The Vision: To take on Google. And win.
So you like a challenge. Here's one - beat Google. At their own game.
Yandex is a search engine. It was actually established before Google and quickly became the Google of Russia. But having taken over the rest of the world, Google's sights turned to Russia, Europe's largest internet market. This is a major problem for Yandex. Firstly, because Yandex had just listed on NASDAQ with an $11bn valuation as a growth story, and secondly the Google brand - cool, contemporary and international - held strong attraction for Russia's internet generation.
The programme we built had two phases. The first was to communicate Yandex's differentiated 'human' approach to search based on a belief that the answer matters more than the algorithm. The second part was then to launch a new internet browser showcasing the world-class technology that is simple and intuitive to use.
The Reality: The results have been impressive. Yandex regained market share in search and the total number of search queries grew 26% yoy. Yandex became the world's fourth largest search engine by number of searches moving ahead of Microsoft's Bing. Arkady Volozh the CEO told analysts that the browser launch had been "an overwhelming success" achieving over 2million downloads and a 4% share in just three months. Equally impressive was that Yandex was able to monetise this traffic and grow revenues by 44% yoy.
