WINNERS 2018

Ukrainian Marketing Forum is an annual marketing conference that takes place in Kiev. It often happens that marketing specialists believe in a cult of some academic knowledge they got during the studying in university and don’t want to study something new. But knowledge gets dated. Earning your degree and quietly working until you retire doesn’t work anymore. The world is changing so quickly that it takes a lifetime to learn your craft. The marketing we studied a decade ago is already dead. To demonstrate this, we took Philip Kotler’s cult marketing book and millions of spores of mold, placed them together in a city-light panel and… let time show off its strength. In order to get the project to work, we prepared a special layout for the book with perforations for moisture. We experimented to find a material that would allow the mold to spread. We created an environment that was conducive to growing the desired mold while preventing harmful bacteria from disrupting the mold growth. After several unsuccessful attempts, we had to completely abandon the use of toxic materials. We dried out a couple of mold populations and were forced to redesign the city-light panel’s construction. This helped create the ideal microclimate, from the illumination to the humidity to the temperature. In short, it was much more difficult than just leaving out a loaf of bread for a week and getting results. After a month of tests, failed attempts and disappointments, we found a solution. Our mold grew. Every day, it spread more. And more. The book began to look older. And our message sounded more and more clear: knowledge gets dated, come for something fresh. We created a low-budget solution with a strong and dramatic idea that provoked sharing and awoke discussion.