The Russian Creative Week wraps up on August 29. A discussion called “The advertising industry as a driver for the development of a post-Covid economy” was held at the “New Media” pavilion, which Gazprom-Media Holding curates. Svetlana Fefilova, deputy CEO of Gazprom-Media Holding, took part in the discussion.
One of the topics discussed was the importance of creativity in the advertising industry. The event participants also discussed the state of the advertising market during the pandemic, what opportunities and trends the companies can expect in the new reality, and how traditional media have transformed in the context of widespread digitalisation.
In her presentation, Svetlana Fefilova noted that advertising acts as a “barometer” for economic processes taking place within a business. She also identified the trends seen on the advertising market over the past six years.
“In 2014, the market of TV advertising was around 45% in terms of money, while online advertising was 27%. Now online accounts for 52%, while the TV advertising market has fluctuated around 34-36% over the past three years. Here the situation is stable. Radio, outdoor advertising and print press are at 2% for each segment. In 2021, we expect that TV advertising will grow proportionally to the overall advertising market, and that the market segment shares will not see major changes. The deals between advertisers and television are traditionally long, made a year in advance. As such, in the spring of the pandemic year many advertisers moved their budgets to the fall, so the TV market did not have big losses over the whole year. There is another trend, which is not related to the pandemic - advertisements of financial services is a category that is showing steady growth. It seems that the Covid-19 situation sped up growth in the “Online shopping” and “Food” categories. Moreover, as they allocated their advertising budgets, large companies showed that they have had enough “putting all only into digital and performance”. Now it is important for them to go to broad media, and that is still television,” Svetlana Fefilova told the discussion participants.
She also stressed that for Gazprom-Media Holding “creativity and advertising is a business”.
“Our Holding has a huge pool of creatives and the programming on our channels is almost 100% our own content. Our business is the business of people! We sell what our artists produce, and this is some of the most in-demand content in Russia and abroad. It is bought not only for distribution, but also for adaptation. What’s more, our projects are in demand on the global streaming services. For example, Pereval Dyatlova (Dead Mountain: The Dyatlov Pass Incident) was sold to HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video bought Mylodrama (Soap Opera), and Epidemiya (To the Lake) had a successful run on Netflix,” Svetlana Fefilova said.
Svetlana Fefilova added that Gazprom-Media Holding has also had success in making creative advertising.
“Our colleagues at the Sales House always tell us that “we make ads delicious”. And here is the proof: Our Holding receives more than 40% of its budgets from the sponsorship advertising market.”
