www.adweek.com Open in urlscan Pro
152.199.22.151  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

 * 


 * Sign In
 * Subscribe
 * 

Agencies Accounts Adweek Wire AgencySpy Agency of the Year Independent Agencies
Leadership & Talent Media Agencies Media Agency of the Year The Future of
Agencies
Agencies
Agencies Accounts Adweek Wire AgencySpy Agency of the Year Independent Agencies
Leadership & Talent Media Agencies Media Agency of the Year The Future of
Agencies


UKRAINE


WAR-LIFE BALANCE: HOW THE LIVES OF UKRAINIAN CREATIVES HAVE BEEN RESHAPED BY WAR


3 PERSONAL STORIES OF LIFE AMID INVASION

These stories show of how the Ukrainian creative community adapted to the new
wartime reality.Mykhaylo Batrak
By Yaroslav Druziuk

3 days ago

The following article is from Adweek’s special issue “On Ukraine, by
Ukrainians,” published April 25, 2022, and created entirely by Ukrainian
writers, editors and artists amid the ongoing all-out war in their homeland.

After Feb. 24, life is never gonna be the same for any Ukrainian. The brutal and
unprovoked russian invasion has changed the lives of the 40-million nation
overnight.

These are three stories of how the Ukrainian creative community adapted to the
new wartime reality:



ONE SPARE SEAT IS ONE LIFE SAVED

Andrii Mishchenko overslept the start of the war. An independent creative
strategist, he had flown back to Ukraine mere hours before russia reignited the
8-year war on Feb. 24. Mishchenko and his wife were on vacation in Barcelona but
decided to go back to Kyiv on Feb. 23 despite the looming threat of war. They
were tired after a day of traveling, coming back home from the airport late.

Then the full-scale war started. 

“Wake up, russia has invaded us,” Mishchenko recalls telling his wife. They had
to flee Kyiv, but neither he nor his wife had a driver’s license. His
father-in-law insisted on getting them out of the city, driving out for them
from Chernivtsi, 340 miles away. To meet him halfway, they started asking around
if someone could pick them up while leaving the city. Eventually, they found a
friend heading their way and had spare seats in the car.



The whole trip took 22 hours. The eventual feeling of safety, he confides, was
comparable to the one he had after escaping his hometown of Donetsk, captured by
the russian forces and their proxies back in 2014.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mishchenko knew what exactly he needed to do the next day. He reached out to his
friend Vitaliy Bandura to develop an evacuation service. “Vitalik was in Odesa
the day the war started, but he had a car, so he was picking up hitchhikers on
the way. The idea was to connect drivers and the people who need a ride,”
Mishchenko explains. So they created the free Nam Po Dorozi bot in Telegram
messenger to connect drivers and evacuees while rideshare apps were
overwhelmed. 

The project was launched on Feb. 28, and in the first week it got 10,000
requests. The drivers were outnumbered, so Mishchenko and Bandura launched a
campaign on Instagram with an effective call to action: “One spare seat is one
life saved.” 



Continue reading

Mishchenko’s now keeping himself busy in Chernivtsi’s relative safety. He’s
organizing a team that creates campaigns for the Ukrainian government, and he’s
also been involved in Act Like Zelensky NFT collection. He was working 20-hour
shifts for the first weeks of the war, but now tries to take at least half a day
off to recover. “In wartime, everyone’s got to do their best,” Mishchenko says.
“Soldiers have to fight, and the creative community has to help with creative
problem-solving.” 

Mykhaylo Batrak

SWITCHING FROM AD TO BREAD—FOR THE WARTIME

Meriam Yol is a producer turned wartime warehouse manager. “The producing
experience definitely comes in handy,” she says. 

The Arriba! creative agency producer started to volunteer on the very first day
of the full-scale war and has unexpectedly been running a coffee shop in
Kharkiv. “The owners had to leave the city but gave me the keys. So we’re trying
to keep it busy now,” Yol says. Coffee, tea, and the fancy vegan sweets were
good, but baking equipment was better. The team started to bake 150 loaves of
bread a day for those in need. 



When Arriba! founder Max Burtsev launched the Volonterska volunteering effort,
Yol was put in charge of its warehouse. “I’m a warehouse manager now. It’s like
a difficult location shoot, with five location changes,” she says. “And with
rockets flying over your head.” 

Every day, the Volonterska team organizes food and medicine for hundreds of
elderly residents in the constantly shelled Kharkiv. “It’s the people who don’t
have messenger apps that need help. And the way to reach them is with the
landline,” Yol explains. So Arriba! set up a call line for the people who need
support.

Yol’s job is to manage the incoming humanitarian aid and make sure the supplies
are readily available. “Say we get a call from an elderly man with psoriasis,
urgently needing a specific ointment. The medicine is nowhere to be bought in
Kharkiv, but it can be delivered. So we need to find a way to get it. Even if it
requires a unicorn,” she explains. 



Yol tells the recent story that moved her. A woman left a request for delivery:
food for one person, pump for a wheelchair, no need for medicine. “Send it to
the people who need it more,” the woman added in notes.

