It’s been almost a year and a half since Russia invaded Ukraine, bringing heartbreaking loss and destruction across the country.
We saw immediate reactions from within our industry, with a number of agencies and brands pulling out of Russia. But we’ve also seen pullbacks in ad spending in Ukraine, depriving media companies of ad revenues. This, alongside the disruption to day-to-day business caused by the war, has hit Ukraine’s ad industry hard.
In this context, IAB Ukraine is working hard to maintain some semblance of normality within the industry. “Despite the air raids, bombs and rockets, and electricity blackouts, we’re trying to keep doing our routine projects, like market volume estimations, digital agencies, and programmatic white papers,” said Anastasiya Baydachenko, Chief Executive Officer of IAB Ukraine. “These are islands of stability that keep our industry working like normal, rather than operating in alert mode.” IAB Ukraine has also played a big role in coordinating communications campaigns with the state, helping to spread vital messaging relating to the war.
For those of us working in media and advertising, Baydachenko says there are three major ways we can help.
The first is to donate to Ukraine’s United24 platform, a project launched by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Once the war began, a lot of charities and initiatives were launched to provide support for Ukraine. But this has raised a lot of questions from those who want to help out about which of these are most effective to donate to, and what sorts of support they actually provide.
United24 lets donors choose which projects to support, focussing on five key areas: defence, meeting humanitarian needs, providing medical aid, rebuilding Ukraine, and education and science.”For me, the fact that our president was one of the initiators of this programme means it’s trustworthy and reliable for those who donate,” said Baydachenko.
The second way that brands and agencies in particular can help is to keep on spending on ad campaigns in Ukraine, thereby supporting media businesses which are reliant on ad revenues.
“Ad revenues for television have been low, it’s lost about 70-75 percent of its volume compared with before the war,” said Baydachenko. “Digital has been better, but it’s still lost about 50 percent. Digital has always seen a lot of growth before the war, I can’t remember a time when budgets declined before the war.”
“The war has obviously been a risk factor, so a lot of multinational advertisers stopped running ad campaigns in Ukraine,” she said. “Some of them have come back but with lower budgets, but some are still pausing their spending.”
Baydachenko said she understands that a lot of these companies have policies which dictate that they don’t run campaigns in countries hit by war, and some might question whether there’s any point in running ad campaigns given the war. “But Ukraine is a large country,” said Baydachencko. “And despite the daily rocket attacks, people are still going our and buying goods and services, which means advertising is still very important.” She pointed to a survey from Google and Kantar, which found that around 87 percent of Ukrainians say the country still needs advertising.
“So my message to advertisers is: come back! Not just because the industry needs money, but because audiences still need information about goods and services,” said Baydachenko. “People are still shopping, they’re still deciding what to buy, so we need advertisers to come back!”
The third way that brands and agencies can lend their support is by getting involved with IAB Ukraine. “It’s very useful to us for any businesses which are involved in digital advertising in Ukraine to be part of IAB Ukraine,” said Baydachenko.
As mentioned earlier, IAB Ukraine is still running its regular projects, while also providing support to the industry through communication with the state. “The global digital industry hasn’t stopped, and we should be integrated into all these global projects and processes,” said Baydachenko. “So if a business is related to the digital industry, or an advertiser spends a share of their budget on digital advertising, it will be very useful for them to get involved with IAB Ukraine.”
Anastasiya record the above video for VideoWeek’s event ‘How Can Media and Advertising Help Ukraine’, taking place at the VideoWeek Villa in Cannes on June 20th, 2023.
