“You need to be able to say ‘no’ to a client if you don't understand how to help them.”

- Ukrainian companies win awards at prestigious advertising festivals. Are we a creative nation?

- We have a lot of young creative people. The main task - and I see it as my mission - is to develop them for the Ukrainian market. Many of them are leaving now.

- What is it that has caught your eye?

- I'm not very impressed by creativity: professional deformation... Consumers perceive creativity emotionally, while I look at it through the prism of rationality - whether it solves the client's problem.

- Is the creativity of Ukrainians secondary?

- For business?

-Yes.

“Previously, creativity was for the sake of creativity. It wasn't about conversion.”

- Did you not solve the problem?

- Perhaps it did, but it was not measured so meticulously. Later, it did not transform into a specific strategy that could be measured. Now everyone wants almost sales from creative. Even when a client asks for a campaign to increase awareness, I still hear questions about how long it will take to increase sales.

- The market has matured, and customers have started asking the right questions.

- We understood the metrics for measuring efficiency. In the 1990s, there was a lot of trial and error. Now the Ukrainian market has been structured. Businesses (most, but not 100%) have learned to clearly articulate their expectations. They understand the methodologies and promotion processes.

- My question about whether Ukrainian creativity is secondary was about something else: do we set trends on a global level? Often creatives show clients foreign references...

- No, we don't.

- Do we copy them?

- No, we don't. 

"We have our own good ideas. But the world does not look up to Ukrainian ideas. So far!"

On the other hand, Ukraine has the potential to grow. It is better to ask your colleagues who work abroad about this.

- You told me that there are more creative young people in digital, and those who have been in the business for a long time primarily “take theirs” with vision. Does creativity really have an age distinction? Conditionally, of course.

- No, no. There are just young creatives. It doesn't mean that older professionals are inferior.

- Is there more competition?

- Hardly. On the contrary, clients do not have enough people to work with. The market is growing.

- What solutions are lacking?

- Creative ones. High-quality digital ones.

-What is “game” in creative for you?

- “Game”?

- How native should it be?

- Some people need a little bit of wildness.

“It's bad when creative is just ‘normal’”

It should evoke an emotion. Let them hate it better. Remember the Hercules ice cream commercial with tongues.

- Do you support crossing the “red lines” with both hands?

- No, I have principles. For example, not to do anything that might offend. By gender. By race.

- Sexism too? Like with pagans.

- It's more fan, not sexism. I didn't see sexism in that commercial. I guess it's more my internal measure. I really don't like the use of overtly vulgar or ambiguous approaches.

- It's not often that interesting creative comes along...

- You are right. Sometimes I even come across outright “copypasta”.

- Is “copypasta” completely bad or acceptable? It is unlikely that anyone from the target audience keeps track of ideas from many years ago...

- If you have a great idea, then six other people in the world have come up with it at the same time. Ideas can overlap. It's bad when you copy an American advertisement from 10 years ago and pass it off as an original, fresh, modern analog.

- When Western ideas are processed in Ukraine, it is often served under the sauce of “we want to hype”.

- This is different. The hype is at its peak. You can really benefit if you react quickly.

- Does situational marketing work?

- Yes, it's great in general.

- But doesn't situational marketing require experience and a strong team?

- A bit of luck, first and foremost. Plus, a lot depends on the client. Not everyone can do it. Can you imagine if the client's activity needs to be coordinated with dozens of departments?

- Are you talking about the Ukrainian representative offices of international companies, which are heavily regulated?

- Not necessarily. It depends on how the process is structured.

- In the West, we see great examples of situational marketing. Why do they manage to react quickly?

- For example?

- Oops... I can't remember.

- Some “situational” campaigns are actually well planned.

- That's why the West sets trends.

- You asked what impressed me. The Burger King and McDonald's disputes are not new. Recently, Burger King didn't sell its most popular burger for a day and urged people to go to McDonald's because on the same day, it was charging interest on the same burger to the children's cancer fund. It seemed like situational marketing. But it is clear that the idea was pre-planned.

Or another example: the head of the Daimler concern Dieter Zetsche resigned, after which BMW made a video in which he finally got into their car.

- Is creativity a matter of taste?

- If so, it's terrible. Many business representatives make decisions based on their taste preferences. Often, the fault lies with agencies: they don't tell clients why they need creative.

- I'm sure you've been told a categorical “no!” too.

- Of course. We try to explain that creative... What do you think creative is?

- Are you asking me?

- Yes. What does “creative” mean? When clients say: “We want it creative” - what do they mean?

