“Gosuslug” was given a “Challenge” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 66 (7511) dated 04/15/2023

Advertising budgets for the promotion of the film “The Challenge”, which is released in wide release on April 20, were comparable to the promotional budget of the film “Cheburashka”, the record holder among Russian films in terms of box office. In addition to Channel One, the film was advertised through a mailing list from the Gosuslugi website, which experts call “a successful hit on the information agenda.”

The budget for the promotion of the tape “Challenge” amounted to about 91 million rubles, estimates the President of Mediaplus Group Russia Oleg Volkosh. At the same time, the Challenge was promoted mainly on Channel One. 82 million rubles were spent on the advertising of Cheburashka, which has collected at the moment a record box office for a Russian film of 6.77 billion rubles, and promotion was carried out on several TV channels (First, Friday, Mult, “The Sun”, “Russia 1”, “Match TV”, etc.), as well as on the radio and in the print press, Mr. Volkosh points out.

Estimates by other experts differ in particulars, but agree that comparable amounts were spent on advertising for the two films. “For the period from November 2022 to February 2023, Cheburashka’s advertising budget amounted to about 49.8 million rubles, and Challenge for the same number of days — 58 million rubles,” NMi Group estimated. They also clarified that the promotion of Cheburashka on TV cost 43 million rubles, on radio – 6.8 million rubles. Mera (by OKKAM) believes that the promo budget of Challenge amounted to 57.9 million rubles, Cheburashki – 65.1 million rubles, but emphasize that they used data from Mediascope for calculations, which do not take into account non-monitoring expenses (indirect advertising, social media promotion, etc.).

The choice of Pervy as the main advertising medium is an absolutely logical step, because Vyzov is the project of this particular TV channel, says Dmitry Kolesov, director of the New Technologies Department at J’son and Partners Consulting. “However, do not forget that there was also an advertisement on the State Services, when a mailing came with an invitation to watch the Challenge tape. The project team simply tried to use those resources that cover the target audience as much as possible,” he clarifies. The interlocutor of Kommersant in the industry calls the promotion of the “Challenge” through advertising on “State Services” “an extraordinary and creative step”: “It was a good hit on the information agenda.” He suggested that the “Challenge” could be promoted through bloggers in the future: “This is a fairly common move when young people are used as a channel for promoting content, especially state content.”

Central Partnership (Cheburashka) declined to comment. Yellow, Black and White and Channel One (Challenge) did not respond to Kommersant’s request.

Significant by Russian standards, advertising costs alone are not able to provide the film with record fees, experts point out. “For example, “Cheburashka” is intended for a wider family audience than “Challenge,” says Dmitry Litvinov, producer and publisher of the Film Distributor’s Bulletin. “Cheburashka came out at the most favorable time – on New Year’s Day,” Dmitry Kolesov names another factor.

Now Hollywood’s “John Wick-4” remains the leader of film distribution, which collected 75.7 million rubles on the weekend of April 7-9 alone.

Julia Yurasova