Who is responsible for the image and advertising of the Poroshenko Bloc, the People's Front, Oleh Lyashko, Batkivshchyna, Samopomich, Strong Ukraine, and the Opposition Bloc.
Follow this topic Add to notepad Share: Share on Facebook Share on VKontakte Share on Twitter Share on Odnoklassniki Share on Google+
Image Sellers: Who's Leading the 2014 Election Campaigns of the Leading Parties?
Getting a voter's checkmark in the right place is the ultimate goal and measure of success for political strategists. Photo — lenta-ua.net
Elections are expensive, especially in post-Soviet countries, where governments often feel free to spend public funds, sponsorships are unregulated, and traditions of rational choice are fragile. While volunteers and taxpayers are busy collecting money, food, warm clothing, and medical supplies for the fighting army, politicians spend money on political strategists and advertising campaigns. Propaganda stunts, manipulating voter opinion, discrediting opponents, and highlighting positive agendas and the strengths of candidates' images—all these tasks are handled by teams of specialists in party and personal campaign headquarters.
They typically specialize in advertising, marketing, PR, political strategy, and social relations. There are few strategists to whom sponsors can entrust their money, and politicians their reputation. Because entrusting someone with your money and your political future is extremely difficult. A single specialist running a campaign is extremely rare. For a political strategist, this is the pinnacle of skill, and not everyone is lucky enough to achieve such a status.
LIGABusinessInform has compiled data on leading political strategists working on the election campaigns of leading political forces in the early parliamentary elections scheduled for October 26, 2014. According to opinion polls, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, Lyashko's Radical Party, People's Front, Samopomich, Batkivshchyna, and possibly Strong Ukraine and the Opposition Bloc are all expected to enter the Verkhovna Rada. This is according to the results of a survey conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation jointly with Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
Igor Gryniv
Igor Hryniv. Petro Poroshenko Bloc. Rating: 30,4%. TV advertising costs in the first 18 days of the campaign: approximately $1,8 million (from here on, the figures assume parties are buying ads at list prices. No one knows how much they're actually paying).
Hryniv was the brains behind renaming the Solidarity party the Petro Poroshenko Bloc. Since July 2014, he has served as deputy head of the Presidential Administration under Petro Poroshenko. During the last presidential election, Ihor Hryniv headed the group of political strategists on Poroshenko's campaign staff, including responsibility for media relations. Back then, Poroshenko's strategists effectively spread the rumor that Putin was interested in Tymoshenko's victory. The single-round election strategy also worked remarkably well.
Hryniv is a three-time People's Deputy of Ukraine—in the first, fourth, and seventh convocations. In the last two convocations, he represented Our Ukraine and Batkivshchyna.
In the 1990s, he was a member of the Reforms and Order party, managing election campaigns in several single-member constituencies. From February to September 2005, he was director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies. In 2006, he headed Vitali Klitschko's mayoral campaign in Kyiv. He controls the sociological firm Socis. He is running on the Petro Poroshenko Bloc's list as number 14.
Igor Shuvalov
Igor Shuvalov, leader of the Radical Party (12,9%), Opposition Bloc (5,9%). TV advertising expenditures in the first 18 days of the elections were $0,6 million and $1,5 million, respectively.
According to LIGABusinessInform sources, this well-known Russian specialist, who works with Serhiy Lyovochkin, was hired to lead the remnants of the Party of Regions, the Opposition Bloc, the fugitive Yanukovych's cronies and partners, and Oleh Lyashko's young Radical Party, into the Rada. Shuvalov is handling campaign strategy in Lyashko's project, while the immediate leadership of Lyashko's Radical Party is currently headed by the infamous former leader of the PORA party and friend of ski instructors, Vladislav Kaskiv. His aides refuse to comment on this information.
