Apple is one of the few global corporations whose ups and downs are sure to make you remember its founder. It was Jobs, no doubt, was the one driving force that led the company to success, but even a genius like him had to fail. I wonder what was the fifth year for Apple without its ideologue? the site has prepared a selection of the ups and downs of the company that fell to its lot in the past year.
Achievement: iPhone is still popular
Yes, despite the ongoing criticism from consumers, attempts by competitors to create something breakthrough and derogatory forecasts of analysts, the iPhone remains the best-selling smartphone in the world. In less than 10 years, Apple has more than one billion smartphones. Neither the crowned Nokia nor the ambitious Samsung could achieve similar results. Even the absence of a 3.5 mm jack in the new models failed to influence iPhone sales.
Failure: First drop in operating profit in 15 years
As profitable as the iPhone project may be, its positions, as well as other products of the company, look comparatively worse than a year earlier. This was stated by Tim Cook himself, answering to investors from Wall Street. Even the enormous potential of the Apple Watch was not enough to pull out the profit indicators on itself.
Achievement: Defeat the FBI
Everyone remembers the high-profile San Bernardino case, in which the US Federal Bureau of Investigation required Apple to hack a suspect's iPhone? Then this topic was perhaps the most exciting, occupying the front pages of such eminent publications as The WSJ, New York Times and Forbes. There were rumors that big problems could await Apple, take the side of the special services in court. But, be that as it may, the companies of their clients on the secret of their personal lives.
Failure: tax problems with the European Union
Tax crimes are rightfully one of the heaviest in most Western countries. Having violated the law in the field of taxation at least once, it will not be possible to evade responsibility, it will be very difficult. Especially when it comes to billions. According to the decision of the European Commission, the company from Cupertino to the authorities of Ireland is about 13 billion euros. It seems that even Donald Trump will not be able to save her from payments.
Achievement: Opening the Next Generation Apple Store
Their story begins in 2014, when the post of vice president of the company for retail occupied by the former head of the Burberry fashion house -. It was she who, based on her remarkable experience in retail, together with Jony Ive, was the ideologist of the concept of the updated Apple Store. As of the end of December 2016, no more than 5 such stores were opened around the world, having from the more familiar "apple" retail. Why not an achievement?
Failure: iPhone reliability issues
You have probably already forgotten about the whole heap of problems that thousands of iPhone owners were forced to face, of course, if they themselves did not become their victim. In case you can’t remember anything else but you, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with our materials about “” and “”, which turned devices into “bricks”.
Achievement: iOS 10 success
Whose full-fledged release took place last fall, has become - I'm not afraid of this word - the ideal version of Apple's mobile operating system in recent years. It has become like an outlet after several years of glitches, bugs and system friezes. Even despite the abundance of new features, each of them worked exactly as intended in Cupertino. In short, iOS 10 is the best thing that could happen to the system since iOS 6.
Failure: the new MacBook Pro
The latest 2016 MacBook Pros aren't nearly as attractive as we expected them to be. Last year's "hardware", the complete absence of the usual connectors, problems with autonomy and - the cherry on the cake - a non-luminous apple. These are all new MacBook Pros. It got to the point that even the guys from Consumer Reports, who are known for their loyalty to Apple, recommend them for purchase.
Do you think otherwise? Share your thoughts in the comments.
After spending more than five years and billions of dollars trying to recreate the US-style shale revolution, some of the biggest oil companies are beginning to backtrack on their plans amid falling oil prices.
Recently, companies such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell have scaled back their shale oil exploration activities in Europe, Russia and China.
The reasons for this decision range from Russian sanctions, a ban on hydraulic fracturing in France, poor performance in Poland, to lower oil prices that push the cost of a barrel of shale oil higher than market prices.
Chevron ended its fracking operations in Europe in February when the company pulled out of Romania.
Shell said the company will cut shale oil production costs by 30% in countries such as Turkey, Ukraine and Argentina.
As for Exxon, the company left Poland and Hungary, and fracking in Germany was frozen.
Result: Apart from the US, where hydraulic fracturing technology has led to a real breakthrough in the oil industry, only China, Argentina and Canada have commercial shale oil production, notes the US Energy Information Administration, despite the fact that the US has less than 10% of the estimated reserves shale oil in the world.
According to the IEA, Europe, including Russia, and China have almost three times more reserves than the US.
"Growth rates for shale production outside of North America are much lower than expected," said Simon Henry, Shell's chief financial officer.
A recovery in oil prices could turn things around, giving oil companies more incentive to venture into shale. And, as experts believe, there is still a favorable prospect for the development of shale production outside of North America.
Countries such as Argentina and Algeria, according to Fauzi Alulu, an analyst at the IEA, are in about the same favorable position as the United States.
Two French and one British companies plan to start drilling in the UK, where there is still controversy over the use of hydraulic fracturing and its environmental and health implications.
In Poland small companies, like those that started the US shale boom, continue to drill despite the poor performance of their larger counterparts.
Fracking uses water, sand, and chemicals to fracture a formation to release oil and gas.
Unlike the long-term projects that the world's largest oil companies specialize in, shale wells have a very short lifespan. Therefore, in the production of shale oil, there is a need for constant drilling of new wells.
This technology was good for small mining companies in North America, but oil giants such as Exxon and Shell, where the approval process for drilling takes for a long time, were out of the game.
Knowing that other countries also have shale oil reserves, large companies began to look for where they could profit and join the new trend.
The heads of Eastern European countries, seeking to reduce their dependence on Russian gas, supported energy companies.
Chevron has begun investing in Romania, Lithuania and Poland, which geologists and oil industry experts say are the most attractive in terms of shale development. However, drilling in Poland led to rather disastrous results.
Chevron continued drilling even after the IEA cut estimates of shale gas reserves in Poland by 20% in 2013, and other companies, such as France's Total, admitted defeat.
By 2014, Chevron's position in Eastern Europe was rather dismal. The company left Lithuania last summer. Last fall, the Romanian president said the country did not have as many shale oil and gas reserves as originally thought. And in January, Chevron decided to withdraw from Poland as well.
Shale opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe are significantly lower compared to other projects in Chevron's global portfolio, the company said.
At the same time, the company is still considering the possibility of shale gas production in South Africa.
ConocoPhillips is the only major company still operating in Poland.
Exxon had similar problems in Hungary, from where it left back in 2009, and in Poland, from where it left in 2012.
Exxon's efforts to develop this area in Germany were undermined by the imposition of a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing technology, and Western sanctions imposed on Russia prevented it, as well as other international large companies, to develop shale mining in Russia.
At the moment, according to company representatives, among countries outside North America, Exxon is mining shale in Argentina and Colombia.
One of the problems companies are facing is the high cost of drilling outside the US compared to oil prices, which have fallen sharply in the past six months.
Exploration wells in new areas require exploration. Drilling wells in Poland and China can cost up to $25 million each, while wells in North America average about $5 million, says Melissa Stark, researcher and author of the 2014 shale production report at Accenture LLP.
Shell began discussing shale production with Chinese authorities in 2006, the sources say. At that time, the company was actively looking for shale reserves around the world and signed contracts in Sweden, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine.
The conflict in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia undermined the company's plans to mine in these two countries.
Shell pulled out of Sweden in 2011 after the exploration yielded disappointing results. Shell says that the company is analyzing the results of drilling in Turkey, and is also waiting for information from the South African government about the development of shale projects.
In China, Shell discovered shale gas in 2011. However, problematic geology, infrastructure and protests among the local population led to the fact that the process had to be suspended, company representatives say. Last fall, Shell made the decision to curtail its work there as well.
Melissa Stark of Accenture believes that countries with strong national oil and gas companies, such as China, Argentina and Saudi Arabia, are more likely to lead the development of shale production outside the US.
They have the rights to develop resources within the country, government support and a lot of money. And exactly state companies remain on the market of these countries in the long term, which is why they can invest in long-term projects, she believes.
Starting your own business is a rather serious and risky step. After all, you can be in a good plus, become famous, popular and receive a decent income, or vice versa - you can lose everything and be left with nothing. And maybe so that you reach some success, but due to management errors or banal theft, something will go wrong, or, for example, the tastes of your consumers will change or a financial crisis will break out ...
But still, do not be afraid - the crisis can be survived. Even after bankruptcy, some companies manage to recover - although this, as a rule, requires restructuring the business, reducing the number of employees or cutting salaries.
And there are times when even the most famous and eminent companies fail. For example, after the 2008 crisis, many financial companies. Another reason for the collapse is the rapid development of technology: what was in demand some 20-30 years ago is now outdated.
So, here are the Top 10 Companies That Failed.
1 South Sea Company
An English company called the "South Sea Company" was founded back in 1711, and the direction of its activity was trading in the Spanish part. South America. The shareholders of this company were promised exclusive right for trade in this region, among their buyers there were many noble rich people - such as the writer J. Swift and the scientist I. Newton. Not surprisingly, South Sea Company shares rose in value at first.
But then the price of these papers began to decline, and thousands of ruined people became victims of this financial pyramid. The company declared bankruptcy, and in 1721 the Parliament of England discovered facts of fraud among the company's management. Hiding from justice, the treasurer and some other employees went abroad.
2. Pan Am
In the second half of the 20th century (in the 60s-70s), Pan Am was widely known among travelers. This name is associated with the active development of passenger aviation, which, in turn, made tourism more accessible.
At first, this company was very successful, but then losses began.
Two events led to the collapse of the company. First, in 1988, a plane belonging to Pan Am was blown up by terrorists over the Scottish city of Lockerbie. Then all who were on board perished. And in 1991, the Gulf War broke out, causing oil and jet fuel prices to soar. Unable to withstand such a blow, Pan Am declared itself bankrupt in December of that year.
3 Nokia
This name is still heard by many. And no wonder: after all, in the early 1990s. Nokia was the market leader in mobile devices due to its innovative developments at the time.
But then, no matter how trite, Nokia could not withstand the competition - other companies were able to offer higher technologies. The mobile giant has lost a large share of the market, and with it - and revenue.
As a result, the division responsible for the development of mobile phones was bought out by Microsoft, which announced that it would stop using the name "Nokia". And indeed, now this brand has already fallen into disuse.
4 Enron
Enron was once a thriving U.S. energy company that prided itself on its high technology can withstand any competition. However, the trouble came from where they did not expect: a scandal erupted around the company, which became one of the largest in history - the “Enron Case”.
The reason for the scandal is the revelation of facts of forgery of reporting in the company, because of which investors did not know the truth about the real state of affairs. It turned out that Enron used fraudulent financial schemes to withdraw money offshore.
After this high-profile case in 2001, Enron went bankrupt. All of its employees lost not only their jobs, but almost all their savings, as they invested about $ 2 billion in the company's pension fund.
However, the story of Enron has become a great lesson for the United States. was even accepted special law which made the requirements for financial reporting companies.
5 Lehman Brothers
It was one of the largest banks in the United States, founded over a century and a half ago. For a long time Lehman Brothers was among the world's best banks in financial and investment services, but 2008 was fatal for the company.
On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed a bankruptcy petition with a request to protect it from bankrupt creditors. I must say that people believed in saving the bank to the last, but still the American government decided to leave everything as it was, and Lehman Brothers "went to the bottom."
The story of Lehman Brothers interested not only financiers: it became the basis for the script for the film "Redistribution of the Market" and the plot for a number of books.
6. Washington Mutual
This is another banking giant hit by the 2008 financial crisis. Founded in 1889, Washington Mutual was primarily a mortgage lending company. In 2004-2006 this bank issued 48 billion dollars of high-risk loans to customers, and in 2007 a third of them turned out to be problematic - there were delays in payments.
In 2008, Washington Mutual lost 95% of its value and was bought out by JP Morgan Chase.
7 Siemens
This company declared itself at the end of the last century: in 1985, Siemens brought the first mobile phone to the market. 7 years later, the company released the first German-made GSM phone, and from that moment on, mobile devices became one of the main areas of Siemens' activity.
The mistake of the company was that the software of its phones was not fully developed, so Siemens mobile phones needed constant flashing. There were more and more problems, and in 2005 the division of Siemens Mobile, which at that time had already become unprofitable, was bought out by BenQ.
For a year and a half, according to the contract, mobile phones were produced under the same brand - Siemens, then it was supposed to be renamed to BenQ-Siemens. But in the end, even this did not help: the purchase of Siemens did not bring profit, and BenQ Mobile went bankrupt.
8. Olivetti
Sometime in 1982, this company released the first PC close to modern computers, the Olivetti M20, and the following year a copy of the IBM PC, the M24, was released.
Olivetti's development continued: in 1985, she became the owner of a controlling stake in Acorn Computers Ltd. (English manufacturer of computer equipment)
The M24 computer gained popularity in Europe, but then Intel created the Intel 80386 processor, which turned out to be faster and more powerful than the previous ones, and Olivetti could not use it in their designs.
In 1995, the company created the Envision multimedia home computer, but the idea was unsuccessful. Until 1997, Olivetti was still developing personal PCs, and then sold its production to the Luxembourg company Bell S.A. Later it was bought by Pirelli and Benetton Group, and in 2003 by Telecom Italia.
9. WorldCom
At one time this American company was one of the first in the field of telecommunications. More than half of all Internet traffic in the United States belonged to WorldCom. However, the company collapsed - and again because of a scandal.
It became known that in 2001-2001 an alleged error was revealed in the company's financial documents, the price of which was $3.8 billion. In addition, WorldCom had $30 billion in debt and was having a hard time servicing it.
Where did those 3.8 billion go? WorldCom used it to support the business and could have written about it honestly, but instead, in the report in the "Capital Expenses" column, it was said that equipment and real estate were purchased with this money for the development of the company. Because of this, investors thought that the company's income was much higher than it actually was.
As a result, in 2003 WorldCom ceased to exist and transformed into MCI Inc., which was then bought by Verizon.
10 Bear Stearns
This investment bank collapsed in 2008.
When the mortgage crisis began in 2007, and Bear Stearns, one of the five largest US investment banks, found itself at the very epicenter of it.
The bank managed 2 hedge funds, and both of them lost almost all investments of their clients - which is about 1.6 billion dollars. As a result, the stock market began to panic.
In 2008, Bear Stearns requested funding because it was unable to meet its cash payment obligations due to the financial crisis. The US Federal Reserve, together with JPMorgan Chase, allocated the necessary amount, but Bear Stearns shares collapsed by 47%.
In March of that year, JPMorgan Chase decided to buy the bank's assets for as little as $2 a share, and Bear Stearns agreed.
It is impossible to predict how Russia will behave, it is always a mystery, more than that - a puzzle, no - a mystery with seven seals 1 .
Winston Churchill
Since the foundation in 1964 of the All-Union Association "Vneshtorg-advertising" in the Soviet Union, there have been three types of state advertising agencies (RA). Foreign economic advertising was carried out by Vneshtorgreklama and Vneshtorgizdat, intra-union advertising was carried out by Soyuzreklama, and industry advertising was carried out by the corresponding industry enterprises: Informreklama, Aviareklama, Rechflotreklama, Orbita, Electronics, and Radiotechnics. etc. This situation continued until February 6, 1988, when the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 179 “On measures for the radical restructuring of foreign economic advertising” was adopted, which gave the non-state RA the right to life.
