The following article is from Adweek’s special issue “On Ukraine, by Ukrainians,” published April 25, 2022, and created entirely by Ukrainian writers, editors and artists amid the ongoing all-out war in their homeland.
Ukrainian creatives joke that the author of the legendary phrase “russian warship, go f*ck yourself” should win a golden award at an ad festival. Being coined by Roman Hrybov, the Ukrainian state border guard of Zmiinyi Island, on the first day of the russian full-scale invasion, it became the main slogan of the Ukrainian resistance and appeared on hundreds of posters and billboards.
Most of the artworks created in the first weeks of the war were reactions to actual events. The reality produced plots that were hard to make up: a tractor towing an abandoned russian tank; AFU soldiers dancing to techno; a woman who offered the invaders sunflower seeds to put in their pockets so that plants would grow after their death.
In a single day, thousands of creatives turned into creative partisans and united into a consolidated informational front. Coordination began through groups in messenger apps, with more than 38,000 professionals gathered in one of them. Some creatives have defended the Ukrainian media space by encouraging motivational videos. Others have been making banners for russian websites to convey the truth about the war.
“There is a team we jokingly call Banda Black, because some of our creatives aimed to get russians to question the truth of their TV,” tells Pasha Vrzheshch, a сo-founder of Banda agency. “As we tracked the results, we read how russian authorities had denied our messages. They said the U.S. intelligence was behind it. But there are no secret services—just Ukrainian copywriters and designers who sit in bomb shelters.”
Every act matters: prevent WW3
“It’s the most important brief ever.” This is how Ukrainian creatives describe a project launched on the first day of the war. The Brief has a strict goal—encouraging colleagues worldwide to prevent World War III.
Client: Ukraine. Goal: To stop russia’s war against Ukraine and prevent WW3. There are objectives, background, suggested messages—everything found in ordinary briefs. However, as the authors point out, there is a difference: Your work may not win Cannes, but it will help save millions of lives.
“The information battlefield is crucial for the modern world. It has no borders, so the war of russia against Ukraine has gone far beyond the country,” says Viktor Shkurba, founder and creative director of [isdgroup], one of the agencies behind The Brief. “Creatives are the main forces in this field. Ukraine is already skillfully attacking the information space, using creativity as the main tool to deliver the truth. But to win, we need to multiply our forces. With The Brief, we wanted to inspire creatives worldwide to use their talent for making campaigns with visible ‘positive change.’”
Within a month, the team received a hundred emails. One such idea was implemented in Milwaukee after Courtney Calvert from MullenLowe U.S. responded to the call. She asked if Ukrainian creatives could help with the message for a donated billboard space they had in town.
Coincidentally, Milwaukee happened to be the sister city of Irpin, a town near Kyiv that russia almost destroyed at the time. “Milwaukee, your sister city, is waiting for help. (Irpin, Ukraine)” they wrote on the billboard. Soon, billboard owners in the U.S. and Europe kept contacting Ukrainian creatives to support the campaign.
“We realized we could inspire other sister cities to help Ukrainian towns. Mariupol, by the way, is similar in population to Miami. This story is an important example of how one creative can make a significant impact. What if thousands of creatives around the world helped? Every action for Ukraine matters,” says Shkurba.
Bravery as the Ukrainian DNA
After launching about 50 small campaigns in the first few weeks of the war, Banda leaders realized they needed a more systemic approach. Together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, they developed a large-scale campaign about the bravery of the Ukrainian nation.
“The world is getting tired of Ukrainian photos with refugees and blown-up houses. But there is the other side of the war. The Ukrainian military and civilians happened to be extremely brave,” explains Vrzheshch. “It struck everyone. Our army is defending the world against russia, and despite all the predictions about Ukraine falling in three days. Bravery is a Ukrainian superpower and we need to stake it out. We want the world to say ‘brave as a Ukrainian.’”
A video of a woman shooting down enemy drones with a can of tomatoes got more popular than a video of children under rubble. People want stories of bravery and love—that’s how communications work.
—Liubov Tsybulska, founder, Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security
Liubov Tsybulska, founder of the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, agrees. “It’s a mixture of fantastic heroism and humor. The content about our military is already tearing up social media because—it turns out—we are extremely self-ironic.”
“A video of a woman shooting down enemy drones with a can of tomatoes got more popular than a video of children under rubble. People want stories of bravery and love—that’s how communications work. On the bright side, Ukraine itself now needs a brave narrative, because if you broadcast only stories of suffering, we will lose our fighting spirit,” she says.
Win the war, not awards
“We have the example of Syria, which was all over the pages for a month and then just suddenly disappeared. It’s important for us not to repeat that,” says Yaroslava Gres, co-founder of Gres Todorchuk, a PR and communications agency.
At the end of March, she hosted a rally in Warsaw, the photos of which swept the top media outlets. Gres asked 4,500 people to lie down in front of the Drama Theater to visualize the actual number of deaths in Ukraine and show a full scale of the tragedy. “A different type of expression” that “gives people an emotion to feel through,” she calls it.
“This is the agency’s first campaign we developed without our creative director, Sasha Todorchuk. He took the oath in the AFU,” says Yaroslava. “However, the Fedoriv agency’s team picked it up. Now is not the time for credits.”
“We need to win the war, not awards,” the team that developed The Brief writes. The creative market in Ukraine now is like a single agency working on one project. Some are creative partisans, others are official information soldiers. But they are all unanimous that it will be essential to keep this creative enthusiasm after the war. And, most importantly, to preserve the narrative of a bold and free Ukraine with a clear cultural commonality with the West.
“From now on, the brand of Ukraine will have a ‘Bravery’ mark on its chest. Ukrainian companies will proudly show their roots,” says Vrzheshch. “After the war, it will help us rebuild and develop our economy faster. If you choose bravery, then you live again.”
This story first appeared in the April 25, 2022, special issue of Adweek magazine, created entirely by Ukrainian writers, editors and artists.
