Last month's ice sculpture exhibition in Kyiv was not only one of this year's entertainment highlights, but also an advertising coup for Procter & Gamble and the ad agency that organized the event – Adell Saatchi & Saatchi.
The agency won a tender to promote a new P&G product – Pantene Clarifying Shampoo – in November last year, and after a bit of clear thinking, came up with the promotional event.
'Procter & Gamble was relying heavily on word-of-mouth advertising, and the agency wanted to organize a special, extraordinary event that would attract crowds of people,' said Andrew Fedorov, Adell Saatchi & Saatchi's new business director.
Judging by the crowds that thronged around the ice-sculpted artworks, and the copious coverage of the event in the Kyiv press and television news, the agency achieved its goal.
According to Tatyana Mescheryakova, Adell Saatchi & Saatchi copywriter, the event received substantial free media coverage and the attendance rates were between 500 and 1,000 people per hour.
'The people's response was way beyond our expectations,' said Andy Peterson, marketing manager at Procter & Gamble. 'However, it is too early to speak about sales results at present.'
Nevertheless, some industry insiders said that brand awareness was not strongly emphasized at the exhibition, and some attendees came away from the event without even realizing it was held to promote a product.
In fact, the exhibition was a joint promotion also involving Altcest Instrument, which provided the ice-cutting tools, and Europe Plus, the event's information sponsor and provider of musical entertainment for the crowd.
Putting the event together also demanded skills and patience comparable to those of an ice sculptor. The biggest headache was finding supplies of clear ice.
'We even considered the option of importing ice from Moscow,' said Marina Khristosenko, an Adell Saatchi&Saatchi account manager. 'However, I don't think the duty on imported ice is specified in customs regulations, so we scratched that idea and instead extracted the ice from the Kyiv sea.'
However, art consultants for the show were imported from Moscow, where ice sculpture exhibitions are an annual event, to instruct Ukrainian sculptors in the art.
'Kyiv mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko visited the event and promised it would be held on a larger scale the next winter,' Khristosenko said. * * *
Ad professionals can look forward to spring, not only for the return of warmer weather but for the launching of Ad Point, a new internet portal for the ad industry in Ukraine.
The site is to be launched by GNI Ukraine LLC, a Kyiv-based marketing group, together with MyEvents.com and MarketVoyager.com. Its promoters say Ad Point will be the first online advertising portal in the CIS designed specifically for both Ukrainian and international ad professionals.
They promise that Ad Point will provide a wide range of online services for advertising companies with a heavy emphasis on ad industry news, a creative work gallery, and job openings. The site, which will be in Russian, will also carry a message board for industry insiders. Ad Point's promoters hope to create an English version of the site as well.
Ad Point's promoters say the site will give member companies the chance to broadcast their latest news directly to the ad industry community, reducing their spending on offline promotion campaigns. * * *
Euro RSCG Ukraine won the pitch for Papastratos Ukraine's President brand of cigarettes in 2000.
And other good news for the agency is that Interbrew of Belgium, the major investor in Yantar brewery, has renewed its contract with the agency.
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From this year, Provid/BBDO will handle Gillette's account in Ukraine, the company said. The company's ad campaign in Ukraine will start with TV advertising for Gillette's MACH3 razor.
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The ad agency Dialla is organizing a two-day seminar on branding, to be held on March 2-3. For more info, contact Oksana Dobryanska at [email protected].
Olena Nikolayenko can be reached at [email protected]
