The creative strategic solution centred on bringing to life the proposition of freedom of self-expression. MTS toured Russia and hosted a competition to select the best young graffiti artists who would be given the freedom to express themselves on a massive 13x160m billboard in central Moscow.The progress of the artists was streamed live over 10 days as they transformed the enormous blank canvass into a stunning piece of street art.

As the poster took shape a mysterious QR-code appeared calling for passers-by to take a picture from their mobile phones and unlock a secret website. This was the first step in a quest throughout the city, which led the winning team to a prize. This tapped into a craze for quests among our target audience (night-time expeditions to crack codes and solve conundrums is a favourite pastime of young people in Russia).

The unique integration of a giant poster, street art and QR-quest created significant buzz that reached more than 8.8 million people. The story appeared on Russian national news, there were more than 130,000 mentions in the blogosphere and 15,800 new visitors to the Red Energy site. Non-standard use of the poster site increased media coverage by 50%.The campaign led to 83% recognition of Red Energy among youth and a 20% increase in tariff sales.Hard to quantify in figures alone, is the equity that MTS built as a provider of unique ways of self-expression.Source: Marketing Communications Department, MTS.