Karpatska Dzherelna's anti-crisis release

Dmytro Dyuzhev, CEO at OMG Agency Mykyta Upatov, COO at OMG Agency Tonya Kuzmich, CEO Dumy Creative Studio Anastasiia Kostina, Strategist at OMG Agency Olga Honchar, Influence Marketing Manager at OMG Agency Yevhenii Herasymov, Design Team Lead at OMG Agency Pavlo Shapka, CEO T:ME agency Ksenia Korol, Head of SMM at OMG Agency Ella Tsybulia, CMO of Karpatska Dzherelna Natalia Pavlenko, Marketing Manager of Karpatska Dzherelna

On 4 March, news began to spread rapidly across the media that the AMCU had allegedly fined Karpatska Dzerelna. Although there were still several days to go before the official hearing and decision, Telegram public channels and individual pages were already presenting the story as a fait accompli and began to circulate the claim that Karpatska Dzerelna was not from the Carpathians. It was precisely this distorted, premature interpretation of the information that triggered an immediate response. For the brand, this posed the risk not merely of a wave of negativity, but of a shift in the very context of its public perception. We quickly spotted a key detail: a significant portion of the audience did not support this narrative. In the comments, people themselves came to the brand’s defense, questioned the absurdity of a literal interpretation of the name, and drew parallels with other well-known products and brands. It was this natural reaction from the audience that formed the basis of our crisis management strategy. We decided not to base our communication on excuses and not to amplify the negativity by directly refuting it. Instead, we leveraged the brand's existing support and turned it into a separate wave of public discussion. The first step was to launch a viral wave on Threads. We picked up on an idea that was already being voiced in the comments and framed it as a simple, clear message: not everything needs to be taken literally. Building on this, we created a post that quickly went viral and appeared in recommendations. We then amplified it with comments from the brands we work with, which had a significant impact. PUBM, Dnipro M, Novy Kanal, Sinevo, DOC.UA, Uklon, YASNO, Work.ua, PetHouse, SkyUp, Foxtrot, Oxford Medical, and others joined the conversation. Thus, a single post turned into a nationwide viral challenge involving top brands. The second step involved working with Telegram channels. Since Telegram was the platform where negative sentiment was spreading the fastest, it was crucial for us to shift the discussion's tone there. We quickly packaged a new news hook and distributed it through the top Ukrainian Telegram public channels. As a result, the Telegram campaign reached 1.5 million, exceeding the target by 7.3%. Telegram became a key channel not only for reshaping the information landscape but also for gauging audience reaction: 56.1% of all reactions were positive, with a positivity index of 2.04. The teaser with a new ambassador garnered over 4 million organic views, and the total reach of the news about the collaboration exceeded 12 million Ukrainians for 2 days. Additionally, the campaign launch was supported by promotional tools, which generated 2.17 million reach and 3.27 million impressions. As a result, within a few days, we shifted the public discourse surrounding the brand. We didn’t just quell the wave of negativity; we replaced it with a new agenda, in which Karpatska Dzherelna ceased to be the target of attacks and became the focus of widespread support, viral engagement, and strong news coverage of the new campaign.