7 months for creative industries. Is there a limit to sustainability

The full-scale invasion affected absolutely all spheres of Ukrainian life, and literally everyone was faced with the question ‘what happens next on 24 February?’. The property of ‘row as long as you can, and then as long as you need to’ was more relevant than ever and helped businesses survive the first few months.

For the advertising and creative industries, which were mainly focused on the Ukrainian market, the last six months were a marathon for survival. According to the UCC survey, 81% of companies saw their order volumes fall, and 24% of employees lost their jobs. Olena Kosar, head of CF.Digital agency, shared her thoughts on the future of the market and the specifics of working during the war with MMR.

‘As early as 9am on 24 February, clients' advertising campaigns were switched off to save budgets, most projects were stopped (openly and secretly), and February-March for our agency, like for most, was a period of silence and uncertainty.

The first thing clients did was cut costs, including our services. Of course, we also had to cut back and switch to ‘energy saving’ mode, and we used the free time to launch and support social and government projects on a voluntary basis. This allowed us to preserve not only our team but also our mental health during the first, most difficult months of the war.

Since April 2022, most clients have gradually resumed work on projects, but the approach to interacting with agencies has undergone some transformations, which we have experienced firsthand.

• The result here and now

The majority of existing and new clients are looking for minimum costs and fastest possible results. Some of them have moved to faster and more budget-friendly services or those that give measurable profit in a short time.

Case study: before the war, we started working on a brand strategy for a company selling premium sleep products, but now we have shifted the vector of work towards promotion and sales - in less than a week, we changed the website design, optimised its structure and launched advertising.

The result: the percentage of sales increased by 63%.

In general, clients now want quick results - both in website development and promotion. Our speciality has always been custom, multifunctional, non-standard websites, but now we also work with off-the-shelf solutions, such as Webflow. They allow us to fulfil our client's tasks in a shorter time and at a lower cost, and we can pay more attention to the promotion strategy, creative component and design.            

• Medium and small businesses come to life faster

A large business is like a cumbersome flywheel that is very difficult to stop and even harder to restart. We have seen this for ourselves, as our target audience was mainly large clients. Instead, small and medium-sized businesses have shown their power and perseverance. While the mastodons of the market have put marketing and work on hold, their younger competitors are actively carving out a niche. Local brands are actively displacing national market leaders.

Case study. One of our clients, which sells vision products, not only continued cooperation on pre-war projects, but also initiated the launch of new areas of cooperation, such as SERM, video production, and website improvement. In addition, it increased the coverage of offline outlets in Ukraine. And this was at a time when competitors who held the lead in this niche were closing stores and stopping all marketing activities.

The result. Over the past 3 months, the website's sales have increased by 51%.

• Cryptocurrency is one of the most active niches

Among the clients who did not stop working, but rather expanded their cooperation with us, was the cryptocurrency business. Thanks to our cooperation with them, we have strengthened our knowledge and competence in modern types of investments that are now in great demand. This helped us to implement not only cryptocurrency business projects but also our own charity NFT project.

Case study. For our client's cryptocurrency platform, we have developed a system that independently calculates and automatically distributes dividend payments to clients who use the platform. The work on this project was fraught with a number of challenges, as it required an understanding of the business processes of the cryptocurrency niche.

The result. Our client received an automated system that significantly strengthened his business and added convenience to all users of the platform (by the way, such functionality is not available to all users even on the largest crypto platforms). Immersion in this topic allowed us to develop expertise in related areas and eventually launch our own charity NFT project.

• Communication comes first

The events of the past six months have taught us to value communication and contact with society even more, and this has also affected our relationships with clients. Once again, I am convinced that faceless sales do not work, but expert advice, recommendations, timely answers to questions, and constant updates on the status of projects are the approach that makes clients choose us again and again.

By investing time and money in the project now, the client wants to get as much information as possible at all stages of its implementation. Therefore, in the current situation, customer focus should be not only in advertising messages, but also in real communication with the client.

Along with the victories on the frontline, Ukrainian business is also gaining momentum. However, for agencies that focused on working with Ukrainian clients, it will take more than a year to restore their pre-war workload. We, like many of our colleagues, have taken an active course to expand our European and American client base. So far, the main challenge in working with them is not communication barriers, but different visions and attitudes towards the organisation of banking.

Along with the victories at the front, Ukrainian business is also gaining momentum. However, for agencies that focused on working with Ukrainian clients, it will take more than a year to restore their pre-war workload. We, like many of our colleagues, have taken an active course to expand our European and American client base. So far, the main challenge in working with them is not communication barriers, but different visions and attitudes to the organisation of business processes. From our experience, it seems that business in Ukraine is conducted more dynamically, responsibly and ethically, even during the war.

We also do not work with projects whose values we do not share or which go against our values. And even the war did not change this.

Our team - we have kept it together and we are very proud of it.

We are just as ready for challenging projects. Now they not only drive us, but also distract us from the sirens and news.