The first private domestic RAs were born in 1989, when the existence of private enterprises became possible in the USSR - cooperative and joint with foreign companies (joint ventures, joint ventures). Private firms were interested in advertising their goods and services. The demand for advertising gave birth to the “first wave” of RA.
In the late 1980s, the lion's share of advertisements came from the press. And advertising itself was reduced to the simplest operations: creating a brand name and placing ads in the press. In the newspapers of that time, all the ads are very similar to each other, as if made up according to one stencil: five types of frames, three types of men, ten fonts. By making up these ads and placing them in newspapers, the RA added a certain percentage to the cost of placement and thus made a profit.
The first generation of Russian RAs that started with newspaper advertising include the “Agency of Capital Communications” (“ACS”), “Escart”, “Metapress” and “NTD”.
Capital Communications Agency was founded in 1989.
Alexander Churkin, CEO“Agencies of Capital Communications”:
“It all started with the fact that we, several journalists from Komsomolskaya Pravda and other newspapers, who were not satisfied with the salary, decided to create the RA. In the USSR, as far as I know, we were the first on this path. Thanks to good connections with colleagues in "Soviet Culture", it turned out that it was there that on February 11, 1989 we released the first advertising page in the newspaper ...
After "Soviet Culture" we punched the first advertising pages in "Soviet Trade", "Evening Moscow", "Moscow News". And the issue of placing advertisements in Moskovskaya Pravda was even considered at the plenum of the city party committee...
The selection of our employees was then absolutely random. Naturally, no one had experience and special education, only a great desire to earn more ...
We were registered as an all-Union public organization like the Komsomol or DOSAAF. Just then with public organizations did not take taxes."
Igor Sikorsky, one of the founders of ACC, General Director of RA Eskart:
“Our whole story began with ACC, when we, as journalists, wanted to do something new, bringing more income, but at the same time not very different from our usual activities. We assembled the first advertising page in "Soviet Culture" literally within a week. Prior to this, newspapers had only small advertising columns, which brought more trouble to the editors than income. At first there were only five of us. Among them are Slava Kanevsky, who is now the head of Solidarity-Publisher, Seryozha Kusliy, who started the “promotion” of the MMM advertising campaign” 3 .
Vyacheslav Kanevsky, General Director of RA "Solidarity-Publisher":
“I was fascinated by Sasha Churkin, who created in February 1989 one of the very first advertising firms - the Capital Communications Agency ... At first, like everyone else, he worked with his feet. Then I realized that this is not it. I spent a couple of nights on economic calculations - that's when the idea of creating a network of agents was born. The idea gave a great result. When in November 1989 we began to “unwind” the network, “ACC” had 350 thousand on its account. And in late March - early April, we already had 2 million” 4 .
A series of posters "Flawlessly clear sound". Prology car radios. Saturn Hi-Tech Company. RA Magic Box (Moscow)
Alexander Churkin:
“At first we went through an extensive stage of development, when the number of employees increased dramatically, reaching one hundred people by 1991. They just became difficult to manage, and besides, sometimes completely random people came across. Naturally, they quickly parted with such people, while others organized their own business. Our former employees founded many large agencies - Escart, Solidarity-Publisher, Respect and a dozen others.
In 1989, ACC worked almost alone on the press market, and even in the early 1990s it remained the largest RA in Russia. But by this time the advertising market began to develop actively. And people from the "ACC" became his first competitors.
Igor Sikorsky:
“Later, when ACC was already organizationally strengthened and structured, some disagreements arose there, which were completely peacefully resolved by the departure of a group of employees who created the Eskart agency. Our first official founder was the Soviet-American Foundation "Cultural Initiative". We developed quite quickly, because the newspapers finally felt the real benefit from advertising. The market was absolutely correctly divided with ACC, so no one interfered with anyone.
At first, we tried to embrace the immensity: we worked on TV and on the radio, although newspapers remained the main field of activity, simply because there were more connections there, we are newspapermen “by origin”. We had a large amount of work, we were ranked first or second in the ratings for a long time” 6 .
The "pioneers" had to master a completely new field of activity, sometimes making original decisions.
Igor Sikorsky:
“It was very difficult to find a room, to equip. It was especially difficult at the first stage, when we were practically the first to break through the unbeaten road in the organization of the RA.
There came a moment when eight people working in the agency were simply physically unable to carry out the volume of work that we had taken on ourselves. The result was quite a strong move for those times.
There was a small announcement, in my opinion, in Vecherka, that advertising agents were being recruited for interesting work with good pay, etc. - there were literally ten words. About five thousand people came to us immediately. The line that lined up in the premises of the “Soviet Culture”, where we held the selection, amazed the imagination even at that time.
Everyone received rates for advertising in various newspapers and small manuals explaining what to do. And almost three months later we already had 90 employees who showed themselves the most from this “set”. And there were five such “calls” 7 .
In 1991-1992, the method of applying for a job through an advertisement, to which hundreds and even thousands of applicants responded, became very popular. A similar move was used by Vladimir Evstafiev, attracting agents for the Russian representative office of Carat/Interespaces. (See Section 1.2 for details.)
So in the late 1980s, the first RAs began to work, specializing in advertising in the press. At the same time, agencies were born, at first mainly buying ones, which chose television advertising as their main occupation. Their appearance was facilitated by the first order of the USSR State Radio and Television on the development of advertising activities in 1989.
Irina Roitberg, CEO of RA “IrMedia”:
“At the beginning, it was good in advertising: no one understood what television was, a minute of advertising time cost $ 200 in prime time, before the Vremya program at 20:55 ... When it sharply rose in price to 500, I could not believe that there are people who want to pay that kind of money” 8 .
RIA “Contact” was the first to appear.
Eldar Yanbukhtin, Director General of RIA “Contact”:
Our first customer was a youth cooperative, they were based at the Plekhanov Institute. They painted pictures and sold these pictures, or held art exhibitions. They advertised on the radio. They themselves came up with the text, recorded a video in the studio.
I typed everything myself. The small room contained two tables, a typewriter, and a telephone. Profit from the first order amounted to 200 rubles. The agency was already a month old when they found a second major customer, quite by accident at some exhibition, -? the joint Soviet-Swiss venture "Kranlot", which sold heavy cranes. They ordered advertising from us on the Central Television.
They had a video. They had already broadcast him once or twice on television during the quarter - but they did not know where he was!!! Television is a huge colossus, and it was simply impossible to understand where something was! In general, we found it. We were helped by the fact that my partner Petr Makarenko had worked on television for 10 years in the program directorate and knew what broadcast was, what a “grid” was, what broadcasting in “Orbits” was, how planning was going on, where “holes” appeared in during the day, in which commercials can be inserted, what is and where the music library, archives, funds are located. So, through some incredible efforts, we found this huge, probably 10-kilogram roll with a two-inch tape in the basements of storage facilities. And they made their first advertising plan on CT.
Few people knew that there was a planning department in the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, where thematic plans for the year and quarterly current broadcasting plans were drawn up. We got these printouts for quarterly planning.
The television program was printed only a week ahead, but we knew three months ahead what would happen. It was impossible to use the inter-program space only around the “Vremya” program, there were also feature films, although here it was necessary to know for sure what the film would be. At that time there were no ratings, including on the main - the first channel, we did not operate with the concept of “ the target audience". Videos were placed in the most, in our opinion, popular programs that gather the largest audience.
It was a storm and stress period. We ran around exhibitions, applied with proposals to various companies. Almost all the time was spent not so much on preparing promotional materials as on attracting new orders. Basically, these were commercial structures, small cooperatives, companies involved in the import of goods.
We tried to get orders from foreign companies with significant budgets, we tried to work with foreign representative offices registered in Moscow. Only now I realize how ridiculous our steps were. They were simply useless, because there is a certain technique for entering the market. Moreover, many large foreign companies have their own network RAs. Quite quickly, we managed to form a portfolio of orders from Russian companies, primarily due to the fact that we knew the specifics of television well, worked responsibly and efficiently. Our customers have recommended our agency to their friends and acquaintances.
For two years we worked without obvious competitors. Gradually, other agencies also appeared” 9 .
About how television advertising for Russian firms was made at that time, tells Irina Roitberg:
“I came to them and offered to make a video for $50. There were a lot of unemployed or low-paid directors, and for this money we made such a “cut” ... And for $ 500 we made a chic video in which a live panther participated, and the gentlemen who today produce the program worked as a director and cameraman "Dolls" - Levin and Lyubinsky, and everyone earned, including the panther ... "10.
The second wave of RA came in 1991-1992. Many leading domestic agencies of the late 1990s were created in those years.
Vladimir Filippov, President of RA "Aurora":
“When we started working with Ostankino, there was only Contact. We met Eldar Yanbukhtin at Ostankino, when television was just beginning to understand that advertising is a business.
Talking about competition at that time was ridiculous. Agencies were in the process of creation. There were not so many clients, they were just starting their activities and often did not understand why they needed advertising. They were found by the agency and pushed to advertise. Quite close, often informal relationships were built with the client, and I don’t remember at that time that another RA took the Client away. It was in 1990-1991.
And for the first time I came across advertising in 1988, when one of the first joint ventures, Energy Informatics, was formed at MPEI, where I worked as a junior researcher at the Department of Economics. I was invited there, paradoxically as it sounds, as an advertising director, knowing that we made a number of programs on television with the student theater “Luft”, participated in the “Morning Post”, and therefore, it could be said that I have connections with the media .
Indeed, making a TV commercial was not a problem for me, but what printing is and what you need to have certain knowledge, experience and connections in order to make high-quality printed products, I did not know. Then "Energoinformatics" found a specialist who knew this - Nadezhda Mikhailova, she became my deputy. Actually, the two of us made up the entire advertising department. We had a good relationship, we successfully complemented each other.
Then we left Energoinformatika and worked together in the advertising departments of several commercial firms. At the same time, she was the leader, and I was the deputy, then vice versa. After some time, we created a temporary labor collective at the TMPU of the Kyiv region, but the logic suggested that it was time to create our own company, which we did.
We named her "Aurora" in honor of the goddess of the morning dawn in Greek mythology, as a kind of symbol of the new happening in Russia" 11 .
Poster “Time for serious business”. Bank "Petrocommerce". RA "Aurora" (Moscow)
The name for RA is quite bold in the post-perestroika era, given that for Soviet people The Aurora was primarily associated not with the goddess of the dawn, but with the legendary cruiser and the October Revolution. But the owners of the agency had their own opinion.
Vladimir Filippov:
“I think this is a good name for RA. We were not afraid of the political associations that it evoked, we even released several humorous videos on this topic. They gave an announcement on the radio with something like this: “RA Aurora is organizing a cruise around the Mediterranean Sea on a cruiser with the same name, calling at ports and making blank shots. Those wishing to participate, please call on such and such numbers. And they did call. Thus, one retired colonel stated that he had a stockpile of gunpowder and other explosive materials, which he was ready to provide for a fee ...
I believe that the advertising on screensavers brought enormous fame to the agency - our very simple idea to use television screensavers in advertising ”12.
Yes, the Aurora logo in the TV screensavers made the name of the agency known to any TV viewer, who was not even aware of the existence of RA in principle. And among advertisers "Aurora" immediately gained recognition due to the creative approach to advertising. Already in 1992-1993, the RA television commercials won the awards of the first video clip competitions (from which the history of the Moscow International Advertising Festival began). (See section 6.1 for details.) Later, the Avrora Production studio was created, headed by the famous director Vyacheslav Bubnov, winner of many international advertising festivals.
Vladimir Filippov:
“Then it was a completely different time, and the level of work was, of course, different. Someone was looking for clients, someone made videos or printing for them, then they posted them. There was no understanding of what media planning is, the target audience, how a creative should be created, what tasks to solve, etc.
The first earnings in 1991-1992 were mainly the production of commercials and their placement on television. Although we also dealt with placement in the press, developed original layouts and corporate identity.
Much attention was paid to the quality of creativity. So, initially there was a backlog for the creation of a full-cycle RA.
The first clients were the Khimneft exchange, where at one time I worked as an advertising director, and then invited Vladimir Chernyshev, Alisa and MMM there. "MMM" then still traded in computers. The only time I was the director of the video, which we filmed just for "MMM". We have made almost all TV commercials for “Alisa”. “Alice” and “MMM” were found by Sergey Kondratenko, who was looking for clients with us. And then he went to work for Alisa” 13 .
By the way, the Alisa exchange gave a start to life to several well-known advertisers. But she played a decisive role in the fate of Arnold Uvarov, the founder of the APR agency, which, however, appeared a little later - in 1992.
Arnold Uvarov, President of APR Group:
“Alice's advertising was handled directly by Sterligov, who did not have enough time for this, and I suggested that he take over the entire block of advertising issues. He asked me: “Did you do this?”, to which I replied: “Of course.” Although, of course, I have never done this and did not even know in which direction Ostankino was located ... ”14.
“At first, Uvarov had to find out everything: where is Ostankino, where are the editorial offices, where are the newspapers. The trump card that opened many doors in those days was the name of Herman Sterligov...
The story of the “Club of Young Millionaires” also played into the hands of Uvarov. The charm of capital was then extremely great. And Arnold, without too much modesty, presented himself ... as a member of this club. Television people, newspapermen and officials willingly made contact, and Uvarov made his first contacts” 15 .
As a result, Alisa has become one of the leading TV advertisers.
But by 1992, "Alisa" was on the verge of collapse, and Arnold Uvarov, with his advertising department, which consisted of seven people, decided to embark on an independent voyage.
“Farewell to German Sterligov was extremely painful for Uvarov, who left with all his people. As a result, Uvarov was left with one stool, one typewriter "Yatran" and a couple of rooms on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, taken by acquaintance. The name Alisa Public Relations was urgently changed to Advertising & Public Relations (APR), which, in fact, began the independent history of the APR Group.
Then the APR team, in addition to Uvarov, included Dmitry Lugovsky, who dealt with economic issues, Arnold's friend Dmitry Zemskov, who broke through the premises on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, a number of other employees, as well as a secretary and a courier. At the start, APR Group had good conditions in the media and on television: connections were kept, since they closed on Uvarov. The main business then was the cost of placement and the volume of discounts. The first client of APR Group was the Moscow Commodity Exchange. Gradually, the company began to earn money, attract new customers (Escado, the Moscow Oil Exchange, and then Sony, Toyota, GoldStar, Toshiba, Smirnoff, Adidas...), new employees, and develop new lines of business” 16 .
Dmitry Funtov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of RA Blick Communications:
“I worked in the advertising department of MENATEP, I was responsible for television ... Everything was tied to news programs. The young and talented correspondents Vagin and Goryachev were brought to me by Kostin, who, like me, worked in the advertising department of MENATEP. Artem worked as a journalist for TSN, as did Igor Istomin, our third partner. We worked with journalists who "settle" with the management the release of ordered stories - "jeans" on the air. Reorganization began in the advertising department of MENATEP, at the same time the Metapress agency was created (with Surkov, Vishnevskaya, Pisarsky). I left the bank, but stayed at Ostankino ... as a TSN journalist. We decided not to beat around the bush, but to create our own business, which, as a legal entity, was formed in October 1991” 17 .
