The Tale of The Deaf and Magic Music Zebra Hero
Task
MTS is the largest mobile operator in Russia. In 2021, the company introduced a new service: the KION online cinema. The service is using a subscription model, however 40% of young Russians prefer not to pay for content. The client’s goal was to tell its target audience that KION will offer content worth paying for.
Ideas and solutions
In order to draw attention to its own content, MTS KION decided to shoot feature films and post them on its free YouTube channel. One of such films was the horror movie, Tale of the Deaf. Tale of the Deaf — is a horror about the life of a deaf shadow theater actor trying to capture the attention of paupers in a shabby joint. Suddenly, a mysterious stranger enters the establishment carrying a hypnotizing barrel organ, and his musical act drives all patrons crazy, sucking their souls out. The organ grinder never expected one of the paupers to simply not hear his diabolical music. What really makes this movie stand out is that the lead role was not played by a professional actor, but by a popular Russian rapper, Husky. An underground musician who never gives interviews and never participates in any outside projects suddenly appears before the audience as an actor, and one with a really complicated part – the role of a deaf shadow theater artist. Results In its first month, the film received 3,000,000 organic views and over 1,000 comments on YouTube. Key media outlets that are relevant among our target audience wrote about the project: Kinopoisk (Russia’s top movie-related media), Meduza.io, GQ Russia, Vogue Ukraine, Glamour Russia, The Flow, etc. Many major bloggers spoke about the project, such as TV presenter Alexander Gudkov (1.8 million followers on Instagram), blogger Danila Poperechny (1.6 million followers), blogger Maria Minogarova (1.2 million followers), etc. According to YouTube analytics, the movie's likability was 96%, and 83% of viewers belonged to our target audience (44% of viewers aged 18 to 24, 39% aged 25 to 34).
