In Summer 2019, over 15,000 square miles of Siberia was engulfed in flames — one of the largest wildfires on Earth in recent history. While the whole world was watching, the Russian media reported nothing, and no relief operation was put in place.

S7 Airlines, Russia’s largest private airline, was established in Siberia and was known as Siberia Airlines in 1992 - 2008. This time, it couldn’t stay away and had to take action:

1. Raise awareness of the wildfires in the country where everybody refused to talk about it.

2. Empower people to contribute to a solution.

The issue of Siberian wildfires was largely ignored by the Russian media.

When the Russia’s largest airline announced that it has to be called ‘Siberia’ from now on, every major news organisation in Russia did report on it, thus breaking the silence on Siberia.

Soon after, the Russian government started addressing the wildfires with military support.

We rebranded S7 Airlines back to its original name, Siberia Airlines — but this time, to break the state-wide silence on the matter of Siberian wildfires in Russia.

By announcing their new slogan, 'We Are Siberia', S7 Airlines got to make a bold statement via the media and unite Russian people around a common problem: acknowledging and helping Siberia.

In a reality where Arctic circle is melting because of the wildfires in Amazon and Siberia, everyone on the planet is a part of Siberia — and needs to take action. We all, indeed, are Siberia.

The Web and the Western media were buzzing with the news of the Siberian wildfires — the Russian state media were not. We made the news by rebranding to Siberia so suddenly and so aptly.

When Russia's largest airline announces that it has to be called Siberia from now on, this piece of news was impossible to ignore. So every news organisation in Russia had no choice but to speak up.

We specifically targeted and hacked the media, so it would say the word 'Siberia', although it was implicitly denied by the government.

On August 1, S7 Airlines changed its name back to Siberia on every level of communication, including airport announcements, in-flight communication, boarding passes, social networks and its web hub.

A special paintjob was commissioned to paint an S7 airplane with the Siberia branding and a Siberian pine on its tail.

On the next day, S7 Airlines announced #WeAreSiberia campaign — the airline’s pledge to turn each ticket sold in and out of Siberia into 1 new tree.

Accompanying that, a website was launched that crowdsourced donations from people around the world. By donating their own money or S7 miles, people ensured more trees to be planted in Siberia.

To promote the website, S7 placed ads directing audiences to their website. Over 1,000 billboards and digital screens displayed the message: We Are Siberia — let’s plant 1,000,000 trees together. In an unprecedented move, the media placement was done for free.

The word ‘Siberia’ dominated the Russian news in August 2019, with 15,000,000 USD in earned media.

We’ve started an important conversation with over 320,000,000 outreach.

Volunteer applications to plant trees in Siberia increased 3 times.

The initiative was backed by UNILEVER and other global brands (including Yandex and Tinkoff Bank) that donated a part of their proceedings towards the cause.

The airline fundraised for 1,000,000 trees to be planted in Siberia over the next 3 years. More than 50% came from donations from #WeAreSiberia website.

Soon after the news broke, the Russian government started addressing the wildfires with military support.

We showed how the brand can initiate a movement and affected a public affairs change.