“Initially, the RA was created to implement advertising projects within the Bioprocess/NIPEK holding. The scale of activity and serious funds of the founders allowed "Blik" to quickly become the leading (and at first the only) buying structure. They were the first "air sellers". We can say that they invented advertising blocks - before the era of Blick Communications, advertising appeared on television only before and after the Vremya program” 18 .
Dmitry Funtov:
“At first we saw ourselves as Blick PR, but then we decided that the term public relations was already compromising itself, and in the West it is unambiguously interpreted as “black journalism” (black PR), while “white journalism” was called communications. And if the APR-sheep initially deciphered themselves as Arnold PR, then they were modest and registered as the “PR Agency”. We took a smoother one - Blick Communications.
Then we met the guys from Aurora, in fact, there were only three of us at the market who were selling Ostankino prime time. Later we found out that there is Zapol's agency called "Video International" and Lisovsky's "Premier SV" 19 .
"Russian pioneers advertising business they say that they initial capitals were "tiny". It is impossible not to note the uniqueness of the situation in which this business developed. Where has it been seen that a young, "unshelled" company could immediately get large clients - leaders of Russian and world business? Only in Russia. “Maxima” rather quickly earned its capital on contracts with companies such as “OGO” (one of the largest grain traders), “Holding Center”, “Olbi”, “Lotto-million”. The same agency helped develop Peugeot ads.
For APR Group, the biggest success was the collaboration with Sony. An order was even received for the development of promotional videos, some of which went to Eastern Europe.
However, there were more simple ways initial accumulation: the head of one RA admitted that he opened his own business with money received from commissioned stories on television.
The first successes were explained simply. “When we started, we wanted to meet other advertisers,” says Vladimir Zhechkov, president of Premier SV. “They didn’t find anyone and decided that it was possible to start”” 20 .
Vladimir Zhechkov was somewhat cunning. Initially, “Premier SV” was one of a number of RAs that appeared in the early 1990s. There were just not enough of them, and the advertising field was an unplowed virgin land, so there was enough space for everyone.
The leaders of "Premier SV" came to advertising through show business. In 1987, the former instructor of the Bauman district committee of the Komsomol, Sergey Lisovsky, “organized the“ cunning ”, by his own definition, structure“ Record Youth Leisure Center ... The next step in Sergey Lisovsky's entrepreneurial career was the creation of the company LIS'S (now RICE/LIS'S), organizing and holding concerts of pop artists. At the same time, Lisovsky's first contacts with the bigwigs of the television business began.
Among these tycoons was Vladimir Zhechkov, who by 1991 held the position of director of the Unix company and the Morning Star program of Yuri Nikolaev.
Vladimir Zhechkov, President of the group of companies "Premier SV":
“In the late 1980s, I worked on various television programs. He started with the program "Musical Elevator", then there were "Morning Mail" and within its framework the program "Motley Ribbon", in which Leonid Yakubovich first appeared on the television screen. We filmed these programs without Yura Nikolaev. And we met him a little later - already in the “Morning Star”. In all these programs, we ourselves were looking for advertising. And Lisovsky brought advertising to the Morning Post. He then worked with some programs of the 2 x 2 TV channel.
At Yura Nikolaev's house, we met Oleg Panoff and Volodya Evstafiev, who had a business card: "Carat/Interespaces, Vladimir Evstafiev."
For them, I placed the first campaigns on television - Marlboro cigarettes and oil company Totale, even before the formation of “Premier SV” 22 .
Sergey Lisovsky, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the group of companies "Premier SV":
“Roughly since 1985, we began to professionally engage in concert activities. We had a program in which famous artists took part - Alla Pugacheva, Igor Nikolaev, and young ones - Volodya Presnyakov, Serezha Minaev, Volodya Markin. And at that time it was very difficult for a young performer, even a very popular one, whom the whole country knows, to appear on a television screen - almost impossible. And when it became necessary to advertise the performances of our artists, this is what we came up with. We shot a video called “Record Studio presents...” and began to post it before our concerts on regional TV channels, which did not know what to show them at all. Therefore, they happily took the video and played it just like music.
After that, we thought: why don't we put concert dates in the video? This is how our first ads. The funny thing is that it was edited by Volodya Zhechkov, who then worked as a loader in the Video Fund. He told everyone that he worked on television, and he really worked there, but his official status was a loader. Although he was already engaged in installation and other works. After this video, Zhechkov and I broke up for two or three years.
Since that time, LIS'S has been engaged in advertising. At first, it happened like this: we agreed with TV channels that we would allow them to film our concerts, and in return they gave us advertising time, which we ourselves did not need in such volumes. And we had to look for advertising. Then we found the Male company, which was very pleased with this advertisement: “Ma-a-als!”. Then there was the firm "Initiative". But this was only as a help in concert work, which brought good income.
In 1990, Zhechkov came to me and offered to create an RA. For me it was secondary, but I thought: why not? And we created the RA "Premier SV". The word "prime minister" was proposed by Zhechkov - he liked being the first. And “SV” are our names - Sergey and Vladimir. He began to deal with the agency, and I helped him - connections, advertising time.
In the spring of 1991 there was a crisis. The exchange rate of the ruble jumped sharply, and people practically stopped going to concerts. All our business has come to a halt.
We had a lot of experienced employees. I gathered them all and said that now we will deal with advertising. They looked at me like I was crazy. But there is nowhere to go: advertising is advertising” 23 .
Vladimir Zhechkov:
“In December 1991, we organized Premier SV, and I helped others, in particular Andrei Lukyanov, Volodya Evstafiev, to create agencies. Their RAs - "Strong", "Maxima" - have always been friendly to us. We also worked with Vladimir Filippov and Aurora” 24 .
Sergey Lisovsky:
The very first client of "Premier SV" was the company "Krosna", then others appeared.
Vladimir Zhechkov:
"One of the most major first Premier SV's clients were Krosna with an annual advertising budget of $1 million. We shot some nice videos. One of them was filmed by Alexander Faifman, now the chief director of ORT. In another video from the end of 1992, which was produced by Vadim Shapovalenko, later the general director of the Ukrainian TV channel Inter, Chukchi were sitting near the chum and watching TV. Then the camera pulled back, and the audience saw a plate of “Kroena” on the top of the tent, and the Chukchi said: “Krosna”, however!
We were engaged not only in the placement of commercials, but we tried to pay more attention to creativity” 26 .
The creative find of Vladimir Zhechkov and Sergey Lisovsky was the then unknown fashion model Yuri Grymov.
Vladimir Zhechkov:
"FROM We met Yuri Grymov in 1989 at a beauty contest in Dneprodzerzhinsk. He was the director of the competition. In general, then he worked at Le Monty. He told everyone that he had just returned from Hollywood.
In 1990, I invited him to make a video for my artist friend for the song “Queen of the Cold”. Grymov said: “We will shoot from a helicopter, and there will be an inscription on the snow: “I love you.” I objected that it was too expensive. Grymov replied that it was necessary either to shoot an expensive video, or not to shoot at all. So we never made a video.
Grymov had two positive points: he did not read anything about advertising, but at the same time he gave fresh ideas. It was original and interesting.
We invited Grymov to work at Premier SV later, and this coincided with the idea of carrying out our own advertising campaign.
When we had free money, we decided to “promote” our own RA. The first video, very successful, where main character shot at the shooting range at night, and the voice-over said something like this: “Premier SV” - right on target in the dark”, filmed by the Aurora RA. And the rest of the videos were already shot by Grymov, and they were very funny.
Inspired by the ideas of Vladimir Zhechkov, Grymov shot a series of corporate videos advertising the agency itself, with comic slogans: “There is no limit to what is possible”, “There is a freak in the family”, “A big ship - a great voyage”, “Premier SV” - a high-flying bird” . After these videos, the name of the RA was recognized and remembered not only by clients, but also by viewers. Over time, Grymov created his own production studio "South", but also remained the creative director of "Premier SV", which later attracted two more well-known creators - director Yaroslav Chevazhevsky (production studio "Brighter!") and designer Yuri Boxer (design studio design box). Thus, in 1997-1998, there were three creative directors in the RA staff at once.
Vladimir Zhechkov:
“In 1993, we had the idea to go to the Cannes Advertising Festival. We gathered our employees and friends from other RAs and took them all to Cannes. At the festival, we saw that in terms of ideas, our videos are no worse than Western ones - we lag behind only in technical quality. (Grymov had just started shooting videos with a movie camera.) The trip was instructive: on the one hand, we realized that we were strong enough, on the other, we were not even on the short-list. However, in the same year we took “Epic”. 1993 was a turning point - we realized that we could move on. And in 1994-1995 we had solid victories at various international festivals.
We were confident in ourselves as a creative RA - we had Boxer, Grymov, Kitaeva, Shelyutto - and did not think that someone could compete with us. Therefore, some of Bekmambetov's works became a revelation for me. Although I never liked his sensational commercials of the Imperial Bank, even though, according to the president of the bank, Sergei Rodionov, they had a significant effect. I have always liked works based on a sense of humor and a direct demonstration of the product, like most of Grymov's. Objectively, the advertising of Rikk-Bank, which won at Cannes, was much more successful than Imperial. After it, I realized that there are also creative people in Video International.
Lisovsky was not involved in RA at first. He created it: "Let it be!". And he became interested in him when things were going well for us. He became active in the second half of 1993, when I had a serious car accident and spent a long time in the hospital. At the same time, we moved to the same premises in the Olimpiysky sports complex and began to work closely together, dividing responsibilities. Lisovsky lobbied for the interests of “Premier SV” on television, and I took care of everything else” 28 .
Vladimir Zhechkov and Sergey Lisovsky turned out to be quicker than others and literally within a year they took a fairly strong position in television advertising, pushing aside the “pioneers”.
Vladimir Filippov:
“In 1991, we began working with Channel One and, I must say, placed there very serious budgets at that time. “Contact” was already working there, they, if my memory serves me, had something to do with the “Ostankino” committee of the Komsomol. With Eldar Yanbukhtin, the head of "Contact", we have developed a very good relationship, and already in 1992 we proposed to centralize the placement of advertising on Ostankino. We wrote a letter to Eduard Sagalaev with a proposal to organize a selling agency, but Eduard Mikhailovich did not respond to our proposal - apparently, the time had not come.
Soon a system of accreditation of agencies appeared - authorized dealers who had an additional discount. But it only extended to interprogram space, and each edition sold advertising space in its own way. For example, we had the exclusive right in the studio of popular science programs, the exclusive distribution of advertising on static screen savers, and priority in the studio of journalistic programs. Then the market itself began to dictate the terms of a centralized sale, and I had a very clear concept of how it should be. And this is where the competition begins...
The RA “Premier SV” claimed leadership, and we failed to agree with Sergey Lisovsky. We went our separate ways. Lisovsky realized his concept. He won. Rather, due to connections and its inexhaustible energy.
"Reklama-Holding" was created, to which the exclusive was given and where "Aurora" did not enter. True, we still struggled, NIRA was created, which managed to buy out part of the advertising time. But after the tragic events (the death of Vlad Listyev), advertising on ORT was canceled. When she returned, a new story began, but “Premier SV” won again. Well, you know how events developed after the crisis. (See section 2.1 for details. - Note, authors.)
Relationships with the “Premier” developed in this way: sometimes we partnered, sometimes we fought and competed. We have known Sergei Lisovsky since our college days, although maybe he won’t remember me at that time, but we had business contacts back in the late 1980s, when there was already LIS’S, but there was no Premiere ". And we met Vladimir Zhechkov in the spring of 1992. Vyacheslav Bubnov and I went on a business cruise to make connections abroad. We walked around Barcelona, Naples - looking for contacts with the RA. Brad, of course. But on the ship we met Zhechkov, Sidorov and Bondarchuk. Zhechkov, as a producer, then made the “Morning Star”, he and Lisovsky had already created the “Premier SV”. Zhechkov says: “I know, I know the Aurora, let's go have a drink.” Then, literally six months later, "Premier SV" unfolded with might and main. We agreed on a partnership, we even filmed a commercial for Premier SV. Therefore, when Yuri Zapol and Mikhail Lesin came to us on Stary Arbat, I said that we had now entered into an alliance with Premier SV. They looked at each other like that - it turned out that the day before they had a serious fight with the "Premier" - choose, they say, with us or with them. I said that so far I see no reason to terminate the partnership. Yura and Misha said "well, well" and left. And soon Zhechkov began to prepare for participation in the Reklama-92 exhibition: “Don't worry, we will organize everything - we will set up a stand, print booklets, etc., we are partners.” I come, a huge pavilion: a sign “Premier SV” hangs, and in the corner there is a small table with a sign “Aurora”, booklets of “Aurora” are printed under the heading of the “Premier SV” holding, etc. A scandal broke out: like we are equal partners?! We urgently took our pavilion, cut off the inscription “Premier SV” from the booklets, they turned out to be of an original design - pentagonal. So we parted.
And there were many similar stories in the future, we either cursed or helped each other. Nevertheless, Volodya and I have always had, and still remain, friendly and frank relations.
The pace of development of Premier SV was truly phenomenal. Created at the end of 1991, the RA by the end of 1992 had grown into a holding.
“The association “Premier SV” includes 12 different advertising companies that have already proven themselves before: LiniaGrafic! - in the field of polygraphic advertising, Sorec Video - in the production of commercials in computer graphics, Red Stars - photo models agency, etc. The unification of such heterogeneous structures, according to the intention of its creators, is necessary in order to provide customers with a full range of advertising services. With an annual turnover of several hundred million rubles, "Premier SV" manages a "central office" (including technical staff) of 30 people. In total, all the firms of the association employ more than 100 people, while it has branches in St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Budapest, as well as representatives in Paris, London, and New York. The largest and most successful advertising campaigns carried out by him are those of NPO Krosna, Mosbusinessbank, and Palmyra” 30 .
Vladimir Zhechkov:
“Now I can confess to a ten-year-old publicity stunt. On November 15, 1992, Moscow News published an article by Sergei Veselov mentioned in this book, which stated that Premier SV had branches in St. Petersburg, Kyiv and Budapest, representatives in Paris, London and New York . In fact, we did not have any branches, and our good friends lived in these cities, who could help us. But it sounded very weighty” 31 .
As for the Moscow RAs, everything written in the article is true. But the RA, which was part of the “Premier SV” association at the beginning, in 1991-1992, later separated and later worked independently. This happened with the above-mentioned RA "Line Graph" and Sorec Video, and with the RA "Strong", which was founded by Andrey Lukyanov. In the association "Premier SV" "Strong" was the buying agency.
Andrey Lukyanov, General Director of RA "Strong":
“My friend, Volodya Zhechkov, one fine day said to me: “Andryush, stop jumping on stage, it’s time to go into the advertising business.” In 1991, few people here knew about him. All for the same bottle of vodka it was possible to put any advertisement on television.
At Unix, I worked as an advertising director. Volodya Zhechkov and Yuri Nikolaev were directors. After some time, the first money came, and I realized that you can earn no less on advertising than on stage (in the late 1980s, Andrei Lukyanov sang in the Okno group. - Note, authors).
Until now, somewhere at work, a business card is kept - the deputy general director of Premier SV. At one time, “Premier SV” organized a certain holding company: eight or ten different structures entered it, including “Strong”.
In those years it was fashionable to open firms. So Volodya said: “Well, play a game called “I have my own company”. And I opened “Strong” and began to play seriously.