“These people—that’s what keeps me going,” Yol says. 

Continue reading

LIVE, LEAVE, LOVE

Ilia Anufrienko had a feeling the war was coming. A week before the invasion,
the Bickerstaff.284 agency founder took his pregnant wife and two children to a
safer place in the west of Ukraine. The news about the war reached him on the
train to Lviv. “It’s not the rockets you hear, it’s fireworks,” he recalls
consoling his daughter.

Anufrienko’s first instinct was to make sure his family was safe, so he decided
to head to Europe. It was shortly before the Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 were
forbidden from leaving the country. Anufrienko says that he moved fast, because
he’d been there before. Back in 2014, the art director had to go back to his
hometown Luhansk to evacuate his mother from the russian occupation. “Everyone
thought I was being paranoid when I took my family to Lviv. But 2014 taught me
that anything can happen—no matter how crazy it seems. And I just couldn’t
imagine hiding in a bomb shelter with my pregnant wife,” he says. 

The family is safe in Portugal now, Anufrienko’s wife is due to give birth
shortly. He’s making the most of his safety, working on several projects such as
a plea to the russian soldiers’ mothers and a hip-hop campaign for a dog
shelter. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There’s no business as usual in wartime. Anufrienko’s team is working remotely
now from different parts of Ukraine and Europe: “We’re working faster,” says the
Bickerstaff founder. “The projects that took five reviews are getting approved
in no time. Every minute counts.” Anufrienko adds that he’s taking time to talk
to his colleagues individually, offering help and support.

Bickerstaff.284 is the LIA and Epica Award-winning agency founded by Anufrienko
in 2020. He says part of the reason he wanted to lead a team of his own was to
focus on social projects. “I told my team that our priority is to help the
Ukrainian government fight the invaders,” the founder says. Their newest
campaign is the Glory to Ukraine foundation for the Ukrainian parliament. 

Anufrienko says he’s received offers from the European agencies both before and
after the invasion, but his priority is Bickerstaff. “We have 17 team members. I
can’t leave them; that’d feel like a betrayal to me. We just have to keep
working and trying to help Ukraine and the economy,” he says.  

Continue reading

With nearly 5 million people fleeing Ukraine, the nation faces an unprecedented
brain drain. Anufrienko is adamant he stands with his homeland: “I don’t plan to
go back, because the way I see it, I never left. We’re trying to help from
here.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


ENJOYING YOUR CONTENT. YOU HAVE 1 FREE ARTICLE LEFT.

Register to continue reading!

Register Today!

Click for more from this issue

This story first appeared in the April 25, 2022, special issue of Adweek
magazine, created entirely by Ukrainian writers, editors and artists.


YAROSLAV DRUZIUK

Yaroslav Druziuk is deputy editor in chief at The Village Ukraine, covering
culture, creative industries and the restaurant business. He has had bylines in
The Guardian, New York Magazine, The Independent, Vulture, Eater and The
Athletic.

Recommended articles

Popular Now
 1. TikTok: How to See Who Has Viewed Your Profile
 2. Dove’s Disturbing Deepfakes Expose Social Media’s Toxic Influence on Teen
    Girls
 3. Commercials Are Coming to Netflix. What That Means for Marketers, Tech and
    Creatives
 4. Essence and MediaCom to Merge While WPP Launches a 9,000-Large Tech Group
 5. Saturday, April 23 Scoreboard: Dan Bongino Remains No. 1 in Primetime





Related Articles
Ukraine

The Origin Story of Ukraine’s Creative Industry

By Serhii Malyk

Ukraine

Flight, Freeze, Fight: How Ukraine’s Design Studios Are Enduring and Adapting

By Nastichka Zherebetska

Ukraine

How Ukraine’s Creatives Are Helping Win the War and Keeping the World’s
Attention

By Oksana Gonchar

Ukraine

How I Live This War

By Taisiia Kudenko

Microlearning
View All

Organize and Leverage Your Measurement Toolbox

Connected TV Enables Effective Audience-First Advertising

Maximize the Value of First-Party Data for Today and Tomorrow

Subscriber Onboarding and Engagement Done Right

You Might Like

Stop Talking at Consumers and Start Listening to Them

By Tim Glomb, VP Content and Data, Cheetah Digital

The Power of the U.S. Hispanic Consumer

By TelevisaUnivision

Why Creative Engagement Data Is a Top Insight Into Consumer Intelligence

By Oz Etzioni, CEO, Clinch

Making an Impact With Contextual Advertising

By Stuart Feil




Adweek is the leading source of news and insight serving the brand marketing
ecosystem.

