is exhaustion.

Only 5% of the agency’s Ukrainian clients have resumed work and continue to support pre-war projects. “Recently, in the Ukrainian segment, we often worked on the real estate market,” says Oles, “and now it has stopped – it is not moving.” Everyone is afraid to start something new.” (information as of September 2022, now everything has recovered).

Clients are now almost entirely foreign. “From the very beginning, we gave a message to foreign clients that if they want to support us, just load us with work,” says Oles. – They immediately agreed to this. They were very supportive, but at the same time they were afraid that something would suddenly happen, you know what.

One client even advertised our services on his LinkedIn. And the client from Great Britain asked his partners to contact us. There was a case that one large company decided to work with us, rejecting the tender procedure and other tender proposals, just to support us.”

But they also feel the crisis abroad. In some places, employees are laid off, marketing budgets are reduced. He emphasizes the importance of considering various scenarios and being prepared for them.

In wartime, the agency has been prolific in branding for semiconductor companies. This is a large-scale project from the point of view of the industry. Also Studio cooperates with one of the largest companies that provides chip production and supports Intel. But the agency itself considers the crowdfunding platform for the “Wings of Hope (Kryla Nadii in transliteration)” charity fund, which cares for children with cancer in western Ukraine, to be the most significant project.

The co-founders of Bambuk Production have been cooperating with the influential international publications The Economist and Washington Post since the beginning of the war, as local producers of reports and special projects. They actively worked on the information front and helped to implement many materials about the war, as well as create social videos on current topics for UN Women, IOM – UN Migration, the GUNIA project brand, and others.

VTMN agency 

A branding and digital agency

“On February 23, several teams of VTMN Agency returned from business trips,” recalls Orest Zagorsky, partner and Account Director of VTMN agency. – Prepared more than 20 letters for clients who were supposed to come to them at 8-9 in the morning on February 24. And they came. But they were no longer relevant. In addition, two shootings scheduled for early March had to be postponed.”

During the war, the team changed little. New people appeared. Orest noted that the agency received hundreds of responses to all published vacancies. And the geography of applicants has greatly expanded.

According to Orest, today, the office lives and works. Everything is like in pre-war times. “We understand that it is important to work and find options for how to do it – he says. – This is work for people, payment of taxes, and business development. Because everything is in the connection, everything forms our everyday life.”

Clients in the agency are different now. VTMN Agency has been working with someone for more than 10 years, with someone they just started. The agency works with clients throughout Ukraine. But actually, the first activity rose in the regions in the west of Ukraine. Therefore, the advertising market began to rise. Somewhere more, somewhere less. Someone saves, and someone, on the contrary, invests more. That is, there is movement. There is work. And that’s the main thing.”

During the war, the agency worked on both social and commercial projects.

A social video was created about the boycott of companies that continue to work in Russia. Communication for the online store STYLUS.UA and several national television advertising campaigns for customers of the farm market also began.

ZHYTOMYR

There’s little information available regarding the business landscape in Zhytomyr. Creative agencies who have kept their business are at the level of self-sufficiency, it is still too early to talk about business growth.

Members of the VRK from Zhytomyr told about the following:

Doris Advertising 

A communications agency with core expertise in FMCG

“On February 24, the agency completely stopped working,” says Pavlo Shyshkovskyi, managing partner of Doris Advertising. “Over time, as the employees found themselves in safe conditions for them and the client’s needs became actualized, our activities began to gradually recover.”

The agency’s team and structure have not changed much. But some people who found themselves abroad found work there. Some saw new opportunities for themselves in the social sphere, outside of advertising. “We understand such changes,” says Pavlo.

Today, the team works remotely. Sirens continue to sound quite often and the office cannot provide adequate security.

Because of the pandemic, business processes were digitized long before the Russian attack, so the agency was ready to work remotely. But the vast majority of projects, on which the agency has been actively working since the beginning of the year and which ensured stable work, have lost their relevance.

“Foreign requests are isolated,” says Pavlo. – Permanently, this is Kyiv and the big businesses of our region. Unfortunately, the volume of current projects is currently far from satisfactory.”

During the war, the project “Tea with Putin” was implemented – an important project aimed at raising the awareness of Ukrainians when choosing tea and warning against financing the enemy.

The “rebranding” of Zhytomyr should also be. The agency created the logo of the city quite a long time ago, and immediately after the start of the war, it was updated. “It was a time of a lot of communication,” Pavlo says, “addresses of the city mayor were heard several times a day, social networks of communal services were overflowing with messages, and city news portals were updated every second. Everything was equally meaningful, but different and chaotic. Therefore, we tried to unite important initiatives for the protection of the city under a single symbol. The project received a silver, two bronzes, and a short list at the KMFR — a trifle, but nice.”

Flow Communications 

A marketing communications agency

“It’s disheartening to hear about the destruction of our partners’ production facilities,” remarks Oleksandra Didkovska, Director of Flow Communications. – Hope was lost – that everything will end quickly, and we will be able to return to the formation. In this situation, we all became close, kept in touch with almost all our clients, worried about them, supported them, and they supported us.”