I was the only founder. Zhechkov told me - you will work under "Premier". It was a kind of gentleman's agreement. Only the first six months we worked together. Then, like any normal person, I wanted independence. Of course, it is more convenient and comfortable to work under the wing of Premiere, but I want to make mistakes myself, to conquer myself.
I must say that until 1993 I had a very strong position on TV - no worse than Zapol's. But there were no real big forces: money, banks were not behind me. Because of this, we were an agency, let's say ... of the second plan, although we were always among the five or six large agencies, such as Aurora, Contact, VideoArt, LogoVAZ-Press, APR. Aurora and APR realized before us that advertising is a science and needs to be developed. We came to this much later, in 1995: we were the first to buy in KOMKON computer program TGI, with the help of which they acquired serious, solid clients. They provided not only a media plan, but also a rationale for it” 32 .
Created in 1991 by Armen Tumanyan, Sorec Video RA initially specialized in the production of commercials and television programs, including different years were “Morning Star”, “Ostankino Hit Parade”, “Secrets of Sergei Zverev”, “Comme il faut”. Since 1996, Sorec Video has been working as a full cycle RA. And in 1999 it merged with RA Express Media, founded by Andrey Yakushin also in 1991 under the name TVT. The united RA was named Sorec Media. Andrei Yakushin, like Andrei Lukyanov, has a musical past. In the second half of the 1980s, he sang in the group "Farewell, youth!" and even became a finalist of "Jurmala-89". And then, as the director of the film crew, he shot music videos in the music edition on television. This is how I met Stepan Mikhalkov.
Andrey Yakushin, Executive Director RA Sorec Media:
“This alliance with Styopa led me to advertising. We shot our first video with him - more precisely, Styopa shot it: he was both a director and a producer, and I was only a director - advertising sewing machines"Bernina". Then a second customer appeared - a Turkish company, a manufacturer of Baldem detergent. And after that, the management of the company "Baldem" asked me to post their video. This is where the advertising agency started. Then we were called TVT, I came up with this name - “TiVi Technology”.
Then, throughout 1992, under the name of TVT as a production company, with Artur Gasparyan, I made the “Soundtrack” and at the same time - the advertisement of the alcohol “Royal” on television. Now these guys who sold alcohol own Avtoradio.
There were three people at the origins of TVT - Shkunov, Gunyaev and me, but Gunyaev began to work on something else, we were left alone with Shkunov and in 1993 we registered a company” 33 .
Returning to Premier SV, we note that later, by 1998, the group of companies (GC) Premier SV already included 51 structures operating in various business areas: in advertising, publishing (Vagrius publishing house, Media Park”), show business (“RICE/LIS'S”, “LIS'S Constructor”, “Light Master”, “Magnat TV Studio”, Olympic Recording Company, Extraphone), film and video distribution (“Premier Film”, “Premier TV Film”, “Premier Video Film”, “Carmen Premier”, video club “Premier”), production of TV programs (“Studio 601 TV”), and, in addition, the restaurant “Fellini”, entertainment center“The Eighth Wonder of the World”, “New Coliseum” shop and “ORIS-Center” security agency 34 . At the same time, five agencies were involved in marketing and media communications - “Premier SV” (full cycle RA), “M-Graffiti” (outdoor advertising), “Premier Media” and “Euro-Press Group” together with the communication group (CG) “Maxima” (media) and "Columbus" (special projects). The positions of “Premier SV” were especially strong in the TV market. 
Poster "Everything will be fine." "Renaissance Insurance".
RA "IMA-Design" (Moscow)
zone advertising. Saleshouse "Premier Media" had the exclusive right to sell advertising opportunities TV channels ORT, TV-b (for more details, see section 2.1), and also sold advertising time for the TV channels Muz-TV, Channel 31 (later M-1) and St. Petersburg - Channel 5 ". It was the strongest advertising group on the Russian market. But after the financial and economic crisis of 1998, Premier SV lost its former strength. RA "Premier SV" moved from the market leaders to the category of middle peasants, and the leaders of the holding Sergey Lisovsky and Vladimir Zhechkov began to pay more attention to other projects not related to advertising.
But all this happened later, and in the early 1990s, in addition to Premier SV, there were several other large advertising associations - Gratis, APR Group, a little later, Corporation Ya and LogoVAZ-Press appeared, and in the second half of the 1990s the holding "Video International" and KG "Maxima" were finally formed.
Advertising associations, created in the early 1990s, initially occupied leading positions, as they could offer the client a range of services that were not always available only to individual RAs that had appeared. But over time, the situation has changed. The owners of advertising holdings, inspired by their first successes and quick earnings, followed an extensive path of development, investing with passion in a diverse, sometimes far from advertising, business. In the conditions of instability of the young Russian market economy, this was quite risky, which was shown by the crisis in the advertising market in 1995.
But until that time, the power was on the side of advertising associations. At the end of 1992, Moskovskiye Novosti made an attempt to identify the leading RAs in Russia by polling advertising specialists (Table 1.1).
“From the answers to the questionnaire (129 respondents. - Note, authors) it turned out that among the most reputable and large domestic advertising firms, specialists give undoubted preference to two agencies - Premier SV and Gratis. Thus, “Premier SV” was named among the best 102 respondents, “Gratis” - 96. A similar survey of specialists in advertising departments of commercial firms (82 people) gave almost the same results - the 1st and 2nd places are confidently occupied by “Premier SV” and “Gratis”, and out of the 10 best firms, according to the results of the survey, nine were among the best according to the results of the telephone survey” 35 .
To XXI century the glorious name “Gratis” (or “Gratis” - whoever translated into Russian the English-language name of the Gratis agency, fashionable at that time) is almost forgotten. In 1995, when the first significant crisis occurred in the advertising market, the agency began to have problems, after which its founder Nikolai Menchukov left for the USA and Gratis ceased to exist. But until 1996, it was one of the most famous domestic RAs, or rather, associations of several companies specializing in various areas of advertising.
Nikolay Menchukov, Gratis General Manager:
“When Gratis was just starting out, the concept was this: an advertising agency exists as a kind of creative team. But at that time the market was not structured: there were no specialized design studios, firms providing printing services, outdoor advertising services, etc. Everything had to be done by ourselves. And we were forced to create structures in our own depths involved in the production of promotional products ...
We also opened our own modeling agency at Gratis. Any professional photo and video filming is possible with the involvement of our own photo models.
Another unique project is Graties among the founders of CNN Channel 24” 37 .
“RA Gratis is a monolithic structure that gradually covers various areas of the advertising business and today is actually a powerful diversified advertising concern (turnover in 1992, according to preliminary estimates, will exceed 200 million rubles). "Gratis" is very unconventional, constantly looking for new ideas and is not only engaged in advertising. Together with English company White Leone, he is filming the feature film "Romeo and Juliet II", has started production of the full-length animated film "Hole in the Sky". Since 1992, the RA has been publishing Gratis, the only specialized magazine on graphic design and advertising in the territory of the former USSR, it has held the Russian America festival, the Golden Bee international advertising poster competition, and the domestic advertising video competition. By the way, in addition to branches in St. Petersburg, Zaporozhye, Riga and Sochi, the company has representatives in Hungary, France, and the USA. The advertising campaigns of Inkombank and VBB, developed and implemented by Gratis, are still considered among the most successful. Both "Premier SV" and "Gratis", having solid clients and regular partners among advertising companies, according to our estimates, control from 5 to 8 percent of the advertising market each in terms of cost.
Other large advertising agencies that provide all or almost all types of advertising services also have their own characteristics. For example, "Metapress" announced its appearance with a powerful self-promotion campaign. Against, advertising company"KIT" prefers to remain in the background, not to advertise its activities - this is the style of the company, which, by the way, carries out advertising campaigns for "Mikrodin" and "Inkombank". ACC and Escart each have several thousand clients and focus on print advertising; The former state monopolists in the field of advertising, SOVERO and Soyuzreklamy, have their own specifics.
It should be noted that firms (for example, APR, IMA-press, Solidarity-Publisher, Planet-Center, ADA) did not make it into the top ten best, which, according to our assessment, both in terms of quality and in terms of the volume of services, they surpass a number of agencies noted by the respondents. This happened partly due to the increased and far from always justified secrecy of the commercial activities of companies, as well as due to the lack of information about the RAs operating in Russia today” 38 .
Indeed, there is no APR Group on the list. Although the RA created in early 1992 developed so actively that already in 1993 the APR Group included about ten RAs: Dundee, Commander, LOT, Metropol, Navigator, Partner, Forward ”, as well as media agency APR Media and outdoor advertising agency APR City. And the turnover of the APR Group reached 7-8 million dollars a month 39 .
It was then that APR Group became the "forge of personnel" of the Russian advertising business. Many top managers who headed the RA groups, after leaving under the wing of Arnold Uvarov, organized their own companies. The first to leave APR was the aforementioned Sergei Kondratenko, who created the Ivan! production center after the break.
“Such well-known persons of today's advertising community as Dmitry Korobkov, who heads the ADV holding, Sergey Krivonogov, now the head of Navigator DDB, Dmitry Lugovsky, who until recently was in charge of the regional division of the Video International Media Service Agency, Maxim Tkachev, President of RA APR City.
Alexey Yurov, a native of MGIMO, was the first to join the APR Group, now the general director of the RA Komandor. From his suggestion, Dmitry Korobkov came to the company, who headed the RA "Partner". At the same time, Uvarov made an offer to join the company to Sergei Krivonogov, who worked in the commercial department of the Europa Plus radio station. Arnold himself was initially responsible for the media business, since it was “the most intimate area of \u200b\u200bwork” associated with relationships with the management of television channels. By 1993, Dmitry Dmitriev, who became the general director of APR Media, had grown to this level. Then Dmitry Lugovsky became the financial director of the entire APR Group.
Gradually, these people created their teams and moved to a new level. Sometimes they left the APR Group. Partings were sometimes calm, sometimes much more painful. So, with Sergei Krivonogov ... Uvarov still supports a good relationship, while parting with Dmitry Korobkov was accompanied by a major quarrel. True, now Uvarov believes that he was wrong then and underestimated Dmitry, whose agency is now one of the five largest on the Russian market” 40 .
And at that time, until 1995, APR Group was one of the market leaders.
"Following own rules behavior, Uvarov, in his words, “in the whole get-together he put himself on an equal footing with only two people, with Zhechkov and Zapol, more precisely, with their structures - “Premier SV” and “Video International”. “All the rest,” Uvarov recalls, “for unknown reasons, they themselves put themselves on the bar lower from the very beginning” 41 .
While Arnold Uvarov was engaged in the development of the group as part of the advertising business, his business was going uphill. But the expansion of activities into other areas almost led him to a complete collapse.
“According to Kommersant’s information, APR’s gradual immersion into a financial hole began in December 1994 and was provoked by several factors at once, characterizing both the general situation in the advertising market and a number of strategic miscalculations by the holding’s management.
“The crisis that APR experienced was a completely natural consequence of the “market romanticism” that reigned among advertisers in 1994-1995,” says Arnold Uvarov.- Then, almost every month, new banks and financial companies appeared on the market, spending huge amounts of money on advertising, as a result of which the advertisers did not leave the feeling that in the future the number of customers would only increase. Such illusions have led to a lot of investments that have not justified themselves. ”
As it became known to Kommersant, APR Group, in particular, acquired a number of land plots in the center of Moscow for the subsequent construction of its own APR House: it was supposed to be a chic skyscraper topped with an APR neon sign. In addition, in December 1994, APR bought shares in the oldest Russian advertising agency SOVERO (in Soviet times, Vneshtorg-Reklama). There were so many applicants for the purchase of SOVERO that the price of RA turned out to be prohibitively high. However, so far this acquisition, with which APR linked plans to enter the foreign market, has not justified itself.
Starting in 1995, the holding, which prospered in the “golden” era of Russian business, began to get into debt with various media and eventually got stuck in them. At first, APR Group tried to extract funds from its own pocket - by mortgaging and re-mortgaging property, reducing staff, delaying payments wages. For the same purposes, the land plots of the holding were also sold. However, the principle of self-reliance in overcoming the crisis did not work.
He speaks Arnold Uvarov:“Of course, without additional funds, we would not have been able to swim to the surface. If our counterparties had insisted on the payment of all debts within a few months, despite the fact that the total amount of our direct losses by mid-1995 reached $4 million, we would not be talking to you now. As a result of the agreement reached, we managed to transfer our debts to twenty creditors to the account of Video International, headed by Yuriy Zapol. Outwardly, it looked like this: we stopped all payments to Video International, through which we work on television, and began to gradually pay off debts to other creditors. After all payments to the media, our debt to Video International increased to the amount mentioned above, which we managed to repay only in March of this year.
To date (August 1996. - Note, authors) it can be said that the holding has come out of the crisis (all debts have been paid off, work is proceeding normally), but not without losses. The agency had to move from the two comfortable mansions it occupied in the center of Moscow to a modest research institute building, and reduce the staff from 400 to 200 employees. Some RAs left the holding - Metropol, Dendy (now - RA Pilot), as well as the Department of Printing, which spun off into an independent RA BWA. Lost control over the APR-bank, previously wholly owned by the APR Group: after the sale of 30 percent of the shares to the 2x2 TV channel, the company had to sell another part of the shares to smaller shareholders during the crisis” 42 .
Despite the fact that APR Group managed to get out of the crisis, it lost its former influence in the market. By the end of the 1990s, fragments of the once powerful holding survived - APR City, one of the leading operators in outdoor advertising, and the media buying agency APR Media. In addition, the holding includes the April publishing house, which publishes the magazines ONA (for women), XXL (for men) and TV Parade (TV Guide).
Actually, the history of Ya Corporation began with the Association of Young Journalists OKO, which was organized in 1991 by MGIMO final-year students Vladimir Medinsky, Sergei Mikhailov, Yegor Moskvin, Dmitry Sokur, Andrey Safronov, Alla Vozdvizhenskaya and others.
“It was the “Association of Young Journalists” that turned out to be the prototype of modern media buying agencies - the pioneer of media buying in the press: it was the first to conclude an agreement on advertising in the Izvestia newspaper. Theorists were able to apply their knowledge in the field of economics, and the times for innovations were golden: the commission from the sale of 1/6 of the Izvestia page was equal to 6 thousand rubles! At the same time, a queue of advertisers lined up ...
Profit, as they taught, newly-minted businessmen invested in expansion - the most modern office equipment was purchased. Although the salaries of employees ran up in the region of 2 thousand rubles (those still!). Alas, at the end of the activists of the alma mater, the Association broke up. Everyone went his own way: Dmitry Yedneral (Korobkov) created the RA "APR Partner", Vadim Malyshev headed the RA "Commander" of the same consortium, etc. However, the largest chick hatched from the Association at that time turned out to be “Corporation I”.
“I Corporation” is registered as a partnership with limited liability initiated by one MGIMO graduate and five students” 43 .
Sergei Mikhailov, general director of PR-agency "Mikhailov and Partners":
"Volodya Medinsky passed undergraduate practice in Washington. As an intern at the Russian Embassy in the United States, he received $ 300 a month, and it was in the dormitory of the Soviet embassy in Georgetown, in Medinsky's room, that the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating the "I Corporation" was born, or rather, its transitional state - the Seraphim Press Agency. Upon Volodya's return from the USA, we began to develop the strategy and tactics of the "Corporation I". Her birthday is June 15, 1992. In a small room in a building along Burdenko Street, all that fit was a sofa and four tables, one of which was occupied by a retired general. We were very active: we organized seminars, attracted pompous clients...” 44 .