 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 


ABOUT

 * About Us
 * Contact Us
 * Media Kit
 * Editorial Cal
 * Sponsor Content
 * Jobs at Adweek


SUBSCRIPTIONS

 * Subscription Options
 * Digital App
 * FAQs
 * Newsletters
 * Customer Service


EVENTS

 * Awards
 * Adweek Events
 * Webinars
 * On-Demand Webinars
 * Trophies / Awards / Seals


PUBLICATIONS

 * Adweek Blog Network
 * Adweek Podcast Network
 * RSS
 * Back Issues
 * Reprints / E-Prints

©2022 Adweek - All Rights Reserved.
 * Do not sell my personal information
 * Terms of Use
 * Privacy Policy











ABOUT YOUR PRIVACY

We process your data to deliver content or advertisements and measure the
delivery of such content or advertisements to extract insights about our
website. We share this information with our partners on the basis of consent and
legitimate interest. You may exercise your right to consent or object to a
legitimate interest, based on a specific purpose below or at a partner level in
the link under each purpose. These choices will be signaled to our vendors
participating in the Transparency and Consent Framework.
Privacy Policy
Allow All


MANAGE CONSENT PREFERENCES

STRICTLY NECESSARY COOKIES

Always Active

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched
off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you
which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy
preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block
or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

PERFORMANCE COOKIES

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and
improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the
most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All
information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you
do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and
will not be able to monitor its performance.

FUNCTIONAL COOKIES

Functional Cookies

These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and
personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose
services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some
or all of these services may not function properly.

TARGETING/ADVERTISING COOKIES

Targeting/Advertising Cookies

These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may
be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you
relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal
information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet
device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted
advertising.

VIDEO COOKIES

Video Cookies

These cookies are set by a range of video services that we have added to the
site to enable you to view video content. They are capable of tracking your
browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may
impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do
not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

STORE AND/OR ACCESS INFORMATION ON A DEVICE

Store and/or access information on a device

Cookies, device identifiers, or other information can be stored or accessed on
your device for the purposes presented to you.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

PERSONALISED ADS AND CONTENT, AD AND CONTENT MEASUREMENT, AUDIENCE INSIGHTS AND
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and
product development

 * SELECT PERSONALISED ADS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Personalised ads can be shown to you based on a profile about you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * CREATE A PERSONALISED ADS PROFILE
   
   Switch Label
   
   A profile can be built about you and your interests to show you personalised
   ads that are relevant to you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * SELECT PERSONALISED CONTENT
   
   Switch Label
   
   Personalised content can be shown to you based on a profile about you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * MEASURE AD PERFORMANCE
   
   Switch Label
   
   The performance and effectiveness of ads that you see or interact with can be
   measured.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * MEASURE CONTENT PERFORMANCE
   
   Switch Label
   
   The performance and effectiveness of content that you see or interact with
   can be measured.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * SELECT BASIC ADS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Ads can be shown to you based on the content you’re viewing, the app you’re
   using, your approximate location, or your device type.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * APPLY MARKET RESEARCH TO GENERATE AUDIENCE INSIGHTS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Market research can be used to learn more about the audiences who visit
   sites/apps and view ads.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * DEVELOP AND IMPROVE PRODUCTS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Your data can be used to improve existing systems and software, and to
   develop new products
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * CREATE A PERSONALISED CONTENT PROFILE
   
   Switch Label
   
   A profile can be built about you and your interests to show you personalised
   content that is relevant to you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

USE PRECISE GEOLOCATION DATA

Use precise geolocation data

Your precise geolocation data can be used in support of one or more purposes.
This means your location can be accurate to within several meters.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

ACTIVELY SCAN DEVICE CHARACTERISTICS FOR IDENTIFICATION

Actively scan device characteristics for identification

Your device can be identified based on a scan of your device's unique
combination of characteristics.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

ENSURE SECURITY, PREVENT FRAUD, AND DEBUG

Always Active

Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent fraudulent activity, and ensure
systems and processes work properly and securely.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

TECHNICALLY DELIVER ADS OR CONTENT

Always Active

Your device can receive and send information that allows you to see and interact
with ads and content.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

MATCH AND COMBINE OFFLINE DATA SOURCES

Always Active

Data from offline data sources can be combined with your online activity in
support of one or more purposes

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

LINK DIFFERENT DEVICES

Always Active

Different devices can be determined as belonging to you or your household in
support of one or more of purposes.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

RECEIVE AND USE AUTOMATICALLY-SENT DEVICE CHARACTERISTICS FOR IDENTIFICATION

Always Active

Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it
automatically sends, such as IP address or browser type.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

OTHER/UNKNOWN

Other/Unknown

These are cookies that we are in the process of classifying, together with the
providers of individual cookies.


BACK BUTTON PERFORMANCE COOKIES



Vendor Search Search Icon
Filter Icon

Clear
checkbox label label
Apply Cancel
Consent Leg.Interest
checkbox label label
checkbox label label
checkbox label label

Confirm My Choices



WE CARE ABOUT YOUR PRIVACY

We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as unique
IDs in cookies to process personal data. You may accept or manage your choices
by clicking below, including your right to object where legitimate interest is
used, or at any time in the privacy policy page. These choices will be signaled
to our partners and will not affect browsing data.


WE AND OUR PARTNERS PROCESS DATA TO PROVIDE:

Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for
identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised ads
and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product
development. List of Partners (vendors)

I Accept Reject All Show Purposes