BY BABA YAGA^®: anew Russian brand bewitching launch

BY BABA YAGA^®, a new Russian brand has literally exploded already turbulent environment of the Mir Detstva exhibition. Every day the team held exciting presentations where Baba Yaga, the hero of the brand, played solo in the company of her granddaughters. Ekaterina Komleva and Dmitry Morozov, Brand Managers of the project, told us how the brand was born and what the product range consists of.

“Our brand was born in 2018. The official marketing started in April when first sales of the products started. The goal of the brand is to inspire a renewed interest in history and addiction to the Russian literature. Galamart retail stores became our first official distributor: the brand stands are installed there, and the BY^® products will be rotated there every season. The juniors and teenagers from 12 to 18 are our targeted group of customers. The main product line-up presents mobile accessories, gadgets and stationery; in the beginning of November we’ll open BY CONCEPT STORE, a boutique of clothing for juniors.

“We are promoting the Baba Yaga image in a variety of media products. For example, we are launching a series of cartoons with her as the main character: the cartoons are already in the process of production at one of well-known Russian studios. Short animated clips with the granny have already been produced. Our group in vk.com is one of important instruments of the brand promotion and, to some extent, of design and creation of this character. We discuss design and every new detail with the focus group. Young people aged 12 to 19 are the group participants; they actively discuss and develop a product range with which we work afterwards. The character herself has her own history: the Granny is an active blogger; she has got more than 120 thousand subscribers since the beginning of the year. She raps, sings songs, and gives performances around the world. We create various art projects with her. For example, we installed the sculptures of Baba Yaga in Miami and Dubai. We also regularly take part in international modern art exhibitions.

“We have to point out that there are no prints of Baba Yaga image on the product. We do not use her image to brand the products; we use the BY^® logo instead and #russiansuperhero hash tag. We prepare package offers for our strategic partners: the most popular fast moving goods are in these packages; and we present these offers to retail chains. For example, we offer snacks and potable water BY BABA YAGA^® to fitness and sports centres. We offer a variety of stationery to the book stores; and we offer original accessories and gadgets to the stores selling clothes for the juniors. When preparing the offers we focus on the interests of the targeted groups of customers of those stores. In the near future we’ll open an online store of the BY BABA YAGA^® products.

“Speaking about our plans for the coming year, in the first place, we are concentrating on the main project: to create a collection of clothes for teenagers and juniors. This is a collaboration story: designers and famous persons from the show business take part in it. The junior fashion is very individual and unpredictable; therefore we’d like all the experts who we’ll invite to leave their own marks in the creation of this collection.”

You came out spectacularly with your extraordinary exhibition stand and an outstanding show which even attracted attention of the visitors from the neighboring pavilion. How can you evaluate the result of participation in the exhibition, and what interesting things have you noticed?

“We have taken part in Mir Detstva for the first time, and it was very interesting to enter the atmosphere of professionals of the market of children’s goods and to understand their wishes and expectations. These days we’ve got acquainted with the market participants, we evaluated our chances and found out that the niche of goods for juniors was open and had space for the products which our brand can offer. Wholesalers, distributors, license specialists, logistics specialists, retailers, all of them visited our stand. Everyone liked our Granny and her show with her twin granddaughters. We are not yet selling the doll of Baba Yaga; it is rather a promotion element than a sales item. We present it as a gift to well-known persons. We plan the sales start of the doll after New Year.

“As you can see, we have great plans and large capacities as well: we have a lot of ideas and an excellent team!”

The web site of BABA YAGA is https://www.baba-yaga.com/.