The first serious bid for victory can be considered the spring of 1993, when the RA "Corporation Ya" won the tender for the advertising campaign of "Technobank".
“Among the “pyramids”, the services of the “I Corporation” were used by “RVG-bank” and “OST-bank”. By the way, both belonged to the same structure. Apparently, this is why the customer preferred, for example, to print two absolutely identical pages in the Kommersant-Weekly magazine. advertisements, the main difference of which from each other could only be seen - different contact numbers. The clients of “Corporation I” were the trading house “Oton” (“Who is he!” - remember?), “Technobank”, “National Credit” bank and, of course, GMM.
After the collapse of the first “financial pyramids”, more serious clients came to “I Corporation” - Samsung, Novartis, Kodak, Monroe” 45 .
Vladimir Medinsky, current Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation:
“Each of us worked on what we were capable of. MGIMO gave us general knowledge, and the professions of “advertiser” or “PR-man” were completely new then. We knew the terms and basic concepts, which, of course, made an impression on customers. We called ourselves a “PR agency”, but neither we nor anyone around really understood what it actually was. So we went full circle from PR to advertising, and back to PR” 46 .
By 1996, when the Ya Corporation group collapsed due to the financial crisis, the holding, in addition to the Ya Corporation RA, included the Mikhailov and Partners PR agency, the V-Ratio research center, the Yantar design studio, and more several small companies.
The Mikhailov & Partners PR agency was founded in 1993 by one of the former senior partners of Ya Corporation, Sergey Mikhailov.
Sergei Mikhailov:
“At the end of 1993, Technobank and GMM appeared among the clients of Ya Corporation. The main activity of our company at that time was media buying and advertising, at the same time my specialization within the corporation was determined - PR. Later, she took shape in the Mikhailov and Partners agency, which to this day is engaged in consulting in the field of public relations development.
The backbone of Mikhailov & Partners was formed in the fall of 1993. In September 1994, de jure and de facto, I left the “I Corporation”. There was no division of clients as such: we took PR, “Corporation I” - advertising projects. Volodya and I (Vladimir Medinsky was the second senior partner of Ya Corporation. - Note, authors) there were different views on business development: I was focused on creating a pro-American (in terms of functions and structure) PR agency, while Volodya remained a supporter of traditional advertising. And since we are both worthy people, we decided to disperse peacefully and without conflict. Until the summer of 1996, we worked together a lot within the framework of a business alliance: PR from Mikhailov and Partners, and all advertising from Ya Corporation” 47 .
If "Mikhailov and Partners" left "Corporation Ya" even before the crisis, then the research center V-Ratio - later than everyone else, in early 1998.
Oleg Chernozub, General Director of SIC V-Ratio:
“V-Ratio was formed in 1993 inside the “Corporation I”. “I Corporation” remains our ideal partner: we have gone through a difficult path together, for us it has become a good springboard. There were a lot of agencies on the market, “Ya Corporation” was the most dynamically developing, moreover, it was the leader in selling advertising space in the press and on the radio.
One of our first joint projects is Technobank. I still remember the director of the bank, G. Tosunyan, who argued that the problem was not to raise funds, but to place them effectively” 48 .
But even such a powerful potential of the “I Corporation” and the variety of services it offers did not save the holding after the collapse of its largest clients in 1995.
“Knowing the complex of reasons that led to the collapse of the “I Corporation”, we can assume that such an ending was predetermined a year ago. In the summer of 1995, RA occupied three comfortable offices in the center of Moscow, the number of holding structures was approaching five, and the staff reached one hundred people. At the same time, “Corporation” was one of the few media buying agencies working on the terms of not 100%, as usual, but 50% prepayment. According to the former CEO of Ya Corporation Vladimir Medinsky, this has led to the fact that the largest "financial pyramids" - GMM, MMM and some others - are the agency's debtors to this day: the deadlines for the Corporation's last payments coincided with their own collapse.
When the time of “pyramids” passed, it turned out that the maintenance of a large staff and expensive offices of the RA was not affordable. The time to refocus on the Western clientele, according to the employees of the "Corporation", was hopelessly lost. People began to leave the RA departments, rumors about its collapse spread around the market. However, the agency managed to stay afloat for another year - until Tveruniversalbank collapsed” 49 .
“Advertisers' funds were stuck in this bank - at the end of the second quarter, an advance payment for three months had already been made. For about two weeks, Tveruniversalbank conscientiously issued all the necessary payment documents for transferring money for advertising in the media, but not a single ruble was paid (in particular, only one angry Extra M, according to its employees, missed 70 thousand dollars ).
The bank collapsed, inflicting three powerful blows to “I Corporation”. First: clients who paid “I” received only part of the advertising - the media refused to publish materials for empty checks. Second: the RAs, who were placed through “I” as one of the leading media buyers of the time, demanded compensation. Third: when “I” opened accounts in ONEXIM-bank and the editorial offices received the first real money from new advertisers, they instantly began to carry out offsets.
Thus, it turned out that “Corporation I” gradually created an “advertising pyramid” - the money of newly arrived “investors” was counted for someone else's already published advertising. The management of Ya Corporation ended up in a debt bag, which Kommersant-Daily wrote directly about. Vladimir Medinsky emphasizes that that publication was not directly initiated by his agency: “The most diverse audience came to us to sort things out. How did you get out? With difficulty, everything went into action: private debt receipts, persuasion, increased obligations. We paid long and painfully, although later we managed to extract part of the money from Tveruniversalbank 50 .
In parallel, "Corporation Ya" minimized the cost of rent, staff and by the end of 1996 changed its name to "United Corporate Agency" - United Corporate Agency (UCA). In the logo of the new Republic of Armenia, only the corporate letter “I” was preserved, raising the cylinder as a sign of greeting. Having lost its financier clients, UCA acquired foreign clients - Samsung Electronics, Kodak, pharmaceutical company Novartis, manufacturer of Monroe automotive shock absorbers. Together with RA "Paradigma", "Prior" and "Ivan-press" UCA established the media buying agency "Pioneer" (later it was fully bought out by "Prior"). The main thing for the agency was the placement of advertisements in the central and regional press.
Things went uphill: in 1997, the UCA staff was again 100 employees.
“Then they took on everything in a row: RA, production studio, scientific center, audit firm, photo studio, Strela design studio. The publishing center within the “I Corporation” published the magazine “Hunter” and the newspaper “Autoclub”. Having paid all the expenses for the release of the first issues, the company stopped the project - the editors could not switch to self-sufficiency. “I Corporation” even owned an auto parts store and a state-of-the-art dental office» 51 .
The financial and economic crisis of 1998 forced UCA to shrink once again: unprofitable divisions were abolished,
Management company "ATON Management". RA "IMA-press" (Moscow).
state. Agency President Vladimir Medinsky switched to public service- first to the State Tax Police of Russia, then to the Russian Ministry of Taxes and Duties. At the beginning of 1999, “I Corporation” returned to its former name, but the average RA remained from the “corporation”.
Among the largest Russian advertising holdings of the late 1990s, IMA Group stands apart. It is peculiar, first of all, in that the first company of the holding began its activities not with advertising, but with publishing in 1989. The company turned to advertising as a side business. Moreover, initially “IMA-press” did not rely on media buying, but on creativity, therefore, it did not occupy a leading position in the press market and on television. Nevertheless, the diversification of the development of different areas of advertising - from the production of souvenirs to Internet technologies, PR campaigns and political consulting - allowed it to withstand all crises in the advertising communications market and take a stable position on it.
“IMA-press” tells about the first steps Andrey Gnatyuk, President of the IMA Group Holding:
“At the dawn of perestroika in Dubna, under the Komsomol organization of the Tenzor plant, I created one of the first cooperatives. We earned the first money from silk-screen printing and used it to publish a newspaper. We started with the publication of poems by Daniil Kharms, who had been banned for a long time. But we managed to publish only one issue, since the Council of Ministers issued a resolution that cooperatives have no right to deal with the media. However, this single issue did its job - the Novosti Press Agency (APN) became interested in me and offered to work with them.
In 1989, on the basis of the youth editorial office of APN, we developed the Information Youth Agency “IMA-press”. Everyone was drunk with freedom, which opened up new, previously unknown possibilities. And then my old passion for books showed up - I always read avidly. In "IMA-press" I immediately took up publishing. We tried to be the first in everything, because it was already possible to print what until recently was published only in samizdat. We were the first to release Nikolai Berdyaev, Brodsky, the first to publish the St. Petersburg Mitki. Finally, Kharms was published, having prepared the smallest and largest edition in the world in terms of format. These were four miniature volumes (each with a story) and a Whatman format volume, however, in a single copy. At that time, we began to publish the so-called artists' books, where each copy was hand-painted by the author. Circulations were only 50-100 copies, but they were bought as works of art by the Russian Museum, the Hermitage, the Lenin Library, the US Library of Congress, etc. Naturally, we did not receive any income, especially since we simply gave away most of the books.
We carried out many projects: we prepared exhibitions, arranged jazz concerts, art festivals. They filmed the Illusion cinema and spent crazy evenings with Bartenyev, Bilzho, Batashov, Alperin, Shilkloper, Terekhova, Glotser, Prigov, Jikia. It was in 1990-1991 that “IMA-press” became a fashionable hangout, which some deciphered as “Graceful Moscow Underground”. At that time, we came up with a slogan: “If it weren’t for things on the ground, we would fly.”
Our first experience in the advertising business dates back to 1989, when we prepared a booklet for the Belgian company Sigmatronic. For us, everything was for the first time - proofreading the advertising text, preparing slides. By the way, the APN base, which at that time had the most advanced equipment, helped us in many ways.
In the same year, we first encountered television advertising. I remember very well the first two customers - the granite factory of tombstones and the factory of fabrics named after. Peter Alekseev. The roller for the weavers turned out to be very beautiful - the threads are woven, the fabric goes, almost like in the movie “The Bright Path”.
The growth of the advertising market in 1991-1992 proved that it is finally possible to realize in this area. Then we decided to build a scheme based on a simple idea: a jazz concert, an art exhibition, a postcard publication should not be turned into commercial projects, the profit must be derived from advertising. At that time, we divided our cultural program and advertising activities.
The merging of these two directions occurred later. We started investing heavily in design. We worked with Chaika, Logvin, Surkov, Shelyutto, Kitaeva, Boxer, Belosludtsev. We even organized our own modern design gallery. We successfully offered our designers to clients, and their work began to sell well” 52 .
In 1992, the IMA-press company withdrew from the APN, gained independence and formed several subsidiaries that laid the foundation for the creation of the holding: Image (PR-company), Imvestpack (production of advertising and packaging products from cardboard) and IMA -press-print” (production of printed products and POS-materials). A little later, in 1993, the third point direct marketing agency was created.
The PR and political consulting companies that are part of the IMA Group were founded in 1998-1999 and in just a few years they have taken a strong position in their field, achieved recognition from professionals and, most importantly, clients.
“IMA Group is an example of one of the first attempts to create a domestic holding based on complementary, but not competing companies serving close market segments marketing communications.
The creation of the holding was a logical continuation of the development of IMApress, one of the most reputable operators domestic market advertising. The initial desire to diversify the range of services provided, the introduction of new marketing communications, the well-deserved reputation of a forge of personnel, from which many cult figures of design and advertising came out, were accompanied by the creation of related companies, united first into an association, and then into a group of companies.
Experiments in the field of management, audit of competitive potential and competitive advantage subsidiaries to develop a long-term market position led to the current structure of the “IMA Group”, in which “IMA-press” acted as a kind of “incubator” for firms that are successfully engaged in consulting, PR, and design today” 53 .
Andrey Gnatyuk summarizes the activities of his holding in the advertising and marketing market at the beginning of the 2000s:
“The holding employs more than a thousand people, it includes 12 companies - a PR agency, RA, a publishing house, a printing house. This is a three-level building, where the “base floor” is manufacturing companies (“IMA-press-print”, “Imvestpack”, association “ITV”), the second floor is the design studio “IMA-Design”, RA (“IMA-press ”, “A + R”, “Imatek”), direct mail agency (“Third Point”), which actually work with clients in the field of business communications, and the third floor - consulting firms(“IMA-Consulting”, CCT
“RIOPAGANDA”, “Priority”, “IMA-audit”). According to this scheme, the evolution of the holding can be traced. I started with the IMA-press publishing house and news agency, then I moved into advertising, PR, and finally a consulting company was created” 54 .
Shortly after the formation of IMA-press in Moscow, in the same 1989, a branch of IMA-press was opened in St. Petersburg, headed by Sergei Pilatov.
Sergei Pilatov, General Director of RA "IMA-press" (St. Petersburg):
“I started advertising in 1988. At that time I worked in the Komsomol, supervised informal youth organizations. Formed the Center for Creative Initiatives. This type of structure was the only one in Russia, and it was not difficult for me to get acquainted with the guys from the Novosti Press Agency, which at that time was creating its own youth press agency, IMA-press. I managed to achieve the status of a representative of this agency in the North-West. In the early 1990s, the issue of self-sufficiency arose. I was given a condition: if you want to represent the agency, prove that you can do it. For such proof, an amount of 10 thousand rubles was needed. Then I directly signed contracts with newspapers on advertising placement. Bypassing the then only official structure, Lenizdat, which had the opportunity to conclude such contracts, I paid fees to journalists, etc. The first was an advertising contract with the Smena newspaper. Then there were "Leningrad Worker", "Evening Petersburg". So in St. Petersburg, then still Leningrad, the first RA appeared” 55 .
Over time, the St. Petersburg "IMA-press" separated from the Moscow one, and now it is a completely independent RA, one of the leading in the northern capital and well known in Russia. No wonder the "pioneer" of St. Petersburg advertising, Sergei Pilatov, was the first non-Muscovite to be admitted to the Academy of Russian Advertising.
Other large Russian advertising holdings of the late 1990s "grew" out of the RA, earning serious money thanks to large clients with large television advertising budgets. These RAs did not scatter funds in non-advertising areas. Gradually developing in one area, they created advertising groups (WG) that survived during the crises of both 1995 and 1998, and by the end of the 1990s became recognized market leaders. This is CG “Maxima”, RG “ New company” and, of course, the largest player in the Russian advertising communications market - Video International Group. All of them from the very beginning actively worked with television not only as media buyers, but also as media sellers. Video International Group of Companies has been acting as a media seller since 1993, selling at one time the advertising opportunities of RTR, NTV and 2 x 2 TVC channels (for more details see sections 2.2 and 2.3),
RA Open Design (Moscow)
then - ORT, RTR and TV-b, as well as a number of regional TV channels and TV channels of the CIS countries. Since 1998 CG “Maxima” has been selling the advertising opportunities of the TVC channel (for details, see Section 2.3). In 1997, the New Company RG, through TVT-Media, a member of the RA group, sold the advertising opportunities of the Moskovia TV channel.
WG "New Company" was previously known as "LogoVAZ-Press".
RA "LogoVAZ-Press" "hatched" in 1993 from the advertising service of Boris Berezovsky's company "LogoVAZ", the largest car dealer at that time.
