How Russian invasion reshaped advertising market for Ukraine’s digital news outlets

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been an existential crisis for the Ukrainian media sector, in large part because the advertising market almost fully collapsed at the beginning of the all-out war.

As the economic situation stabilised, advertising in Ukraine has seen some signs of revival. Still, the situation remains difficult. In 2022 the advertising market dropped by two-thirds, a study by the All-Ukrainian Advertising Coalition points out.

Major news outlets have been forced to retrain their sales teams into becoming fundraising specialists. The Village Ukraine, a city online newspaper focused on covering Kyiv, boasted a 100% advertising-based monetisation model before the full-scale war, but today 80% of its revenue comes from grants, co-founder Mykola Balaban told The Fix.

A year and a half into the war, how has the conflict impacted advertising for Ukraine’s digital news publishers? Here’s a quick look, based on The Fix’s interview with Balaban and Maryana Martynova, Chief Operating Officer of The Tellers Agency.

Clients’ profiles changed. The war has changed who has the money and is willing to spend it on advertising. Martynova says The Tellers Agency, whose mission is to support independent Ukrainian media outlets, is working a lot with “foundations, NGOs, and donor organisations who have advertising budgets and who are supporting Ukraine”, such as UN Women or East Europe Foundation. “Mostly, they are interested in socially responsible advertising”.

Another category of clients is those whose businesses haven’t been directly affected by the war – such as IT companies or financial tech firms. (TV market’s initial revival has been primarily driven by pharmaceutical companies, Forbes Ukraine reported last year. A few months into the all-out war, major Ukrainian pharmaceutical company Darnitsa emerged as the biggest TV advertiser).

Ethical questions grew more important. During the war, audiences have become more attuned to the reputations of advertisers. The biggest red flag would be a brand’s connections with Russia – both The Village Ukraine and The Tellers Agency say that not working with companies that operate in Russia are among their most important rules. 

More broadly, the war has changed the content of advertising campaigns. Two years ago, it was exciting to implement creative interactive projects with custom layouts and effects. “Now your project needs to contain meaningful content, influence something, and not just be beautiful and interactive”, Martynova told The Fix.

Working practices evolved in wartime conditions. For almost 18 months, Ukrainians have been living under regular rocket attacks; at one point power outages caused by Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure were commonplace. This has prompted working ethics to evolve.

Martynova says that recognizing and respecting the personal and professional pressures that clients may be under due to the war is an important part of her organisation’s work. She and her colleagues are more patient and have reevaluated traditional short-term effectiveness metrics, understanding that success may come later. Balaban points out that there’s more trust and sincerity in cooperation with commercial partners.

Source of the cover photo: courtesy of The Tellers Agency

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