Meduza, IRL Our first-ever advertising campaign is coming to a city near you
Meduza, IRL Our first-ever advertising campaign is coming to a city near you
In late 2024, Meduza soft-launched its first-ever international ad campaign. Developed by the Berlin-based agency Lure, the campaign kicked off with the release of a promotional video and a new slogan: “Where other headlines end, Meduza begins.” Now, we’re ready to take the next step. Later this month, our ads will appear on the streets of three major European capitals: Berlin, Paris, and London. Here’s what you need to know if you want to see them in real life.
Throughout its 10-year history, Meduza in English has reached new audiences online and by word of mouth. People would find our articles through search engines, get our newsletters forwarded to them by friends, and hear about our podcast from colleagues. But what if we could reach people who haven’t yet discovered Meduza and don’t have any readers in their circle to introduce them?
It’s important that as many people around the world as possible know that Meduza also reports in English. This isn’t just a matter of building bridges between different audiences (though this is critical in times of war and polarization). As you may know, we can raise the funds we need to survive only outside of Russia. And since bad things happen regularly when you cover authoritarian countries, we’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The more people know about Meduza, the easier it is to respond when, for example, we must find new ways to circumvent online censorship or rid our phones of powerful spyware.
Running an ad campaign about your own reporting is as difficult as it is unnatural, especially when the world is tired of bad news coming from Russia. But we’re still trying to spread the word about Meduza, with the help of our friends and partners from the Berlin-based agency Lure, who kindly developed this ad campaign.
The campaign was designed specifically to engage audiences in North America, Western Europe, and Northern Europe who follow events in Russia and Ukraine but feel international and regional media coverage lacks depth. Lure also came up with a clever way to reach those people: taking our new slogans to the streets as part of a guerrilla ad campaign! And so, in January, we’ll be projecting Meduza’s ads and work onto buildings in major neighborhoods in Berlin, Paris, and London.
This is a rather unusual experience for our newsroom, but we hope our advertising tactics will attract the right attention. If you live in one of these cities and want to see our ads come to life, we’d be happy for you to join us at the following times and places:
- Berlin: Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 13, 10178 (January 16 and 17, 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.)
- Paris: Chaillot, at 75116 (Place du Trocadéro) (January 16 and 17, 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.)
- London: Holles Street, W1G 0DB (January 16, 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.)
And if you happen to be in Helsinki, we have a small surprise for you too! Keep an eye out for Meduza's ads if you're near Kamppi Arkadiankatu, Kluuvi Sokos B, Mannerheimintie Stockmann, Sörnäinen Helsinginkatu, or Sörnäinen Helsinginkatu G this Thursday and Friday.
If you decide to post a photo of our ads on Instagram, don’t forget to tag us: @meduza_en. And to share your thoughts on our ad campaign, write to [email protected].