Oleksandra recalls: “When the client called, to whom we did not have time to hand over the strategy development project, and said: “Ah! We are in formation and waiting for our strategy!”, our joy knew no bounds. We have never been so happy at work! At that time, part of the team was abroad, but, despite this, we organize ourselves well. There was a lot of work because the situation has changed and the strategy for the client could not be as it was before the war.”

Unfortunately, it was not possible to retain all the staff of the agency. “We tried to support our employees financially during the lull in the projects,” says Oleksandra, “but, of course, this was not enough. Someone discovered new opportunities for themselves, someone changed the field of activity. But the key players remained.” Now the employees have returned to Ukraine and are working in the office.

“Our clients, who have not stopped their activities and marketing activities, are starting to plan their work in the current realities,” says Oleksandra. – Now is not the time for profits for the agency. It is difficult not only for us but also for our customers. Clients support us, and the agency supports its employees. The most important thing is to preserve expertise and personnel. We believe in the best!”.

DNIPRO

Some businesses in the region have closed or changed locations. Marketing departments in companies and creative agencies reduced to a minimum, and advertising budgets and activity itself decreased many times. The business began to save on branding and do something on its own.

In Dnipro, the active front is relatively close, so there are a lot of people fleeing from the hostilities in the city. These people also need to be fed and served. So you can see the opening of new establishments and shops on the streets. There is also advertising activity in the region, but the cost of these services has decreased. Now, the demand for marketing services in the region is gradually increasing, which indicates that the surviving businesses are starting to think about further development.

Creative agencies stationed in Dnipro shared their stories:

Kryla FMCG Branding 

Comprehensive development of brands for FMCG markets

“With the advent of the war, our whole life changed,” says Oleksiy Simanovych, founder and creative director of Kryla FMCG Branding.

This is more about the psychological state of the entire team. “It became difficult to enjoy the projects,” Oleksiy notes, “In the first months, the state of desolation was very strong, everyone worked as if on automatic machines. But, we resisted at first, and now we work quite systematically.”

The team survived, only one person left the agency. Practically the entire team of “Kryl” is now in different parts of Ukraine, many girls have gone abroad. The structure remained the same. They have been working remotely since the very first day of the war and until now. The experience of the “coronavirus period” came in handy, the processes were easily adapted to the online format, although, as Oleksii noted, “it is not very comfortable for us, we are used to live interaction in the studio.”

The spacious and bright office, located in the center of Dnipro, was rented out by the agency as an art studio free of charge.

Oleksiy also said that although the agency is physically located in the regional center, it has been working with national and international brands for more than 10 years, most of which are located in Kyiv or abroad. Among the Dnipro companies, they have two clients that also operate more like international corporations. Therefore, Oleksiy says: “We were lucky that during this period we were conducting several large projects from the USA, payments went smoothly, and we practically did not experience interruptions with money. For the first two months of the war, until about mid-May, we worked exclusively with foreign clients.

The entire Ukrainian market was at a standstill. During this time, we received several more projects from abroad. Ukrainian companies began to return in mid-May. Obolon was the first alcoholic company to return. Now, of the large clients, work has resumed with almost all of them, except for our old partner – House of Vintage Cognacs “Tavria” from Novaya Kakhovka, which is under occupation and going through the most difficult times. We had many friends there, but not all of them were able to leave. We are very worried about them!”.

Now the agency is working on an interesting and, as Oleksiy said, bizarre case from the premium segment. So we cannot disclose the brand now, but the project is nearing completion, we hope to see new work from the FMCG Branding Wing soon.

#ADINDEX 

An integrated Internet marketing agency

Vadym Pylypenko, the head of the #ADINDEX agency, says that their volumes have changed in half a year from a 70-80% drop in March to exceeding the volumes at the beginning of the year already in August.

The agency works 100% remotely, the majority of the team is located in Dnipro, there are a few employees abroad or in other regions, although some have already returned to the city. The team is almost the same as before the war. Vadym says that there were some problems related to the emotional state, but currently, the whole team is working at 120%, so the agency has plans for further growth and expansion.

“We are planning to open a small office in the city “for meetings”, and we are also thinking about opening an office in the western regions,” Vadim shares his plans.

Until February 24, almost 90% of the volume of work was done by Ukrainian business, both from the Dnipro, and from Kyiv and other cities, and already in August, in addition to continuing cooperation with Ukrainian business, the agency increased the share of clients from abroad to 35%.

Despite the difficult situation in the region, it was the clients from Dnipro, as Vadim notes, who turned out to be “100% strong projects and strong people”, who not only resumed marketing activity but even increased it and volumes, especially starting from the beginning of summer. “July was almost the strongest from the point of view of average sales for the pool of Ukrainian projects in our portfolio,” says Vadim. “Once again, many thanks and respect to these people.”

One of the agency’s interesting projects now is Likari.net.ua, which grew from a volunteer initiative where doctors could provide consultations to everyone who registered on the site to an online service that already has thousands of active users and hundreds of doctors assisting.