Shuvalov began his career as a political consultant by collaborating with Viktor Pinchuk during the 1998 parliamentary elections, when the businessman was running in a single-member constituency in Dnipropetrovsk under Pavlo Lazarenko. Then, from 2002 to 2004, Viktor Medvedchuk was among his clients. At the time, President Leonid Kuchma signed a decree granting Shuvalov Ukrainian citizenship. Under President Viktor Yushchenko, the decree was rescinded.
At the end of Viktor Yanukovych's reign, an attempt was made to ban Shuvalov from entering the country due to a sudden and brief period of objectivity at Inter TV channel, where he worked. The new authorities then attempted the same. The matter was hushed up with the help of Levochkin, who in the first case had not yet left his office on Bankova Street, and in the second, he appears to have found a way to contact the SBU (it was the security service that attempted to ban him from entering).
In Ukraine, political strategist Igor Shuvalov is commonly associated with censorship, fake media discussions and false meanings (flag, language, East-West, etc.), and the information operations carried out by Bankova during Serhiy Lyovochkin's tenure there. Shuvalov has collaborated with one of the architects of Yanukovych's rule for many years.
Sergei Gaidai
Sergei Gaidai. People's Front (10,8%). TV advertising costs in the first 18 days of the campaign were approximately $3,3 million.
Gaidai.Com created the People's Front logo, and Gaidai himself came up with the idea of linking the People's Front vote to Arseniy Yatsenyuk's future premiership.
Gaidai’s portfolio includes work on the election campaigns of Viktor Yushchenko (in 2002 for the Verkhovna Rada, in 2004 for president), Anatoly Kinakh (in 2004 for president), Russian opposition figure Irina Khakamada (in 2003 for the State Duma), Petro Poroshenko, Mykola Katerynchuk and other candidates for people’s deputies of Ukraine (in 2002).
In 2006, he worked on the election campaign for the Kyiv Civic Action project (led by Oleksandr Pabat. Gaidai oversaw the project from conception to implementation). The Civic Action, a virtual party, won seats in the capital's legislature. That same year, he worked with mayoral candidates in Cherkasy and Kirovohrad.
In 2008, he campaigned for Katerynchuk's mayoral bid in Kyiv, and his eponymous bloc for the Kyiv City Council. Katerynchuk didn't become mayor, but the bloc won the city council seat. In 2013, he launched Katerynchuk's active mayoral campaign in Kyiv, but, in his own words, "then Maidan happened and life changed completely."
Alexander Abdulin
Alexey Sitnikov
Alexander Abdullin, Alexey Sitnikov. Batkivshchyna (7,5%). TV advertising costs in the first 18 days of the campaign were approximately $2,3 million.
Abdullin, a longtime associate and creative force of Tymoshenko's team, is a former journalist. He has collaborated with Tymoshenko since 2005. Prior to that, he had served in various parties and worked with various groups, from the SDPU(o) to the former head of the State Property Management Department, "Kuchma's quartermaster," and the first head of Naftogaz, Ihor Bakai. For a long time, all creative for Tymoshenko's advertising campaigns was developed by the creative team "Abdullin-Ukolov-Bagrayev." He participated in the formation of the Batkivshchyna list for the 2012 parliamentary elections. He is a four-time member of parliament of Ukraine, three times on Tymoshenko's team, but the first time was in the third convocation as a member of the Democratic Union party.
Sitnikov is a Russian political strategist, Doctor of Psychology, Doctor of Economics, and professor. He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA). He is a certified NLP trainer. In 1999, he founded Russia's first department of political consulting and election technologies. He has participated in elections from Mongolia to the Baltics. He has been in the PR industry since 1989, as the founder and director of the Image-Contact agency. According to LIGABusinessInform sources, he has been collaborating with Tymoshenko since 2007. This is not easy in itself—Yulia Volodymyrivna often ignores expert advice, preferring to make strategic decisions independently. For example, the idea of Nadiya Savchenko leading the Batkivshchyna list in 2014 was her own and, according to her campaign team, not the best idea.
