How to get Ukrainians to not see comedies or action movies with world renown actors and a happy ending – but a Ukrainian movie about their country tragic history? We wanted all the Ukrainian patriots to go and see the movie.

The campaign was held for two months before the premiere of the movie. And due to a huge interest to the campaign itself we had to reproduce many of the materials and work with more mass media that we have planned at the beginning.

And the sociological and political contexts for the patriotic movie in Ukraine were obvious.

“The Guide” became financially the most successful Ukrainian movie ever.

During real informational war – when eyes were glued to TV screens, refreshing constantly news on computer, we called upon the people not to trust their eyes, but only to their hearts.

So the campaign slogan appeared “Close your eyes – watch with your heart” and a symbol of black eye bandage.

Campaign started with press conference and news appearances of movie director and other cast with black eye bandages.

Followed by a outdoor posters, city lights and “blind” trailers in cinemas.

Site was developed for viewers to navigate through it with help of sounds and whispers.

First time in Ukrainian history an audio translation for blind was developed. Movie was shown to the blind people - with huge media resonance.

Before the movie premiere - newspaper was delivered - with Soviet propaganda headlines combining real historical events showed in the film with the stories about the film’s characters.

During 1st weekend, “The Guide” was a leader in viewership – audience was bigger than for “Great Gatsby” or “Anna Karenina” (94 754 viewers).

For seven weeks “The Guide” was leader and only “Interstellar” got a bit more viewers.

At the end – “The Guide” brought more than “Disappeared”, “Planet of apes” and “Wolf from Wall street” ($1.019.320).

“The Guide” became financially the most successful Ukrainian movie ever.? The newspaper became a collector value.