Alexander Mitroshenkov, General Director of RG "New Company":
“LogoVAZ was already a year old when I headed its advertising service (PC). The only thing that I left from the previous advertising developments is the company logo. Everything else had to be changed.”56
“One of the first major actions led by Mitroshenkov PC was a campaign related to the opening technical center"LogoVAZ-Mercedes". The next success was a powerful advertising campaign in all media of the LogoVAZ-Manezh automobile exhibition, which revived the former glorious tradition, because the first auto show in Russia in 1908 was held there.
A whole series of commercials was prepared for television, all the streets of Moscow were hung with posters and billboards, original inflatable structures with the symbols of the exhibition stood on Manezhnaya Square, and advertising messages were broadcast on the radio. In the building itself, during the car show, concerts of pop stars were held, and press conferences were constantly held.
This action played a huge role in the life of LogoVAZ, because after this event everyone knew the company - from ordinary Muscovites to the President of Russia and members of the government. “Thanks to the exhibition, we increased LogoVAZ's turnover dozens of times, and it took only two months to organize the car dealership,” Alexander Mitroshenkov recalls with nostalgia” 57 .
“Once he (Alexander Mitroshenkov. - Note, authors) called me at home and asked if I could advertise Volvo at Russian rates. If you remember, at that time (end of 1992. - Note, authors) suddenly decided to finally take care of Russian manufacturer, so advertising for him was four times cheaper than for the western one.
After some time, I found out that several other RAs had received the same task, including, for example, Blick Communications. But I did it - and after long exercises on the TV screens appeared: “LogoVAZ presents”, and then Volvo advertising followed.
As a result of this promotion, I was promised a one-year Volvo placement! Then Mitroshenkov told me: “Irka, would you like to register RA “LogoVAZ-Press” - and we will place Volvo, Mercedes, and everything else!” I quickly calculated in my mind that 100 percent of Volvo's advertising is far less than even 10 percent of everything else, and I agreed. After all, when there is nothing and everything is incomprehensible, it is very easy to share everything.
This is how we registered RA LogoVAZ-Press, in which a significant share of the shares belonged to LogoVAZ itself. I brought to our business all my contacts, connections that I had on television. Mitroshenkov became the president, and after some time I became the general director” 58 .
The fame of LogoVAZ has become a good help to the RA of the same name. Soon it received one of its largest clients at that time - the Italian company Ferrero.
Irina Roitberg:
“Once in Ostankino I was called to a meeting with a man who said that he was going to spend a million dollars on advertising next year - an outrageous amount for 1993-1994. Years later, this man told me that I behaved as if I receive such budgets every day. In fact, I simply didn’t believe it internally - there are no such budgets! It was the Italian distribution company "Vasco in Russia", which represented: Rafaello, Amaretto Dizarono, the famous "Tick-Tock" and "Kinder Surprises" ... At the last negotiations, Mitroshenkov said: "Ira, you ate so many Tick-Tocks" , which is just fair that we got this client!” 59 .
At the same time, LogoVAZ-Press was actively taking root at Ostankino, which was facilitated by the scandalous project of Boris Berezovsky - the Automobile All-Russian Alliance (ABBA - AVVA), which was remembered for a five-second advertisement, during which with the word "Let's go!" the AVVA wheel rolled across the screen.
Irina Roitberg:
“Once I came to Mitroshenkov with Ostankino price lists and, in my opinion, a brilliant idea - to buy in advance at prices that will certainly grow, large amounts of advertising time.
LogoVAZ-Press didn't have that kind of money and couldn't have it. LogoVAZ itself participated in this, which, in addition to the Zhiguli, also sold Volvo, Mercedes, Honda, and Chevrolet, which needed advertising. At the same time - in 1994 - Boris Berezovsky conceived the ABBA project, for which, among other things, money was paid. This project, which allowed LogoVAZ-Press to get on its feet - it has both volumes and opportunities, and I consider it my merit for LogoVAZ to realize its advertising ambitions. We had a certain price margin, which allowed us to work successfully with customers” 60 .
In just a year and a half - from the beginning of 1993 to the summer of 1994 - LogoVAZ-Press became so entrenched on Channel One that it became one of the six RAs that occupied a privileged position and organized Reklama-Holding (for more details, see section 2.1 ). In addition, in addition to advertising activities, LogoVAZ-Press was engaged in television projects, as a result of which in 1994 it was no longer just an RA, but a group of companies.
Andrey Yakushin:
“In 1994, when a system of accredited agencies was created on television and an unaccredited RA could not advertise on television, we were recommended to contact Mr. Mitroshenkov, and we entered LogoVAZ-Press. LogoVAZ-Press had one client - Ferrero, and we had seven or eight clients of this size, and it was foolish of them to refuse such a piece.
In addition to LogoVAZ-Press, Mitroshenkov had several other structures. Mitroshenkov is a man of gigantic penetrating power, who is not stopped by anything, a cannonball that will pierce through anything. The main project for him then was the weather forecast on television. He took away the "weather" from the person who did it, and very successfully developed this project (now this program is called "Meteo TV". - Note. A.G.)" 61 .
At the end of 1995, Alexander Mitroshenkov parted ways with LogoVAZ and founded an independent WG "New Company", which was formed by structures that were part of LogoVAZ-Press. By the end of the 1990s, these were: RA “New Company”, RA “TVT-Media” (in January 1997, TVT was left by its founder Andrey Yakushin and his team, organizing his own RA Express Media), A&M company engaged in creative research, RA "City-ХХ1", created jointly with CG "Maxima" and specializing in advertising on transport. In addition, the "New Company" is one of the founders of several television companies - "Meteo TV" (weather forecast), "Class!" (children's programs), "ACC-TV" (popular science programs), participates in the creation of a number of television programs.
Unlike the New Company, which is engaged not only in advertising, but also in the television business, Maxima CG has devoted itself entirely to advertising.
Oleg Panoff, Founder of the Tendentsiya company, until 2004 General Director of RA Euro RSCG Maxima:
“At the end of 1991, Vladimir Evstafiev, with whom we worked together at Carat / Interespaces, and I renewed the registration of Maxima (previously created by me and Sergey Krivonogov). And legally, the RA was created at the beginning of 1992.
We rented a room at the Youth Hotel. At first there was another general director, and a little later Igor Yankovsky became it. Then, having received money from the sale of either a tank of fuel oil, or a wagon of grain, he bought a mink coat for his wife and redeemed his share in Maxim along the way.
Oleg Panoff came up with the name for the new RA - “Maxima”.
Vladimir Evstafiev, President of RA "IMA-press", until 2004 Chairman of the Board of Directors of CG "Maxima":
“I, while still working at Carat, free time sat and pondered what name to give the new agency. From international experience I knew that the names are given by the first letters of the names of the founders. But we had too many vowels I, I, E, and it turned out something dissonant. At this time, Panoff calls from Paris, and I, carried away by the permutation of letters, answer my boss that I cannot think of a name for my agency. “Call me Maxim,” Oleg answered without hesitation, gave instructions on how to work and hung up. Why "Maxim", I did not know, and why not - I did not know all the more. I liked the sound of the word and the symmetry in the Latin spelling. I wanted to put something courageous and at the same time something eternal into the logo. And in the first documents, Igor already inserted my logo of triangular pyramids” 63 .
Subsequently, due to the efforts of Dmitry Peryshkov and Leonid Feigin, the original logo underwent minor changes - the color changed from black to blue and a red dot was added above the letter i.
The birthday of RA “Maxim” was the day of receipt of the certificate of registration - April 29, 1992. By this time, one of the owners of the agency, actor Igor Yankovsky, was among the co-founders of the OGO company, which was engaged in wholesale trade grain. As a creative and popular person, he was engaged in the promotion of the company - advertising and public relations.
Igor Yankovsky, producer, until 2004 President of the Maxima Group:
“I was, as it were, in charge of advertising. They began to shoot videos, developed the sign of our company “OGO”, contacted the ACC agency - it was quite large and well-known at that time. Then, by the way, we met Dima Peryshkov, who worked there (later one of the founders of the Direct-Design studio. - Note, authors). Then, in the early 1990s, still under the Soviet Union, “OGO” was advertised a lot - both on television and in newspapers. And around the same time, my friend of his youthful years, Vladimir Evstafiev, entered the French RA Carat / Interespaces as an assistant ...
Therefore, as a client, I came to him at Carat / Interespaces quite consciously - why not let a friend earn money? Thus began our advertising cooperation.
Volodya talked a lot about RA, then he already understood something in advertising, I knew something about business. Volodya wanted to create his own agency. Then problems started with the Interspaces group...” 64 (See section 1.2 for more details.)
Naturally, the OGO company and the Peugeot company, which was brought to the Russian market by a small French RA, became the first clients.
Oleg Panoff:
“My friend Patrick Valen, commercial director of a small French RA, in 1992 received the right to conduct a Peugeot advertising campaign in Russia. Patrick, who advertised through Carat in France, asked me to find a local RA. Then, in 1992, I managed to compile a list of about ten real-life RAs. Now of them I remember only “Greytis”, “IMA-press”, “Eskart”, “ACC”. The choice fell on “Maxima”, and here, of course, they played their role business qualities and acting gift of Yankovsky. And how else can you convince a person that you will be a worthy partner with a newborn agency? 65
In early 1993, the Russian representative office of Carat/Interespaces was closed. After its collapse, most of the employees remained with Vladimir Evstafiev and Maxima. In addition, former clients of Carat / Interespaces - Philip Morris, Lotto-million, Holding Center, Eleksbank also switched to Maxima. I managed to rent the same premises in the “Havana” cinema, which was occupied by the closed RA. So both employees and customers remained literally under the same roof.
RA "Maxima" immediately received some advantages. The founders had experience in conducting full advertising campaigns in all the media - it is important that at first the search for clients was carried out directly by the heads of the agency. And by that time, Igor Yankovsky, who had worked in advertising for more than three years, was generally considered very experienced in terms of Russian scale.
The agency has developed very harmoniously. All structures of the advertising group appeared as needed. Initially, "Maxima" was formed as an advertising agency, specializing in media planning and resale of advertising space in the media. This was helped by the knowledge gained in Carat/Interspaces. Vladimir Evstafiev believes that he passed good school with Edward Moradpour. And he, in turn, conducted trainings for his employees, talked about Western rules for working with clients. The work with television turned out to be so successful that in the middle of 1994 “Maxima” entered the top six RAs that bought the largest volumes of advertising time on Channel One and formed “Reklama-Holding” at Ostankino (for more details, see section 2.1).
With the growth of orders, the structure of “Maxima” expanded - departments of media planning, television, radio, press, and outdoor advertising appeared. In addition, separate (independent) advertising agencies were created, specializing in certain areas of the advertising business. A number of companies were also formed together with other RAs. Some structures disintegrated over time (RA "Uniton-Maxima" - 1995-1999) or separated ("Maxima-Standard" was formed in 1997, withdrew from the CG in 2000).
The beginning of the formation of a communication group can be considered 1995, when, together with the Premier SV holding, the RA Uniton-Maxima was created, in which the third party was the television company NTN - Channel 12 (Novosibirsk). RA specialized in placing advertisements in the regions. It became the exclusive partner of CJSC ORT-Reklama in cooperation with regional advertising structures in filling the gaps in the inter-program space with advertising materials of regional advertisers, carried out special projects on regional television, in particular ORT-Reklama-Region, and regional syndication of the MuzTV channel ". But after Premier SV and Sergei Lisovsky left ORT in early 1999 (see Section 2.1 for more details), they no longer needed Uniton-Maxim, which was liquidated. Instead, Maxima's regional partner agencies were created: RA Maxima-Voronezh, Maxima-Omsk, Maxima-Saratov and Maxima-Tver. In other cities, local RAs became representatives of the Moscow agency: Full House in Penza, Bolshaya Reka in Novosibirsk, Dmitry and Partners in Yekaterinburg, Region in Kazan, Rouen Corporation in St. Petersburg and Pygmalion Studio in Novorossiysk.
One more thing was connected with the Premier SV WG joint venture- media buying RA "Euro-Press". In 1997, on the basis of the RA "Euro-Press" and
“Segodnya-Center” (formed in February of the same year from the advertising departments of the “Today” group) was created by the RA “Euro-Press Group”, headed by Evdokia Khabarova. The main activity of the agency is media buying in the central and regional press, as well as printing services.
Another enterprise in which Maxima participated is CJSC Gorod XXI, established in 1996 jointly with the WG New Company and the Government of Moscow. The company owns the rights to place advertisements on Moscow city transport. In addition, Gorod XXI places advertisements on public transport in the regions of central Russia.
In the same 1996, the Cypriot PA Elin Advertising Limited opened a Moscow representative office, which entered into an agreement with Maxima to serve its clients in Russia. The agency works mainly with foreign companies, mainly with clients of the Japanese RA Dentsu. Among the Russian clients are the Petrosoyuz companies from St. Petersburg and Combellg.
Since 1997, RA "Maxima" began to represent the interests of international clients of the French WG Euro RSCG in Russia and was named Euro RSCG Maxima Moscow. (See section 1.2 for more details.) Maxima's creative department was transformed into an independent RA - Maxima-Idea, which specializes in the development of creativity in all forms.
Thus, by 1998 “Maxima” became a communication group, which included RA Euro RSCG Maxima Moscow, Elin Advertising Limited, Bird-Maxima, “Maxima-Idea”, “Maxima-Standard”, “Uniton-Maxima”, “Euro -Press Group”, “Gorod XXI”.
In 1998, a global change took place in the life of CG “Maxima”. On August 1 (literally on the eve of the financial and economic crisis on August 17), Vladimir Evstafiev and Igor Yankovsky sold a controlling stake in their shares in Maxima Group to the Sistema Mass Media (SMM) concern, which is part of AFK Sistema.
Vladimir Evstafiev:
“By the beginning of 1998, we had already reached such a level of development and customer base that we were ready to enter the market as media sellers. In the meantime, the Moscow government has already built up its media fund, which any media mogul can envy: TVC, the Stolitsa cable network, several popular publications, three radio stations, outdoor city advertising opportunities. It was logical for them to have their own strong advertising service. That is, this meeting was predetermined: we were looking for opportunities to organize media sales, and they were a strong, unaffiliated, unrelated agency to co-opt it into their structure” 66 .
Poster Taste Drive! Car dealership "Kuntsevo". RA Euro RSCG Maxima (Moscow)
As a result, CG “Maxima” survived the August crisis quite safely, which knocked down many RAs, and over time only strengthened its positions. By 2001, Maxima CG included RAs: Euro RSCG Maxima Moscow, Elin Advertising Limited, Bird-Maxima (three full-cycle PAs), Maxima-Idea (creative), Maxima Media (media RA), “ SMM-TV” (sale of advertising opportunities of the TVC channel), “Maxima-Sonar” (outdoor advertising) and “Avangard” (Internet communications).
The history of Video International group of companies began with television. Which is quite natural: the company was founded by former cavalry officers - Yuri Zapol, Mikhail Lesin, Alexander Gurevich and Vladimir Perepelkin.