- Probably, it's about the form and format.

- No more than that. Not the brightest. Not with some new color. Creativity is some other way of solving or conveying information. A set of a large number of options that solve a certain problem. Some other way. If this path is taken by the client, it means that the creative is working.- How many creative options do you often offer to the client?

- 2-3. We come up with a lot of them. The most difficult process is to choose what to show the client.

- Have you learned how to measure the time it takes to create a good idea?

- Of course we have. We have an ERP system in which we track everything, including employee time.

- When a client wants SUPERcreative, does it cost more than just creative?

- It depends on the scale of the work. Roughly speaking, is it a banner or a communication strategy?

- There are no suckers left in the market. And even if there are, there are not many of them...

- What do you mean by “suckers”?

- "Well, this is a very serious creative. It costs much more than this simple idea that other guys offered you."

- The price depends on the scale. Every product and business has some limitations. The more they are, the more creative you are constrained. You need to come up with an idea that will bypass these limitations. Again, the limitations are related to the budget.

- The latter is probably the key.

- You are wrong, it is a misconception. You can create a working creative with a small budget. You just need to spend more time to achieve the goal. And if a business has an unlimited budget... Buy yourself a TV! Just kidding :).

I'll repeat the example: either we make a banner, or we need to be everywhere, like Rozetka. Can you imagine dressing up Rozetka? You need to think about how its creative identity will live everywhere - in different situations. We don't double the cost because the client came in a Rolex.

- If you conditionally define creativity, is it working with myths? Patterns in people's thinking? Their fears?

- Something like that. It's a search for insights. What will resonate with this type of audience the most. It is important to get emotionally involved.

- It often happens that different audiences need to be targeted for the same product. This means that the messages are adjusted.

- They may be different. But you can't let them get out of focus - you can make a mess, and the target audience can overlap.

- I am convinced that it is difficult to compete with creativity. It is important to have an audience or understand where you can get it. The key is to have an audience. What do you think?

- Yes, if you miss it, you can't achieve the intended effect.

- Is the main competence of a digital agency to find a client's audience?

- Let me explain with an example. We were developing a market entry strategy for a real estate agency. The client voiced his target audience, but we doubted the correctness of this hypothesis. At first, we launched a landing page to test whether the client's hypothesis would be confirmed by socio-demographic characteristics. It turned out that the main traffic was generated by women, but they did not perform targeted actions. And vice versa, it turned out that almost 100 percent of the audience using the client's product solution were men. We then built the entire communication strategy with men in mind.

This case brought us the Effie Awords Ukraine award: over the 9 months of the campaign, the client's revenue grew by 340%.

- Have you made adjustments to the client's positioning, changed platforms for communication with the audience?

- We changed the audience and the message.

- You tell the client: “We know where your audience consumes media content.” (Media doesn't matter if it's the media or some other less interesting places on the Internet.)

- Of course, we don't say that right away. We research. We dive into it. And, in fact, the client knows a lot. No matter how good we are at digital, the client knows their business well. Perhaps the most important thing is to ask them a lot of questions.

“It is impossible to build a strategy based on a short brief.”

- How deeply have you segmented UAnet?

- It is constantly changing. I sometimes tell clients that if an agency comes to you that “knows everything,” it's hardly true.

“Even if you know everything today, after a while this ‘everything’ will have a different ratio in different niches.”

That's what digital is all about: constantly adjusting the strategy in accordance with new dimensions and results.

... We read about artificial intelligence plowing through space, and last week I had a client (a clinic) that doesn't use GoogleAnalytics (a basic tool for measuring website traffic - Ed.). “I don't see us on Google” was the main argument that something was not working.

- Do you often recommend business leaders to fire marketers?

- No, I don't. Why?

- If a marketer doesn't use GoogleAnalytics, he is probably not a marketer at all.

- Most often, more questions arise to the agency that (again, most often) outsources the client. Why doesn't it “create” the client?

- So why doesn't it, have you found the answer?

- Not yet in this case (Smiles). We will dig ... Probably, the problem is in communication.

- What is the main channel of audience engagement for you?

- There is no such thing. Each product needs something different.

- Do you also use the media?

- Of course we do. These are primarily PR functions.

- PR?

- Yes. For example, for motorists, we publish articles, reviews, test drives, and reflections (opinions). It's important for us to be omnichannel.

- Who do people trust more: bloggers or the media?

- It depends on the audience you are addressing.

For my 12-year-old son, bloggers are the authorities. I think they are winning the competition in the media for the audience under 20. But TV represents an undisputed authority for 50+. These are just different levels of influence.

