The airline company in collaboration with Leo Burnett Moscow has created a series of interactive ‘chilled’ prints to attract European tourists to Russia and raise brand awareness of S7 amongst European travelers.

Modern Russia is not about bears on the streets, vodka, nuclear power plants, unfriendly people and many other false stereotypes. To demystify them and increase popularity of S7 Airlines’ international routes from Europe to Russia, Leo Burnett Moscow created an interactive print, using an innovative printing technique with thermochromic ink.

Once a print, illustrated with those ‘Russian stereotypes’, is placed in a freezer, at a certain temperature the special “hidden” picture printed with thermochromic ink will appear, completely changing the initial image and its meaning. In this funny and surprising way the brand is communicating the main idea of the campaign – to see real Russia, you need real Russian frost.

Pic: «Russia. Where cold is cool» print campaign for S7 created by Leo Burnett Moscow

Grigoriy Sorokin, chief creative innovation officer for Leo Burnett Eastern Europe, commented: “We’ve been thinking of creating a campaign about Russia for a long time; something elegant, smart and beautifully executed. The brief from S7 Airlines was a bliss, a challenge we’ve been waiting for. We created a contemporary and interesting ad with a Russian feel. And the trick with the freezer worked out well.”

Tatiana Fileva, deputy CEO marketing S7 Airlines, commented: “For our company the European market is a priority one. More and more people are interested in flights to Russia, therefore the goal of raising our brand awareness in Europe is very relevant and timely.”