Eleusis Zebra Hero
Task
MTS is the largest mobile operator in Russia, which introduced a new service in 2021 - the online cinema KION. It works by subscription, but 40% of young Russians prefer not to pay for content. The goal is to tell the target audience that KION will offer content that is worth paying for.
Ideas and solutions
To draw attention to its own content, MTS KION decided to shoot feature films and post them on the free YouTube channel, one of these films was the horror movie Eleusis. Eleusis — is a horror film about one-hit wonder Ivan in the deep state of a creative crisis is signed to a rehab program at the highly protected, isolated Sanatorium that promises a lifetime warranty for endless inspiration. A bourgeois setting with welcoming stuff slowly creeps into a violent cult that tortures artists in the name of inspiration, where Ivans greatest hit becomes his darkest nightmare. What really makes this film stand out is the fact that Ivan Dorn, a singer vastly popular in Russia and CIS countries, effectively played himself. The actor refers to certain details of his own biography. In the movie, the protagonist is haunted by his own greatest hit—and in these moments, we hear Ivan Dorn’s real hit, Stycamen, Russia’s top hit back in 2012. The viewers were aware of the fictional nature of the plot, however the combination of imaginary events and a very real person helped create a particularly submersive story. Results The film received 300,000 organic views and over 600 comments on YouTube in the first week. The main media that are relevant among our target audience wrote about the project: Kinopoisk (the main Russian media about cinema), Meduza.io, GQ Russia, Vogue Ukraine, Glamor 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 the analytics of the movie on YouTube, the movie's likability was 96%, and 83% of viewers were our target audience (44% of viewers aged 18 to 24, 39% - from 25 to 34).