- How do you measure the effectiveness of channels? It's clear with contextual advertising - there are clear metrics. But do all online media in Ukraine have deep analytics?

- First of all, we are not a media agency. If we need to connect media, we work with partners. They take on the expertise.

- I was told that Bentley's (your client's) ad was heard on the radio. How can you measure the effectiveness of radio? Do you believe in sociology?

- The case of Das WeltAuto. The Austrian concern Volkswagen is developing a brand for selling used cars. At the first stage, the task was to increase awareness (advertising did not lead to conversion). Before the campaign started, the queries that drove traffic to the website were categorical ("used cars", "buy used..."). Over the last 2 months of the campaign, there has been a shift in the reorientation of queries. Now people search for "das velt auto" on Google - and other productive queries are also generated.

- Branded queries have come in.

- Yes. Because the associative connection we needed began to stick in people's minds.

- Are you talking about the effectiveness of radio now?

- Yes, including. YouTube videos have the same impact. Banner ads are partly responsible for this.

- Bookmakers are especially guilty of this...

- Yes, yes. You don't understand what 1xBet is, but the information is definitely stored in your head. You may never play lotteries in your life. However, the connection will be stored in your head. Reach is important, and reach has been achieved. It works. But still, at the next stages of the campaign, you need to add conversion promotion - something that can transform into specific sales.

- Let's imagine the task: age group 25-34, I want 80% of the audience to meet my brand once a week. Is it realizable?

- Yes, it is. But the question is how we will measure it. You need to define the criteria and establish what it will give you. And then what? What targeted actions should the audience take? I always want to go further.

- What kind of request does the client come with: I have a million hryvnias and I want such indicators, or vice versa - I want such indicators, how much will it cost?

- It's completely different. Someone specifies a goal and says that the money is not limited. We think so, and then it turns out that it is limited (laughs). And someone has a clear request. I like such requests the most. I like to feel that the client is prepared.

- Recently, a reputable media person told me that he doesn't know a single person who reads longreads. The problem is that I create them and try to sell them. Are longreads read?

- Yes, they are. But longread is not equal to longread. Everyone is waiting for a story. A story with emotion. Even a very serious product can be presented in a beautiful format.

- Is the media product shrinking?

- Everything is accelerating.

"I analyzed about 30 of our projects. Over the year, the number of people visiting our sites has almost halved. Even on the same projects. Clip thinking is what they say now.

- Is the “7 seconds” hypothesis still relevant?

- 7?? 2, 3, 7 seconds was probably 5 years ago. So when one client told me today that his site takes two minutes to load ... How is this possible?

- Is the form being shortened or is the semantic load also being simplified?

- Simple words are the way to nowhere. Simplification is one of the links in the lack of critical thinking. I am concerned about the problem of hype. People accept simple things just because they don't want to think deeper. Creators of advertising and content marketing often play along with this.

- True or false: will agencies that can generate leads for clients survive in the market?

- Only those who think critically will survive. Those who question what the client says. And even the tasks they have set. Only through deep immersion in the client's business can you solve their business problems. You see, if you don't immerse yourself in business processes, you can always offer a bright, creative solution. Whether it will be effective is not a fact. You may be lucky. Or maybe not.

- What is your core competence that you sell?

- Creative digital.

- What is it?

- There are two sides of the process: to come up with and to realize. It's good if everything is well organized and the former comes up with ideas and the latter implements them. But there can be discommunication and shifting of responsibility. Who is the good guy if everything went well: the developer of the strategy or the one who implemented it? And if it didn't work out, who is to blame? In our case, there is no one to blame.

- Are you talking about product development and delivery?

- Yes.

- What do you lack?

- We have no media competence.

- You need your own media.

- We are not planning it yet. We also don't have video production, so we work with partners. Basically, we have a niche. I can't say that we do everything. When we need to go “beyond”, we involve partners.

- Why do clients make mistakes with agencies?

- And why do people make mistakes when they get married?

- Love is an emotion.

- So is business.

- I agree. But I'm asking about the market: is it healthy?

- In different ways. Very differently.

- I recently read your colleague's opinion on Facebook: "In Ukraine, an agency doesn't try to work, it tries to please the client. The client does not want results, but wants to buy a lackey. Together they form a market."

- I agree with this 100%. It's natural that agencies often want to be liked.

You need to be able to say no to a client if you don't understand how to help them.

- Are you saying that you often say “no”?

- Of course I do.

- Isn't money the most important thing?

- No, it's not. I say no very often.

The material was published on bykvu.com