SIMPLE GROUP AND BAR CREATIVE AGENCY: EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA GROWTH WITH DARK MARKET LIMITATIONS.
Utilizing creative content and special social media projects to grow the brand’s social media presence.

Promotion channels
Make a habit of enjoying yourself
Analytics
SMM
Own media: IG*, VK, TG, FB, YT
Design
Change your habits without changing them.
Production
*Meta Platforms Inc. recognized as an extremist organization and banned on the territory of the Russian Federation
The growth and development of Simple Group’s digital ecosystem among the premium segment of large city audience.

The goal:
Limitations on promotion in the dark market category + specific limitations of the platforms for the Russian Federation.
The challenge:
Combination of efficient visual strategy, cutting edge content formats, situational content, and creator collabs.
The solution:
Starting from the first quarter, we achieved noticeable improvements in terms of reach, audience growth and engagement compared to last year. For some of the platforms the results reached an all-time record.
The result:
The agency faced a challenging task - developing a social media strategy that would multiply the growth of subscribers from a narrow segment, as well as reach and engagement throughout the brand's digital ecosystem (TG, VK, IG, FB) in the face of limited promotion opportunities. To find a successful approach, we performed a detailed audit of the brand's current social media strategy, and analyzed the media landscape and current trends.

Facing a limited toolset, BAR Agency focused on a set of strategies that proved most efficient.

Strategic approach
Producing large quantities of unique, relevant content = Achieving organic growth and viral potential
1
Creating situational content and interactive activities = Achieving significant increase in reach and engagement
2
Collaborations with creatives = Attracting new audience, increasing reach
3
Simple Group’s portfolio features a wide variety of products, so one of our main areas of focus was the robust production of relevant promo content that would attract audiences to these products.
Relevant creative content and visuals
We reached a wide audience by realizing a strong visual and creative strategy that focused on the central emotion of the campaign - the joy discovery. To enhance the visuals of the project and boost promotion of products we commissioned photoshoots that highlighted the current trends of the season.
To educate the audience about wine and drinking culture, we utilized Vinotoliy, a mascot for the Simple Group line of products. This provided a fun and engaging angle for an otherwise complex topic. The content about the products became fun and memorable, and got turned into a popular social media sticker pack.
To maintain growth, we constantly monitored and tested new promotional mechanics that we adapted for situational and interactive content. This allowed us to attract new audiences while keeping budgets low across all platforms.
Creating situational content and contests
For example, on VKontakte we organized a challenge that featured an AI bot and artist Evgeny Matskevich, capitalizing on the popular trend of AI-generated content. The artist and the AI bot visualized users’ favorite products from the Simple Group line in the context of the cities that the users live in. 498 new users subscribed to the brand’s VK page during this activity.
On the brand's Telegram channel we launched an activity called “Cultural March”. The channel’s subscribers rolled virtual emoji dice in the comments to win tickets to the theater. The activity proved a success with an ERR of 31,44%.
Situational posts were a key tool for creating diverse content, and reacting to hot trends and widely discussed events. These posts were among some of the most popular on all of the brand’s platforms. For example, we created a wine-based horoscope - a viral post with fortunes based on wine culture. The horoscope helped users pick a perfect bottle of wine for their star sign on any given evening (ERR on Instagram — 5,83%, on VKontakte - 9,96%).
On Valentine’s Day we created an emotional and original post in which wine products confessed their feelings for the audience in their native language (ERR on VKontakte - 22%).
Simple Group is one of the most innovative companies in its industry, so it was important to collaborate only with the most original and disruptive creatives, who anticipate trends rather than following them. Carefully planned viral content created for these collaborations attracted a new high quality audience which showed a high level of engagement with the brand.
Collaborations with creatives
For example, we collaborated with the creator kirill, and created a series of ironic, relatable toasts, which were perfectly crafted to be highly shareable in the community.

The collaboration reached over 50k users, ERR on Instagram was 13,53%.
We collaborated with the Yes community to create a series of fun viral stories about the biggest blunders people made when buying alcohol.

The content reached over 800k users, ERR on Instagram was 9,75%.
Key metrics for 3 months of the project:
Reach: 141 851
In March we launched our most engaging activity, reaching one of the highest monthly ERR stats in a year — 4,03%.

Telegram
Total reach: 354 379
Reached highest ERR in January — 8,28%

Reach: 596 039
ERR up to 7,81%

ВКонтакте
Instagram*
+1987 subscribers
+1475 subscribers
+2254 subscribers
*Meta Platforms Inc. recognized as an extremist organization and banned on the territory of the Russian Federation
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