Verlox Branding Agency

A branding agency

“On the first day of the full-scale war on February 24, the team and I were in contact in our chat, but before work there was an opportunity to join, neither physically nor morally, – recalls Mykyta Zakrevskyi, creative director and founder of Verlox Branding Agency. – Those who wanted and had the opportunity left for a safer place.”

Today, the number of people in the agency has not changed, nor have significant changes occurred in the structure or processes. The work of the agency is conducted remotely. Although most of the team remained in place from the beginning, there is no shelter in the office, so even in Dnipro, work is done at a distance. Everyone who went abroad has already returned. “We have joint chats, video conferences, so this is a very convenient work format for us,” says Nikita.

The agency still works with both local and foreign businesses. There were no significant changes. Nikita recalls how foreign clients in the first week of the war sent words of support and asked how they could help.

Odesa

Business in Odessa is recovering. Of course, certain companies or creative agencies are on hiatus, and those that have closed altogether. But the companies of the region demonstrate viability, desire to work, and create working cities. Thanks to the Armed Forces, Odesa has become more or less safe. So the indicator of working companies will only grow.

VRK includes one agency from Odesa, so this is a story about it.

Inweb 

A digital marketing agency

Oleksiy Mamontov, CEO of Inweb, remembers the beginning: “Almost all Ukrainian projects were put on hold, the client portfolio was reduced by 85%, the team was in completely different cities — some immediately fell into an occupation (colleagues from Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Kharkiv regions work for us), some left the country, some stayed in Ukraine, but due to their psychological state could only ignore the news.”

First, they reduced the costs of rent, office, and paid services, lowered the salaries of top management, and stopped investment projects. But, unfortunately, the war dragged on, so in April the agency had to make a difficult decision and cut 40% of its staff. Today, 25% of these people are working in the team again – the agency has returned them. Additionally, between May and September, the agency opened entirely new positions and welcomed new team members. Moreover, some of them are immediately remote, that is, they have been working from other cities since the very beginning of their work at Inweb.

Today, the agency’s office is open and working. Ever since the pandemic, employees have been choosing their place to work. Most of the team is now in Odesa, about 30-40% of this part of the team goes to the office. Some of them work remotely from different parts of the country, and some of the girls remain abroad. Two colleagues immigrated to Canada with their families.

Before the war, 90+% of the agency’s clients were from Ukraine. Of course, Inweb felt very much the economic downturn that occurred after February 24th. Today, more than 60% of the projects have returned to the agency. “This is a lot, and we are very grateful for the high level of trust even in such difficult times,” says Oleksii. At the same time, about 10% of applications from businesses are from the Odesa region.

In March-April, together with Netpeak Group (IT holding, which includes Inweb), the agency began to take steps towards entering Western markets (USA, Europe, Canada, etc.). A separate team was even formed, which would deal only with the direction of foreign clients and expand the presence in the West. But when Ukrainian clients began to return, resources were directed to them. Now the agency is looking for people for the “western team” and plans to further develop this direction.

Oleksiy Mamontov states: “Now – at the beginning of September – I can confidently say that the changes that took place in Inweb have strengthened the team even more, showed our customers our value even more and I hope that the Armed Forces will help because we are on the economic front – we are working, we will donate, pay salaries and taxes.”

He decided not to single out a specific client or project on which the agency is working during the war but said that the agency, together with the My City platform, is conducting a collection for the staffing of the soldiers of the radio technical intelligence unit, where a colleague from Inweb services, who from the first day joined the ranks of the Armed Forces.

Oleksiy also calls on the advertising community to cooperate to be useful to each other, support information, organize joint projects, and become partners (Inweb, by the way, has the Inweb Partners Family partner program).

Therefore, the VRK joins the call to work and cooperate with creative agencies as much as possible to be a reliable rear of the Armed Forces and bring victory closer every day.

ABOUT THE FUTURE

The All-Ukrainian Advertising Coalition reached out to all creative agencies to gather insights on the future and what steps is important today to shape it. It turned out that it doesn’t matter what region you are from, the opinions and conclusions of advertisers coincide. In general, it looks like this:

• Diversification and complex, long-term projects are important for creative agencies to successfully overcome the crisis.
• The team is the main value, so agencies put a lot of effort into its preservation, safety, and well-being.
• The increase in the self-awareness of the Ukrainian citizens should also increase the confidence in their Ukrainian producers after the war.
• The level of Ukrainian specialists and competencies are competitive in international markets, so it is quite possible to show the world not only the strength of Ukrainians but also their competence.
• Ukrainian creative agencies are starting to gain more recognition on the global stage. So now is the time for expansion and global change.
• It is necessary to further develop the creative agencies industry in Ukraine and not stop there. We Ukrainians are extremely talented.
• The main thing is not to stop. To work, not to relax in any way. Creative agencies make a significant contribution to the economy. The Armed Forces are doing their job. Daily. At the cost of their lives. They allow us to do what we know how to do. To be the rear.

So let’s unite and work towards victory!