Background: S7 & Aeroflot, the key players in the market, expanded abroad, deriving most of their passenger revenue from international destinations. Utair have always played a different game. It's a regional carrier with the largest domestic network. Moscow became Utair’s main hub, but the brand still couldn’t compete with industry leaders in terms of awareness and brand preference. Therefore, Utair’s seat occupancy rate was 7–10 percent below the industry average. That meant that on some routes from Moscow Utair mostly carried air, not passengers. And according to our research, it were wealthy and brand-conscious Moscow residents, who rejected domestic tourism.

Challenge: Utair defined it's brand vision as to become the number one choice for flights over Russia. Delivering Utair’s new positioning ('Easy way to be closer'), ‘Where You Belong’ was the first-ever campaign launched by the brand. The main objective was to switch Russians (primarily, Muscovites) from vacationing abroad to flying to small Russian cities through Utair’s extensive domestic network. At the same time we had to refresh brand's image and build an emotional connection with Moscow-based audience, raising awareness and consideration.

We dug deeper into the available quantitative data, and unearthed the following fact: more than 70% of those flying out of Moscow have regional passport codes (i.e. they were born and raised in other Russian cities before moving to Moscow). The same thing was true for all other large regional centers. Moving with the flow of urbanization, these people left their hometown in pursuit of better life.

These people often avoid visiting their childhood towns, while regularly vacationing abroad. After conducting a series of interviews, we found a deep reason: after moving to the affluent Moscow, people start feeling ashamed of their modest provincial origins, while spending a vacation abroad is a socially approved behavior. Influenced by scenic foreign sights on Instagram and inspiring ads praising exotic locales, people feel obliged to partake in the spectacle, and represent themselves through consumption of international tour packages. There are a few precious days in a vacation — people tend to plan them meticulously.

The solution was to unlock people's sense of obligation to visit their family and friends in regional Russia, removing the stigma of such trips and utilising the power of nostalgia.

Traditional thinking says that in order to experience genuine emotions, you have to go to “places where no one expected you”: foreign countries and unexplored lands. In fact, the complete opposite can be also true: nothing holds such a firm and stable emotional hold over us as places and people from our childhood.

Every Russian has a special place, where they belong. And no matter what this place looks like, it's something we have an emotional connection with. And there are people who still live there and wait for us to come back. As a regional carrier with largest domestic network, Utair helps simply to get there, where you belong.

Business: As for October, 2018, Utair increased the revenue by 2.2 billion rubles (+5.2%), compared with 9 months of 2017. Revenue rose to 45.4 billion rubles, as passenger traffic increased by 5%. Seat Occupancy Rate increased by 4.6 percentage points to 80.1%.

Marketing: With this campaign, Utair jumped from 5th to 2nd place regarding awareness (+18%), and consideration for the brand doubled (+100%). The metric "Brand understands the country and the people" increased by 4 percentage points.

Social: Utair provoked a media storm: ordinary people, bloggers and professionals began to profess their love for the campaign, while pro-government media accused Utair of going for shock value. The campaign even provoked an organic social media flashmob: people started uploading photos of their own childhood homes. The campaign generated 124 mil impressions.

Russia is huge. Thousands of kilometres may separate a son who moved to Moscow from his mother living in Siberia.

Thanks to Soviet housing program, Russians live in similar concrete blocks — from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific — and just by showing 5 types of these houses in outdoor and print campaign, we resonated with almost everyone. Basically, 100% of us have relatives or friends living in such buildings in some city or other.

While pro-government media report on unprecedented economic success, 80% of Russia (including population of the cities where Utair flies) still lives in Soviet dystopia. By showing the unadorned truth of life and sparking the conversation around it, we deliberately divided our society in two: Moscow natives and pro-government media derided the campaign, accusing Utair of going for shock value, while people who had moved to Moscow from the province were raving with praise.

S7 & Aeroflot, the key players in the market, reinforce the category’s perception of exclusivity. Their aim is to win over the small but wealthy segment of people flying abroad (only 28% of Russian population possess international passports). Hence, their communication looks accordingly — touting dream destinations, remotest corners of the planet, and the best sights and cuisines from all over the world.

Utair have always played a different game. While other players expand abroad, Utair increases its network of domestic destinations.

In order to challenge the category, we didn't show the sights or postcard views in the ads. We broke the taboo of Russian advertising by showing the bitter but true reality of Russia — Khrushchev-era housing blocks and dying villages. Also, in our social experiment we reconsidered the concept of a 'dream destination', reminding Russians what their true dream destination really is.