Yandex Maps
СМО: Yulia Farber
Head of Brand Marketing: Egor Kozhedub
Marketing Lead: Olga Elizarova
Strategist: Yulia Chmyr
PR: Lidia Chernosvitova, Liliya Kolosova
Head of in-house creative studio: Zhenia Zakhodiakina
Producer: Maria Zhukova
Video Production: Maryia Syrakvash
Creative Director: Alexander Orekhov
Art Director: Tatyana Vasilyeva
Head of Copywriting: Anna Ambartsumyan
Design: Michael Schoettler, Mereke Atrauov
How can a foreign brand like Yandex Maps win the love of local users? This was the challenge we aimed to tackle by releasing a set of unique navigation icons featuring an animated horse, designed specifically for Kazakhstan. We knew we had to approach the promotion carefully. A major Russian IT brand using local imagery in its advertising could easily spark mixed reactions. So, we launched a funny, non-branded video of a horse parking in reverse, which looked like user-generated content. The video went viral and sparked a heated discussion on social media. As the buzz and positive sentiments around the video peaked, we revealed both the brand and the feature in a follow-up video. The campaign was a resounding success, generating over 4.1 million views and more than 360,000 downloads.