Title	NOT JUST KVASS
Brand	PEPSICO
Product/Service	RUSSY DAR
Category	G05. Cultural Insight
Entrant	PEPSICO Reading, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	OMD OM Moscow, RUSSIA
Media Placement	OMD OM Moscow, RUSSIA

Name	Company	Position
Anna Fedorinova	Pepsico	Marketing
Anastasia Ilina	Pepsico	Marketing
Natalia Netbay	Pepsico	Marketing
Yulia Kravchuk	Pepsico	Marketing
Andrey Novikov	Affect (Creative Agency)	Creative
Ilya Korneеv	Affect	Creative
Galina Shubik	Affect	Client services
Alena Kovalchuk	Affect	Strategy
Maria Generozova	Affect	Strategy
Maria Chaklina	Affect	Creative
Maria Golub	Affect	Creative
Maria Romashova	Affect	Copywriting
Alexander Vlasov	Affect	Design
Ekaterina Kharushina	Affect	Design
Nina Sharutina	Affect	Marketing
Diana Tugucheva	Affect	PR
Anastasia Komissarova	Affect	Marketing
Elena Startseva	Affect	Account management
Victoria Lim	Affect	Account management
Maria Prokopenko	Affect	Account management

Why is this work relevant for Media?

Russkiy Dar is a kvass - traditional and beloved slavic non-alcoholic beverage made from rye bread, which is very refreshing during the hot summer season. However, consumers tend to pass on Kvass in favour of other soft drinks due to its’ perception as something not trendy enough to drink. Our goal was to change the brand’s perception which craved a massive awareness campaign - but for a traditional local brand with a limited budget it’s almost impossible. Nevertheless, through our “Russkiy Dar. Fairytale-like tasty” campaign, we managed to reach the consumer by using different and relevant media channels.

Background

Situation: Kvass is a very traditional Russian drink and Russkiy Dar is a brand №2 on the Russian market. Almost the entire category plays on the territory of Russian traditions in communication as well as in design - and Russkiy Dar isn’t an exception, which causes high competitors' pressure. The brand is perceived as old-fashioned and outdated by younger consumers which results in decline of reach. Brief: our challenge was to attract the younger audience by changing their perception of Russkiy Dar as an old-fashioned brand towards trendy one but keeping brand’s authenticity. Our objective was: to reach the younger audience (18-24 y.o.) through building an outreach advertising campaign for a local brand with limited budget. to differentiate from other brands on the shelf by showing that kvass can be trendy and modern and at the same time not to lose its Russian authenticity and integrity.

Describe the creative idea / insights (30% of vote)

Russkyi Dar. Fairytale-like tasty. Fairy tales are full of familiar cultural codes for older and younger audiences in Russia and part of history/culture that Russians are really proud of. We know that fairy tales have archetypal plots and can be relevant at any time if you change the setting. We developed a limited collection of Russkiy Dar kvass with traditional Russian fairy tale characters with the insights as if they lived in 2021 (micro insights of our audience). It allowed us to make more personal targeting according to interests. “And on weekends I am Sleeping Beauty”
 “Words cannot describe it, Stories cannot show it” “And they lived happily ever after, until the next series”
 We put fairy-tale illustrated characters in photo-realistic settings of the modern world. Real people in fairy-tale illustrations.
Every consumer could become a hero of his personal classic Russian fairy tale with modern occasions using digital instruments.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Core brand consumers are people aged 25-35, but we decided to reach a younger audience 18-24 y.o. How to attract them? We know they choose brands which support their lifestyle and use personalized communication. So our strategy was to make trendy (and at the same time authentic) personalized communication that our new audience could relate to. To find balance between traditions (brand DNA) and trends we went into the territory of classic Russian fairy tales, but with a modern twist. We used 8 different occasions based on audience micro insights they face on a daily basis - like sleeping all weekend long because you’re tired or ordering food delivery because you don’t want to spend time on cooking. Using these occasions we created 8 different visual assets that helped the brand keep its traditional authenticity yet at the same time attract the younger audience at multiple touchpoints.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

May-September - the most popular season for drinking kvass. The whole campaign was a national promo (NCP): We placed classic fairytale characters in the realms of present reality picturing them on single serve size bottles with QR code leading to a landing page, ex: 'And on weekends I am Sleeping Beauty'. We created a landing page with a “fortune-telling” mechanic, using fairytale quotes and giving them that modern twist. We’ve also partnered with an online bookstore “Litres” to give our consumers an opportunity to get a book as a guaranteed prize for purchase. We made SMM creatives and supported them via owned & paid social media (banners in display - 20.9M reach plan, promo posts - 17.2M reach plan). We used bloggers support with bloggers impersonating fairytale characters (branded Instagram photo posts). Partnered with e-commerce retailer Sbermarket and made a landing page for the extra boost in e- commerce sales.

List the results (30% of vote)

Website KPI’s Traffic: 93k users, 10 090 of them used QR code, which is above benchmarks even though we used QR code without clear CTA. Average time spent on the site - 27 sec; 56% converted to “get a prize” and 43% converted to “get a new prediction” part. Digital KPI’s Display: +3% impressions (76M fact vs 74M plan), +90% clicks (130k fact vs 68k plan), +30% reach (27M fact vs 20M plan) Paid social: +2% impressions (69M fact vs 67M plan), +38% clicks (32k fact vs 23k plan), +13% reach (19M fact vs 17M plan) Bloggers: +78% reach (2.5M fact vs 1.4M plan), average ER = 7,7%

Please tell us about the cultural insight that inspired the work

Among all Russian traditions, traditional fairy tales have a special place in our culture. Every generation knows them by heart as they're the fairy tales we used to be told by our mothers before going to bed, fairy tale characters are the protagonists of any Russian children's book and cartoon, and fairy tales are also the first thing we learn to read. In most Russian fairytales there will be a character that drinks kvass. So we combined two Russian traditions – the traditional drink kvass with Russia’s favorite fairytales.