Yuri Zapol, one of the founders and until September 2005 President of Video International Group of Companies:
“In 1987-1988, Alexander Akopov and Mikhail Lesin created their first cooperative “Igrotekhnika” (later it became known as the “Creative Association “Intelex”), which was engaged in producing activities, and then began to make a KVN program by order Main edition programs for DH youth. The cooperative took on all the costs of the transfer - created a film crew, rented a hall, organized filming, attracted money from crazy advertisers” 67 .
Mikhail Lesin, one of the founders of Video International Group of Companies:
“We had the Panopticon theater, which consisted of the KVN MISI team. And in the late 1980s, I became the commercial director of KVN - as it was then called, "director of television programs." I had to somehow earn money both for KVN and for myself. And in 1989, for the first time in KVN, we introduced the concept of a “sponsor package of teams”. It included a billboard on stage, an announcement from the host, and a promotional video. In my opinion, it was in KVN that we were the first to start advertising.
Although at that time sponsors, firstly, were not ready for advertising, Secondly, they absolutely did not need it and, thirdly, they did not even know what to advertise. Therefore, we invented everything for them, and then announced to them the budget and filmed a one-time video that they never broadcast anywhere else, only in a specific program when the team they sponsor was playing. After all, this video, in principle, was also not needed by them.
The ideas for the videos were developed by the KVN MISI team. Created, as they are now called, creative groups, which included former chemists, mathematicians, physicists - absolutely creatively crazy people. They came up with ideas that were not marketing in nature at that time. It was a funny mini-movie of "home" production. The director was Sergey Nikolaev, at that time the director of KVN. We ourselves were the actors, I also played some roles. Of the well-known persons - Alexei Lysenkov, later the host of the program "The director himself."
The videos were funny because we had a desire to try our hand at gags. And we came up with things that would correspond to the spirit of KVN. We did not understand what advertising is, and no one, of course, asked questions: what is your marketing policy What audience are you working for? It was a presentation of sponsors through the creation of a television gag.
If you delve into history, then on television we appeared in Andrey Knyshev's program “Merry Fellows”. And these were solid gags, invented by Knyshev and brilliant at that time. And I was, as they say now, the producer of this program.
Yuri Zapol:
“The advertisements were filmed by the KVN officers themselves. All videos were like jokes, and were made for one show. There was no other advertising then. And when some organization asked to show the video in another program, we were surprised: after all, it was already on the air. Showing the video again - it seemed like saying the same joke a second time - is completely unacceptable.
At that time, advertising was done for a specific program. Relatively speaking, we went to some factory and said: here, we will have such a cool program, and you give your advertisement there. They will see you in the ministry - they will announce gratitude. In addition, at that time, each enterprise had a plan, including advertising. They gave some money, we filmed a video. In addition, then joint ventures began to appear, which also sometimes ordered advertising” 69 .
Mikhail Lesin:
“Alexander Akopov was the editor of the youth edition of the Central Television, which produced KVN. And he also took part in it. It was a romantic creative association. And we, probably, have greatly commercialized KVN in a year. Alexander Vasilyevich Maslyakov supported this and was extremely pleased with our activities. But advertising and sponsorship were not systemic then.
By the way, then I posted the first commercial in the Vzglyad program. Suddenly, one of the sponsors of the KVN team, the Gorky Automobile Plant, said: well, if there is a video, let's put it somewhere else. And I started posting this video in other programs. It was unexpected for everyone, because we did not want to do advertising at all. But, perhaps, this can be considered the birth of the advertising movement. From my point of view, we (those who later created Video International) were the first to commercialize television production.
Later, we had heated arguments with the founders of the RA “Premier SV”, who was the first on television. Although at that time Vladimir Zhechkov worked on a Moscow TV channel and specialized mainly in music. And Sergei Lisovsky was still a member of the Komsomol and was engaged in discos. However, "primacy" is not of fundamental importance, because from the point of view of advertising, all this was completely unprofessional.
Yuri Zapol:
“At that time I was still working at a research institute (TsNII-Promzdaniy) in my main specialty and was in no hurry to part with it. Sometimes Lesin and Akopov asked me to help in some way. But it seemed to me that it was good as a hobby, not as a profession. After all, I was a scientific worker, a respected person.
It was not until 1989 that I was ready to give up my profession. That year I entered the graduate school of my institute and decided that, since my dissertation was ready, I could do nothing for three years. You can do all this nonsense and at the same time not burn bridges. If it does not work out in business, you can always return, defend your thesis and continue your scientific career.
The end of 1989 - the first half of 1990, we made a KVN program. And then conflicts began between Lesin and Akopov, as a result of which our association "Intelex" broke up into two companies. One of them, the creative youth association “Focus”, was headed by Akopov and I, the other, the production company “MA”, was headed by Lesin. After the break, Akopov was expelled from the youth editorial office, and Maslyakov gave the production of KVN to Lesin, who made the program until September 1991, when Maslyakov created his own company AMiK.
In addition, at the end of 1990, Lesin got involved in the Mrs. America - Mrs. USSR project. The Mrs. America pageant is held annually in the United States. Firm Mrs. America Paging had the rights to the Mrs. America and Mrs. World pageants. Some of the Americans came up with the idea to make the show "Mrs. America - Mrs. USSR", and to hold it in Russia. They were probably attracted, firstly, by exoticism and, secondly, by wild cheapness. After all, then in Russia for a dollar you could buy everything. Interest in Russia was great at that time, and the leitmotif of the show became: Russians are the same people as everyone else. The competition was held simultaneously among American and Russian missis.
Three parties participated in the preparation of the show "Mrs. America - Mrs. USSR": American, Lesin with the team and APN. I did not stand at the origins of this project, so I don’t know why APN was connected to the show, apparently because they had a very good technical base. APN had a subdivision called "Video News" (later it was called "AVid" - editorial office of audiovisual information). It was headed by Viktor Litenko. And his deputies were Sergey Skvortsov and Pavel Korchagin. The producers of the show were from us - Lesin and Alexei Gusev, from APN - Litenko, Skvortsov and Korchagin. It was on this first joint project that we met.
By that time I was already tired of working with Akopov. And I left him for free bread. In general, I thought about returning to my main professional activity. But then Lesin offered to take up this project.
At that time, the show, of course, was grandiose. The Americans came in large numbers ... They brought 50 American girls - the winners of the States. And in Russia they found 21 girls.
The Americans gave the minimum money to rent equipment. They wanted Russian organizations to pay all expenses on Russian territory, and American organizations on American territory. The program was supposed to be aired both in Russia and in America. Big profits were expected. Therefore, we were looking for sponsors - several joint ventures fell for it. "Intourist" gave rooms at reduced prices in "Cosmos", where we had our headquarters. BMMT "Sputnik" gave buses. Naturally, we promised everyone advertising for the whole world.
Advertising, so that it met American standards, was shot mainly by an American director, and ours helped him. There was, for example, such a video: a smiling guy looks out of the Sputnik bus, this bus, this girl gets into the bus, and she likes it. It's such a cheap one.
Of course, several times everything was in jeopardy. But we still pulled this show. Services for staging the program "Mrs. America - Mrs. USSR" were offered to us by the editors of custom-made programs of the Central Television.
The show was supposed to air on the twentieth of December 1990. But someone from the editorial board of custom programs decided to try and agreed that the program would be in prime time on January 1 or 2. He came happy, and we told him: “Why? It seems that there was already an agreement for December.” And he: “This is cool - January 1!” Thus, the transfer flew off the grid, but has not yet managed to get to a new place. At this time, at the very end of 1990, Leonid Kravchenko came to television. Various upheavals began in Ostankino, new people came to power. The person on whom the setting of programs in the grid depended has also changed. Our program began to walk around the grid, and then it was removed altogether.
The situation was unpleasant, because we had obligations to sponsors. After all, we had large and well-known firms as sponsors. For example, “Sana” is a pharmaceutical cooperative, “Ines” is a joint venture of “Intourist” and “Nissan”, which gave us cars for rent. We hoped that they would become our permanent partners. We thought that we would prove ourselves, make a grand show and everyone would know about us. In addition, we expected that in terms of money we would go to zero.
And as a result, we were in a terrible minus. Firstly, the general sponsor - HNTK "Russia", an office that arranged for citizens to work abroad, collapsed or went bankrupt before it had time to pay us all the money. Secondly, the program did not go on the air - accordingly, the obligations to the sponsors were not fulfilled. And they paid part in advance, part after the release. So they didn't pay. Plus, of course, relations with everyone we worked with were ruined. They promised that a program would be released before the new year, their advertising would appear, but there was no program.
As a result, it was released on May 25 on the Russian Channel, which was then just formed. It was very funny, because the program was filmed for the New Year. It was one of the first works of Boris Krasnov, who built a full-size Kremlin wall on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater, and Christmas trees were everywhere.
After the competition, in February - March 1991, we were four - Lesin, Gurevich, Perepelkin and I, also Serezha Pekletsky, a driver, an accountant, a cashier, were with us. We were called “RTV Creative Association” (radio and television) and were indebted to everyone” 71 .
Mikhail Lesin:
“In 1990, we tried ourselves as producers in the Mrs. Russia - Mrs. America contest, taking on a lot of responsibility. As we later found out, contracts of this level give producers huge salaries. And we were ready to do the work for a penny. It was interesting for us - such a massive large-scale event, communication with Americans, experience. We took it upon ourselves to find Russian sponsors for an unbearable amount for those times - a million dollars, in order to ensure the holding of the competition for everyone - the accommodation of the participants, transport, venue, decorations. For some time we were proud of this competition, but having studied the system of television production well, we ceased to be proud and very rarely mentioned that we had anything to do with it” 72 .
At that time, the future founders of the Video International holding were little known, since, unlike the RA, who managed to gain a foothold in Ostankino, they did not have special connections on Channel One.
Alexey Pugachev, President of RA ArtCom:
“Fate repeatedly led me to advertising and then, as often happens, took me away. The first episodic contact occurred in 1991, when I worked as the head of the sound department at the Videofilm company, which at that time was the only one producing video products in Russia. Once our former employee invited me to the APN for business conversation with business acquaintances. In the office, I was introduced to two men, one of whom - this struck me the most - was wearing a "firm" black jacket with an eagle on the back.
We got to talking: “What are you doing?” - “We do advertising”, - they answer and show two small rooms with probably 286 computers, introduce them to several employees. I felt funny: there were already betacams in our studio! I remember asking: “How to make money on this?”.
And only a few years later, the names and the visuals joined in my mind - they were Mikhail Lesin and Yuri Zapol, however, which of them was wearing a jacket with an eagle ... No one could have imagined that the “Videofilm”, which I was so proud of, through two years will actually fall apart, and Zapol will become the president of the largest advertising holding in Russia, and Lesin - the Minister of Press of Russia” 73 .
Mikhail Lesin:
“In 1991, advertising has already acquired a systematic look. Before that, there was no built-in system for buying content on television. Therefore, the main task was to put the program on the air. It was possible to recoup its production either with the help of the channel's money, and the channel did not really understand why they should pay for the transfer, or we said that we provide the program for free, but for this advertising time is ours. Gradually, this process acquired a conveyor form and a legal form.
But clients did not want to be limited to only one program, but asked to advertise in some others. Therefore, it was necessary to negotiate with other programs, to form a certain system for placing these videos. The placement was not of any logical nature. There could be any options - who will agree with whom. The Ostankino channel did not have an advertising service as such. The channel did not really understand where to look for advertising, how to form ad blocks.
It was a very short formative period when advertising money appeared, but no one understood yet that this was serious. But literally six months later, everyone realized that it was possible to earn money, and the investment process began, which was also chaotic at first - everyone did what they wanted.
And already in 1990 I began to actively study how the Western market works. And, having received a certain minimum amount of knowledge, we began to try to introduce them on television, building a certain system. And gradually advertising became our main business.
Yuri Zapol:
“Gurevich and Perepelkin made good videos. Perepelkin came up with funny scenario, Gurevich managed to remove it cheaply. And Misha and I found customers, organized shooting. If they shot two or three videos a month, then it was enough for a salary.
Sometimes the customer asked just to shoot the video, and sometimes also to place it. It was already very good, because it was possible to knock on television, beg for a discount. Sometimes the client himself called the program, sometimes we offered it ourselves. Then there were no ratings, we just said: this is a good show.
In 1991-1992, even with the availability of money, there were difficulties with staging the video on television. Each edition had its favorites, which received special discounts. Officials tried to send advertisers to these agencies. And the officials themselves, probably, got something. Such is the self-supporting mechanism.
I remember that at the end of 1991 - beginning of 1992, the Dnepropetrovsk company Sistema-Reserve, which produced address directories, asked us to film a "week" - seven short anecdotes. They wanted every day
Poster “Ham in the original performance”. Meat products.
Company "Campomos". RA "Aurora" (Moscow)
during the week, show one video before the “Time” program. We shot seven commercials and tried to put them on the air. We came to Ostankino to the editorial office of information programs, and they say: we have an agent, we recommend that you place through him. We met, agreed that the video would be released today, but it did not come out. Then it was one of the start-up agencies, which has survived and is still working.
This happened before the advent of Russian television” 75 .
An old acquaintance, since the days of KVN, with the head of the Russian television company Anatoly Lysenko, allowed Yuriy Zapol and his associates to establish themselves on the “second button”. (See Section 2.2 for more details.) At the same time, the company's historic name changed from RTV to Video International.
Yuri Zapol:
“In 1992, we were faced with the need to change the name. The common name for Russian television was RTV. It turned out that it coincides with our abbreviation. They began to hint to us that it was indecent to have the same name as the state TV channel and that we should change our name.
Until mid-1993, we had 10-15 people on staff. We had two tables in the special projects department of Russian television, where we made programs, and a small room on the territory of the 70th hospital in Novogireevo. And then, semi-legally, they gave us a small office in the APN” 76 .
Mikhail Lesin:
“Two people, amazing for those times, worked at APN - Belousov and Mechanic, who devoted their whole lives to television. Once they were ordered a commercial by a Japanese Toshiba. They came to us and asked if we could do it. And in 1989 we made their first commercial for Toshiba, and that's how we started a relationship with them.
In 1990, they created the APN TV-Technical Center and the Directorate of Audiovisual Information, which was first called DAVI. Then they realized that the name was not very good, and they renamed it AVID.
And we worked here at night. The equipment was sharpened for some information processes, and first of all for the escort of top officials, and at night it was free. Then the advertising market began to emerge, and we understood that if we did not load the television and technical center now, then someone else would come. So, you need to get a job. And we took it: some “left” orders, production - they tried to pass maximum resources through the center so that no one else would get there. It was an exclusive opportunity, because there were many problems with equipment rental at Ostankino. And here we gradually gained a foothold, and the center became our technical base.
In 1991, we brought an American partner from our first big trip to the USA. Before that, we were called M&A Production, Igrotekhnika, there were other intermediate legal entities, cooperatives, and the people were almost the same all the time. His company was then called NVI - National Video Industries. We decided that we would do a joint venture with him called VI-Video International. But at some point, the partner said that he was not very good at it, and refused the joint venture. But it had already been created - we had documents, business cards, letterheads. Therefore, Yura and I sat down and decided: why are we going to redo something now, let's register it like that - Video International LLC. It was the first entity called "Video International". We didn't really think about the name because the deal was important to us. The name had nothing to do with advertising. The company was more focused on sales, and advertising appeared gradually, when we integrated into this space as a major advertising player” 77 .
