Russia focus: Look At Media

With a freshly minted gold Lion for Mobile tucked neatly under its arm, Moscow’s Look At Media can feel rightly proud of its achievements since its inception in 2006. The digital media company – which incorporates several successful online lifestyle sites as well as a boutique internal agency that creates ideas and produces content for brands such as BMW, Nike, Diesel, VW and Xbox – has gone from strength to strength since chief commercial officer, Katya Bazilevskaya and her editorial partners, Vasilly Esmanov and Alexey Amyotov, set up the company.

With a background in the analytics department at Kislorod, a subsidiary company of the Leo Burnett Group in Moscow, Bazilevskaya says she was always interested in advertising and media culture, but felt that Russian youth was poorly served from a cultural point of view and so decided to start an online magazine with Esmanov and Amyotov. “We all felt like there wasn’t any contemporary magazine that united youth in Russia,” says Bazilevskaya. “Nothing that worked in a digital world that was quick enough, interactive enough and cool enough for us; that’s why we started lookatme.ru, it was a combination of a social network and a digital lifestyle magazine.”

The site was, and still is, a huge success and has spawned other sister sites, including the-village.ru, a socially responsible city guide, and furfurmag.ru, an online magazine for young men. With over three million unique visitors each month the sites are firmly established as Russian cultural hubs. What’s equally interesting is how, without really meaning to, Look At Media has also established itself as a new-model agency that works with brands to foster a more forward-thinking approach to advertising. “It wasn’t a plan,” explains Bazilevskaya, “but in time we saw that as a modern media company we couldn’t just place banner ads, we needed to create and show brands what works and what looks better than that. In Cannes this year some people were talking of making projects, not campaigns; I think that’s what we do.”

Look At Media picked up a gold Lion in the inaugural Mobile category this June for an app for their city guide, the-village.ru, which highlighted bad parkers, or ‘parking douches’ as the app calls them, and mobile apps and non-traditional forms of communication is where all Russian clients should be moving, according to Bazilevskaya. “Mobile communications are as hot a trend here in Russia as they are elsewhere,” she states, “but I think too much effort is put into making applications that have no actual value for people. I think brands should think more about services deeply connected to their actual product and brand experiences. A campaign-based approach usually makes them think about short-term results and doesn’t allow for long-term creative platforms that live through several campaigns.”

While Russian advertising is not – yet – heralded on a global scale [Look At Media’s gold Lion is only the fourth ever gold Lion for Russia], Bazilevskaya believes that the country does have a bright future and will have a part to play in the evolution of the business. “Russian advertising has a much shorter history here than in Europe or the US,” she says. “But today, with new generations coming into the business I think [Russian advertising creativity] is going to rise. I think the market lacks not the creative, strategic or technological insight, but visual excellence. But I think that will come.”

If Russian advertising is to compete globally, Bazilevskaya believes a lack of visual excellence and craft will have to be addressed. Brands also need to be more socially responsible and consumer-aware; “please, always remember how you feel when you see a full-screen ad or a ‘no-skip’ pre-roll before a video; you hate it, so do other people”.

Another, not so easily solved issue that Bazilevskaya thinks Russia struggles with at times is simply its geographical location. Being relatively remote from the rest of Europe has its downsides. “We lack some opportunities,” she states. “In many product categories we can’t share ideas on development because we’re so far away from the head offices. It brings some dependence on global communication solutions that sometimes need to be used, but which don’t always work with local media scenes or insights.”

Despite the occasional challenges, Bazilevskaya and her company seems sure to grow and evolve alongside Russian creativity as a whole. “[Russia] is a big and growing market,” she concludes, “so it has huge opportunities for the advertising business, especially in the digital arena. [And] I hope that our media company will continue its successful development in Russia, gaining more and more readers and eventually growing internationally.” Don’t bet against it.