His employees call him the Father of Brands. And his team has been involved in boosting the fortunes of many popular Ukrainian firms.
He is Andriy Fedoriv, 38, and his eponymous Fedoriv agency has created brands for such Ukrainian firms as private delivery service Nova Poshta, online marketplace OLX, national bank Oschadbank and even the National Police.
Fedoriv has marketed more than 100 brands in the last seven years, also working with such foreign big names as Microsoft and Lenovo. The key to success in marketing, he said, is to work directly with the owners of a business.
“I always work with the core of a business, with its owner. I believe in the role of a personality,” Fedoriv said in an interview with the Kyiv Post. “Apple with its iPhone did not pop up naturally. There always should be a ‘psycho’ on the top who can organize people around.”
Fedoriv oversees 74 people in the company and plans to open a branch in Germany. His agency helps brands with design, strategy, communication and content.
The marketer and his team try to “feel the tempo of the time” and change businesses in accordance with it.
“We work as marketing professionals and as entrepreneurs at the same time, changing business processes in the firms we work with,” Fedoriv said.
Hard work required
Fedoriv agency rarely works with small business. Many young companies simply don’t have money to hire Fedoriv. The entrepreneur, however, helps such companies with advice.
“It is my social responsibility,” Fedoriv said. He recalled when he was a child in the Soviet Union, he was inspired by a businessman who came to the club of young entrepreneurs he attended. “I got inspiration from that guy and I think I have to pass it on now.”
All the same, Fedoriv thinks even his business workshops are useless if their listeners don’t work hard every day.
“Young entrepreneurs have to sleep and think about their businesses. After all, a brand, logo, service and even the color of a shirt of an employee — it’s their job.”
Andriy Fedoriv, the founder and CEO of his eponymous Fedoriv agency, poses for a picture at the company’s main office located in Kyiv. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Types of clients
Two other types of clients come to Fedoriv agency regularly — modern and traditional large- and medium-sized companies. Fedoriv enjoys working with both.
The first ones are usually old-school companies. They are big and have at least $2 million in annual turnover. They really want to change and to use their new brand as a tool to jump to the next level. “They usually understand that time flies and that they are lagging behind.”
The second ones are representatives of the modern sharing economy: tech startups and online services that are doing well.
“They have a modern vision in their blood,” he said and added that these generations differ and that the agency uses different tools to change and promote them.
“I like that the agency works in different spheres, because we don’t just say we’re digital hipsters and that we’re in the opposition to everything that was before. That’s simply not the right thing to do,” he said.
Businesses, however, should understand that every successful decision is still temporary.
“Those who say they understand how their business model works should keep in mind that everything will change in a year, either because of political or technological revolutions.”
He has come up with the term “business Buddhism,” defining it as an ability not to get used to things around. “Nothing is everlasting. Those will die, others will replace them,” he said.
Fedoriv says he even believes that artificial intelligence can change his trade overnight, stealing his job.
“A machine may promise 1,000 solutions for your brand only for $4.99. You want a brand identity?” it will ask. “Take it then.”
Tastes of clients
Design is a matter of taste. But Fedoriv says he never gets complaints from his clients, for the agency spends “sometimes even more time than we probably should” arranging agreements.
“Besides,” he said, “if a client has different visual tastes, we feel it. And the client feels it. Because everything is telling about it, right? The way we dress, the way our office looks.”
The portfolio filters clients as well.
“We have a particular style, and people come to us only if they like this style.”
Anyway, Fedoriv can’t have a solution for everybody.
“There’s no universal agency that can satisfy everyone. We match up with one and we don’t with someone else.”
Global competition from Ukraine
Fedoriv wants his business to compete globally, but he says it’s better to make it happen from Ukraine. He admits that the local marketing industry lacks maturity, money and talent. But he stays because he’s well-established here.
“I work in the humanitarian sphere. If you want to work with other cultures, you need to understand them,” he said. “I know English, but I would be limited in America.”
Besides, Fedoriv says that for him to live in New York rather than Kyiv, he would have to spend up to $5 million a year “just on the things I’ve got used to having.”
“You can call it a comfort zone,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
At the same time, Fedoriv says that, due to the internet, people who work from Ukraine can compete with marketing specialists from the United Kingdom and the United States, reading the same reports and communicating with the same people online.
“Today everyone is equal, for everyone has access to the information,” Fedoriv says. “If you don’t want to miss anything, you better stay in Ukraine. Life in the U.S. and in the European Union is measured. Everything’s in order there. True revolutions are happening here.”
Marketer Andriy Fedoriv talks to the Kyiv Post on Dec. 14 sharing his thoughts on how to succeed as an entrepreneur in Ukraine. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Andriy Fedoriv
Nationality: Ukrainian
Job: Founder and CEO of creative company Fedoriv
How to succeed in Ukraine? “People have to comprehend that modern art is about ‘now.’ Ukrainian businesspeople have to understand what’s going on in the world today and make a real-time strategy for their businesses.”
Did you know? Fedoriv worked as a journalist for three years, but quit. He had three reasons to do it. First, he started writing more stories to earn more money. This turned his work into graphorrhea. Second, interviewees were trying to bribe him. “And the third, I got a feeling that everyone around works, while I’m only writing about it.”
The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by Ciklum. The content is independent of the donors.