During the 2014 elections, leading technologists of large projects earned from $20 to $100 per month.
Andrey Sadovy
Andrey Sadovyi. Self-Help (8,5%). TV advertising costs in the first 18 days of the campaign were approximately $0,4 million.
Experts estimate the project's total budget at $150 million. Sadovyi is his own technologist. In the case of Samopomich, it's the mayor of Lviv's own project, successfully supported by his family media empire, which includes TV channel 24, the website zaxid.net, Lux-FM radio, a stake in Shuster Studio, and other resources. Sadovyi, a talented executive producer with experience in media management, developed the project, brought in popular figures, and secured the funding to implement it.
"Personally, Sadovyi needs Samopomich for the future—he can't afford to leave Lviv right now, but in two or three political seasons, with the success of the Samopomich project and strong media support, which isn't a problem for him, Sadovyi expects to emerge as a powerful national leader," a political strategist told LIGABusinessInform.
Nikolai Gastello
Nikolai Gastello. Strong Ukraine (5,6%). TV advertising costs in the first 18 days of the campaign were approximately $1,2 million.
According to LIGABusinessInform sources, Gastello was foisted upon Serhiy Tihipko, the leader of Strong Ukraine, as his chief political consultant, as an offer he couldn't refuse. Moreover, Gastello had already collaborated with Tihipko during the 2010 presidential elections, during which, as we recall, the latter still looked fresh and uncorrupted, finishing third overall behind Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko. Along with the Russian strategist, Russian money also entered Tihipko's 2014 project.
It's difficult to say whether Gastello is acting alone or is being supervised by a Moscow-based headquarters, but overall, experts are positive about Gastello's current work, given his client's reputation, which was practically destroyed by cowardice and complicity during the repressions and murders on the Maidan. "The campaign is smart and not irritating. Professionally targeted at the right audience—the confused electorate of the southeast," colleagues say.
In 2012, Nikolai Gastello consulted on Natalia Korolevskaya's project "Ukraine-Forward!" and, despite its impressive budget, the outcome was rather comical.
How to become a political strategist and how much they earn
Let's talk about money right away. During the 2014 elections, leading political strategists for major projects earned between $20 and $100 per month. To summarize, we'll share an excerpt from an interview with one of these political strategists, Sergei Gaidai, for LIGABusinessInform. In the spring of 2013, he spoke in detail about what political strategists are and whether one can join the ranks of these successful manipulators. Below are the key points.
"I can give you some professional advice: if you want to become a political strategist, you shouldn't study political science. You should study marketing, advertising, and the art of writing. The art of finding and formulating meaning, working with content. I would also advise working in commercial advertising companies to see how selling advertising campaigns are created. In the US, for example, election campaigns are run by advertising agencies. Because they have the best understanding of the psychology of ordinary consumers."
— In my opinion, all specialists actually working in the fields of political technology, consulting, and advertising in Ukraine are divided into three echelons. The first: no more than 10-20 people, usually well-known, with publicity and visibility in the media. The second: around 500 specialists with experience in conducting various election campaigns. And the third: several thousand ordinary specialists—media specialists, designers, copywriters, street action specialists, field team leaders, and so on.
How do you get into the top tier? The key is confidence and courage to talk to top executives, offer services, and take responsibility. The rest, unfortunately, only want to be like that, are incredibly jealous, and criticize on Facebook. In fact, I can say to all second- and third-tier technologists: welcome to the top twenty, but you just need to come and take responsibility for the campaign with the investor. And this requires more than just smart thinking. You'll also need organizational skills. The ability to persuade, a strategic sense, and the art of operational management. And a team and the tools to implement it.
Follow LIGABusinessInform on Twitter and Facebook: all you need to know about politics, economics, business, and finance in one feed.
Roman Chernyshev, LIGABusinessInform
Subscribe to our channels in Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, VC — Only new faces from the section CRYPT!