Yuri Zapol:
“Then there was such a fairly large American producer Brian Kelly, whom Lesin met in 1990 while working on the show. He had an 11-story house in Manhattan, all stuffed with equipment, which, during our first visit to America, made us completely delighted. Vladimir Pozner worked on his technique when he made a transfer with Phil Donahue. Brian had some contacts with the APN and, accordingly, with Skvortsov, Korchagin and with us. He planned to make a joint venture in Russia. His company was called National Video Industries - NVI. He wanted to make a joint venture with the television division of RIA, which was called "Video News" - NV. Even the emblems were similar, as they used the colors of television - red, green, blue. He decided to name the new office VI - Video International as a derivative of both abbreviations. The emblem of NVI was the same as that of VI, only with the letter N. He made very beautiful letterheads, on good paper with watermarks. The company was never formed. While the negotiations were going on, the people in the APN changed, and so did Brian's plans. It was a time when everything changed very quickly. All that was left was a stack of beautiful letterheads.
We turned to Brian with a request to give us this name. Moreover, no one here had such forms made in America.
We received this stack of forms and registered as Video International. On our letterheads from 1992-1993 there were two addresses: New York, Manhattan, and Moscow, Zubovsky Boulevard, 4. Since in 1992 we got a room in the RIA and were already sitting there, we were very happy that our real address, but, however, other phone numbers. We saved these color forms for serious letters, and for the rest we photocopied them and sent them in black and white. This is how the name “Video International” was born.
Until 1995-1996, we called ourselves a production company, as we were engaged in the production of programs, filmed advertising and placed it, that is, we provided services in the field of television and advertising.
In the autumn of 1992, our program “Through the Mouth of a Baby” came out. When we brought it to Russian television, we were granted an audience with Poptsov and Lysenko for the first time. They looked and said: good show, let's put it on the air.
We were very proud, because by that time offices had already appeared, which, like us, were engaged in the production and placement of advertising. At the same time, some of them were engaged in production and were considered “workers” who create a client and, of course, place it. And there were also “drones” who did not create anything, but only intercepted the client, playing at discounts. “Workers” were we, “Aurora”, “Premier SV”. But, for example, we called “Strong” “drone”, because he himself did not create anything, but only collected videos and put them on the air. And now we could say that we are not only giants of advertising, but we also make programs.
At the end of 1992, we had two epoch-making clients - the firm "Seldom" and the bank "Imperial". (See section 4.1 for details. - Note, authors.) Both of them wanted large volumes of television advertising for those times. This was very important for our development, because when we came to Ostankino with these volumes, they could no longer ignore us” 78 .
At the same time, Video International strengthened its ties with the RTR channel even more (see Section 2.2 for more details), and by 1994 the company became one of the leaders in the television advertising market. Since that time, the company began to develop rapidly. In 1994, in addition to creating a joint agency with VGTRK for the sale of advertising opportunities RTR (ARTR), which received exclusive rights on the channel, the full-cycle RA Video International (RAVI) was created, headed by the former general director of the RA Ogilvy & Mather Moscow Dmitry Abroshchenko . He also brought with him the creative director of RAWI Ivan Chimburov.
Mikhail Lesin:
“As was customary in those days, we began to develop a multi-structural business. And in 1992-1993, when we first started looking for partners in the Western market, such an interesting story happened. I traveled to the USA, talked to a lot of people - television, advertising, and everyone refused to cooperate with me. And when we're in last time we had dinner with a fairly well-known producer, I asked him: can you explain to me why no one wants to do business with us? He answered: you bend your fingers on your hand - you produce television programs, place them on broadcast channels, buy content abroad (and this was just the time when we made a deal, bought the rights to "Santa Barbara" and a number of other programs) , and also place them on the air, look for clients and make advertisements for them, and then place advertisements in all these programs. Look what happened - a fist. You have a complete conflict of interest. And no one will deal with you. Because it is impossible to figure out where you are acting in your own interests, where in the interests of the client.
Oddly enough, such a simple comparison led to the fact that Yura and I sat down and began to think: where do we earn more money. It turned out that we earn more from advertising. And this gave impetus - in early 1992, we began to structure the business. But at that time no one understood what customer service was, what a buyer was, what a seller was, etc. It was such a “wild East”” 79 .
Yuri Zapol:
“In 1992-1993, all our activities were carried out within the framework of one structure. We found a client, came up with an idea for him, shot videos, placed them, bought advertising time, etc. In 1994, there was an understanding that selling advertising and customer service is a different business. Already in 1993, we had a customer service department, although this was done at the cave level. And in 1994, we approached the creation of a Russian full-service RA, whose functions would include customer service. Then Dima Abroshchenko came to us, who had previously headed Russian branch Ogilvy & Mather and was tasked with creating the very best in the RA world. Vanya Chimburov, Sasha Nizhelsky, Sasha Romanov and other strong guys who already had experience in Western Armenia came to him. The agency began to develop - at first it had Russian clients, then Western ones appeared. At that time, there were few Western clients in general, and at the same time, many of them were tied to their networks. In 1993-1994 we had Varta, Polaroid batteries. In 1995 Hitachi was born" 80 .
Mikhail Lesin:
“In 1994, I became the official head of the AVID company, which turned into a legal entity. We were such bright guys who at that time did a lot of things and generally understood how it works. And until 1996, inclusive, I was responsible for what is today called advertising production in the entire group: for the production of television programs and for clients in the “gypsy girl with an exit” part. And Yuriy Zapol was responsible for the current work - for sales, planning. And it was a completely intuitive division, because I was better at “gypsy with an exit”, and Zapol was better at remembering numbers.
In 1994, we were already the largest business player in the market, where two major players were formed - we and Premier SV. The rest of the RAs were either smaller or didn't sell TV ads anyway. RA "Premier SV" almost controlled "Ostankino", and we almost controlled "Russia". Plus, we then got NTV. (See Section 2.2 for details.)
The main strategy was that VI is multifunctional complex. Although we have already begun to gradually abandon production, realizing that it conflicts with the main business. By 1995, we had practically abandoned the purchase of television programs and films and placing them on the air. Program production was separated into a separate business. And we thought it was okay. Emphasis was placed on a large advertising holding.
I officially sold my stake in Video International in 1994 because I moved into the civil service. At that time there were practically no laws on civil service. But it was obvious to us that my simultaneous ownership of shares in Video International and the civil service were conflict situation. So we formalized the sale of my shares. But when I kept saying “we”, my whole civil service career was accompanied by accusations that I was corrupt with Video International. But it would be strange if I
Poster "Unpleasant surprise?". Salons cellular communication DIXIS. RA "Maxima" (Moscow)
I told my friends that I shouldn't call and that we should forget everything that had been between us for 20 years. Of course, I actively participated in the life of Video International and gave advice. Video International accompanied me all my life, because first of all they were people close to me. The first decade of Video International was in the nature of a domestic cooperative company, where people were the main value” 81 .
Gradually, “Video International” expanded the number of subsidiaries that formed by 1996 the group of companies “Video International”, which included 14 companies: RA full cycle - RAVI, MUVI, “EL-TV Studio”; media agencies - Media Service Agency “Video International” (seller and buyer in electronic media), “Video International - Press” (advertising in the press), Portland OMI (outdoor advertising operator) and TVIN (advertising in the regions); production companies - production studio "Two wings" and studio of advertising films "Imperial-film"; television projects - Television and Producer Center (production of television programs) and a joint project with RIA Novosti channel "Business Russia". In addition, the holding included three subsidiaries of RAWI - the PR agency PR Impact, the sales promotion and direct marketing agency ProMart International, and the advertising film studio Video International Production 82 .
In 1997, another structural change took place in the holding.
Yuri Zapol:
“We felt that several separate “bushes” of our structure - customer service, production, media, sales house - should be separated as much as possible so as not to create a conflict of interest. For this, sub-holdings were formed. The advertising holding - the advertising group "Video International" was headed by Dmitry Abroshchenko, who began to supervise the work of all RA members of the holding. The same thing happened in the media “bush” - Alexander Nizhelsky began to supervise it, and in the sales house under the management of Sergey Vasiliev. The production center “Video International”, engaged in the production of television programs, was headed by Alexander Gurevich” 83 .
The advertising group "Video International" includes seven advertising agencies - "Video International", "BL6" (together with the St. Saatchi (a joint venture with network advertising agencies Bates and Saatchi & Saatchi), Rowland Moscow (a PR agency created on the basis of a license agreement with Rowland Worldwide), Smart Communications (since 1998 - an associate member of the international advertising network Bozell). (See Section 1.2 for details.)
The second sub-holding in Video International Group of Companies is the Video International Media Service Agency Sales House, which, in addition to selling advertising opportunities for central TV channels (for details, see Sections 2.1,2.2), has exclusive rights to channels in the Russian regions (St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Barnaul, Kemerovo, Irkutsk, Tomsk, etc.), in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus 84 .
In addition, the sales house included the agencies Video International - Press (sale of advertising space in the press), Video International - Radio (radio), Our City (outdoor advertising), Video International - Direct (direct marketing). ), as well as regional offices - in St. Petersburg "Media International" (JV with RA "Business Link Reklama"), in Novosibirsk "Video International - Siberia" with subdivisions in Barnaul, Kemerovo and Tomsk, in Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The third structure is the Independent Media Partners (IMP) media group, which includes the MegaMedia agency, the CIA Media Network JV and the Portland OMI agency specializing in outdoor advertising.
The fourth is the production center “Video International”, which produces TV programs “Director for Yourself”, “Dialogues about Animals”, “Through the Mouth of a Baby”, “One Hundred to One”. The structure also includes the 2 Wings Computer Design Center, established in 1996. The main directions of its activity are the prepress printing cycle, the production of screensavers and TV shows, commercials, music videos, and animation.
In addition, at the beginning of 1998, a production group separated from RAWI, forming the Park VI Production company, which was founded by RAWI, Dmitry Dobuzhinsky and Alexander Farber.
This was the situation in Video International Group before the financial and economic crisis of 1998. Under his blow, the Civil Code survived, but was forced to make some structural changes.
Yuri Zapol:
“When the crisis happened and the market fell, we faced the need for a sharp reduction in staff and simplification of the structure. With the volume of business that remained with the RA, there was no need to supervise them. The agencies that were part of the WG became independent again. We took a fairly tough stance on each unit: we did not have the opportunity to subsidize them, and they had to survive on their own” 85 .
In 2000, Video International Group continued to expand into previously uncovered business areas. In April, together with the well-known agency PR Center, a new PR agency “Video International PR” (VI PR) was founded.
“The new company Video International owns 55 percent of the shares, PR Center - 45 percent. VI PR has a solid start-up capital - the phrase "Video International", appearing in the title, is not cheap in itself. In addition, the new agency already has potential clients- these are almost all advertising partners of Video International. The second founder, the PR Center agency, provided VIPR with specialists in corporate public relations and its old corporate clients” 86 .
In May, a new event took place in the GC - the Video International production center merged with the Gold Vision studio, which specializes in the production of television films and serials, as a result of which a new 2B studio was formed.
“The merger of the small but well-known Gold Vision and part of the Video International empire looks more like a takeover by a major player of a budding studio. As Maxim Boyko, general director of the Video International Group of Companies, told Kommersant, the block of shares was distributed among the partners with a certain margin in favor of VI. As a result of the transaction, everyone benefited - the family film business of David and Tigran Keosayan, Gold Vision, entered a new stage of development, and Video International added television films to the production of entertainment television programs” 87 .
The last of Video International's new projects, the iVI internet agency, was presented to the public in July 2000, and on September 15, the agency began servicing clients.
“Video International has not been interested in online advertising for too long. The only network experience of the company - opened a month ago (in June 2000. - Note, authors) portal mediamarket.ru, a kind of platform for the exchange of information about traditional advertising media. However, when opening this portal, Vasily Kostin, executive director of the Mediamarket project, said that in the near future the company's presence in the network will noticeably increase.
For its project, Video International found an investor - Peter Gervey, the founder of StoryFirst, which owns the STS channel, Maximum radio, and a number of regional TV channels and radio stations. A year ago, Gervey left StoryFirst and decided to invest his earnings in iVI. He owns 25 percent plus one share.
Thus, in 2000, the largest advertising holding in Russia, the Video International group of companies, was formed.
In 2013, the GC rebranded, after which it became simply called Vi.
Starting a new business is always a risky business. After all, in fact, starting a business is a step in an unknown direction. Any outcome is possible here - a quick take-off, a failed attempt, or the collapse of the titan. The reason for failure and success can be any trifle - the appointment of an incompetent person to the position of head of the enterprise, theft of property, the rapid change of the market, the onset of a financial crisis.
But even from the most hopeless situations there is an opportunity to get out. However, not everyone succeeds. If the fall from a small height remains unnoticed, then the fall from the top of the market will respond for a very long time. It is these echoes that we would like to mention today. We looked at the 10 most significant failures.
The famous company with almost 100 years of history will take the first place in our list. It was discovered in 1937 by Dr. Edwin Land. The scientist developed the very first polarizing material used for commercial purposes. He applied his developments in many technological and household devices.
The rise of the company happened after the release of the original cameras, which immediately printed the resulting pictures. The boom in the popularity of devices happened in the 80s and 90s. The company produced specialized cameras and special paper cassettes.
By the early 2000s, Polaroid was gradually losing the market, and after that it could not compete with the digital image format that was gaining popularity at that time. In 2001, Polaroid filed the first stage of bankruptcy and at the same time part of the company was sold.
The once famous Kodak company, which produced popular cameras and film. Products under the name of this brand were in the house of every Russian. In 1963, Kodak launched its most famous cameras, which used type 126 color film.
Already in 1976, one of the company's engineers developed a prototype of the first digital camera with a resolution of 0.1 megapixels. However, the release of the camera was delayed and as a result the company lost a huge market share.
3 Nokia
Perhaps many millions of people around the world could not come to terms with the collapse of this company. It was so bittersweet to watch the fall of this "giant". Nokia mobile phones were used by everyone in the 1990s and 2000s.
In 2007, a significant event in the world of mobile technology took place - the release of the iPhone. And from that moment on, the company began a losing streak. In the race for the consumer, Nokia began to release raw and unfinished products with disgusting firmware. After that, there were a number of unsuccessful decisions of the leadership.
As a result, the company sold the division engaged in the development of mobile phones, was bought out by Microsoft Corporation.
Once one of the market leaders consumer electronics, MIR was founded in 1993. The network included 72 stores throughout Russia. In 2007, the company's turnover amounted to 675 million dollars. The network occupied the 4th place in the home appliances market.
As we remember, in 2008 the world economy suffered a devastating “blow” that destroyed many enterprises, firms and financial corporations. Among them was also Russian company. In 2010, the MIR chain of stores was declared bankrupt.
Siemens mobile phones have been produced since 1985. They were very popular in the 1990s and early 2000s. However, due to problems with software the company's mobile phones constantly needed flashing.
In 2005, the mobile division of Siemens was sold to BenQ, which also did not bring due success. As a result, mobile phones under this name ceased to exist.
Computer manufacturer Olivetti has released its first product, the Olivetti M20. After that, the M24 model was released, copying the IBM PC. In 1985, the company bought a majority stake in Acorn.
