Awards International — 2025 /
MARKETING /
Marketing Effectiveness
Agency
TOBEDONE
Client
OLX Ukraine
Description
The Challenge: A Market on the Brink of Collapse
Following the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine's economy was devastated. Micro-businesses, the lifeblood of the nation, froze. For OLX, the impact was catastrophic: in key business verticals, activity collapsed by up to 95%
We faced two critical problems:
A Business Problem: Our revenue and number of active sellers were in freefall.
A Perception Problem: entrepreneurs saw OLX as a "second-hand flea market," not a serious platform to launch or restart a business in wartime. This perception was our single biggest barrier to recovery.
The Objectives: From Survival to Revival
Our goal was not just to survive, but to reverse the trend and fuel economic recovery. We set clear, ambitious objectives:
Business Objective: Achieve +15% YoY growth in both Revenue and Daily Active Listers (DAL).
Marketing Objective: Establish OLX as a credible business tool by increasing unique visitors to our business hub by +50%.
Communications Objective: Achieve mass awareness of our new positioning with a media reach of 88% (1+).
The Strategy: From Flea Market to Economic Engine
To solve our perception problem and drive business results, we needed to fundamentally shift our role in the market.
The Insight: In a time of crisis, aspiring entrepreneurs don't need get-rich-quick promises. They need a simple, reliable, all-in-one tool that removes barriers like paperwork and upfront costs.
The Strategic Shift: We repositioned OLX from a simple C2C marketplace to an essential B2C "turnkey solution" for starting a business.
The Big Idea: We launched a new brand platform, "OLX. Where Business Begins," designed to empower any Ukrainian to turn their talent into income.
The Execution: Creativity Engineered for Maximum Impact
Our execution was designed not just to be creative, but to be ruthlessly effective in achieving our objectives.
Relatable heroes to lower barriers: Instead of abstract success stories, we featured three relatable makers (a dressmaker, a carpenter, a jam-maker). This human-centric approach made the intimidating prospect of starting a business feel achievable, directly encouraging new users to try.
Cinematic Craft to Build Trust: The high-quality, cinematic execution was a strategic tool to fight the "flea market" perception. It visually positioned OLX as a professional, trustworthy platform, making our B2B proposition credible.
Interlinked stories to prove the concept: The campaign's masterstroke was subtly interlinking the heroes — showing them buying from each other. This wasn't just a clever creative device; it was a powerful visual demonstration of the economic ecosystem OLX creates. It proved our strategic point in a way no slogan ever could.
A Full-Funnel Approach: TV and Radio delivered mass reach to build awareness, while a new "OLX Business Hub" served as a powerful conversion tool, providing tutorials and support to turn interested viewers into active sellers.
The Results: shattering every objective
The "Where Business Begins" platform didn't just meet our goals, it rebooted commerce in a war-shocked market and delivered spectacular results.
Business objective: SMASHED
Revenue grew by +54% vs. a +15% goal (Exceeding the target by 260%). Daily Active Listers grew by +26% vs. a +15% goal.
Marketing Objective: OBLITERATED
Unique visitors to the Business Hub surged by +258% vs. a +50% goal (Exceeding the target by over 400%).
Communication & Efficiency: ACHIEVED & EXCEEDED
Cross-media reach hit 89%, achieving our awareness goal.
Digital ad recall was +74% higher than the benchmark, proving the creative was highly effective and memorable.
Media was highly efficient, with CPM -13% below plan.
Conclusion: In the toughest of times, our strategy turned hope into hard cash for over 100,000 entrepreneurs. We proved that creativity, when laser-focused on solving a core business problem, can deliver a massive, measurable business impact on a national scale.
Sources: OLX internal data, SimilarWeb, OLX BI data
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