Apostle (company)

In January 2008, 20-year-old Vasily Brovko ^[3] , who had experience in launching media start-ups, left his post ^[4] . In addition, Brovko worked as a producer of political and entertainment broadcasting blocks on O2TV channel ^[5] . Together with him, his colleague Oleg Berkovich ^[6] left the Mayak radio station , they decided to create their own business ^[7] .

On January 28, 2008, they founded the Apostol Media Group ^[8] company. The name of the company - “Apostle” reflected the mission of the company - to convey the ideas of partners to a wide audience ^[3] .

Since February 2008, Brovko and Berkovich began promoting the magazine Russian Pioneer , whose editor-in-chief was Andrei Kolesnikov , a journalist from the pool of Vladimir Putin ^[9] . Vasily Brovko held the position of creative director in the magazine ^[7] .

For the magazine, a series of events was created with the participation of Russian media personnel and the political establishment - “Pioneer Readings” ^[10] , among whose regular participants were Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov , actor Ivan Okhlobystin , head of the state-owned television channel Russia Today Margarita Simonyan ^[11] .

In autumn 2008, the Apostle promoted the Lube brand perfume ^[12] and the book “Fragments” of businessman Alexander Korotenko ^[7] , then organized the opening ceremony of the flagship store Vassa & Co. At this event, master classes on creating images in the style of the latest Vassa collection were held with the participation of Konstantin Kryukov , Irena Ponaroshku , Vladimir Tishko and others ^[13] .

Then the “Apostle” took up the promotion of the book “I Want to Get into Forbes” written by Nadezhda Kopytina, the head of the Ledova company ^[7] .

TV presenter Tina Kandelaki ^[14] joined the partnership with Apostol, which later developed into a business partnership ^[15] . Kandelaki joined the board with its social capital ^[7] .

The founder of the Apostle Vasily Brovko was the general director of the center for strategic communications until 2013, responsible for operational and strategic management. After that, the executive director of the state corporation Sergey Kulikov and the head of Rostec Sergey Chemezov decided to appoint him to the position of deputy executive director - head of communications of the corporation ^[16] . Brovko assumed his duties on December 1, 2013 , because of this he removed his authority as the General Director of Apostol and resigned from the shareholders of the company, selling his share ^[17] .

In autumn 2013, the Apostle completed the formation of a holding structure:

• Apostol Media (Russian PR, digital communications);
• Apostol Media Research (media analytics);
• Apologet (production of graphic, audio and video content);
• ARDA (R&D, development and consulting in the field of information technology);
• Hunt Haggarty (branding and design);
• "Way" (development, management and promotion of web-projects);
• AM-invest (media investments);
• “Smart School” (educational project).

In December 2013, after Vasily Brovko left for Rostec, Kandelaki took over as general director of the Apostle. After that, the agency began to actively receive contracts with government departments and companies ^[6] .

In 2014, Apostol's revenue amounted to 602.5 million rubles, net profit - 4.9 million rubles ^[18]

As of February 2016, Tina Kandelaki owned 99.5% of the shares of Apostol LLC, 0.5% - Lyudmila Ermakova ^[18] . In February 2016, RBC announced Kandelaki’s plans to sell the agency, the press service of which reported a possible change in the controlling shareholder through the entry of an international investment fund or the issuance of options to top managers ^[18] .

In the spring of 2016, the composition of the company's shareholders changed: 25% of the company received LLC Arkona and Cypriot Adnala Limited, Kandelaki owned 50% of the shares of Apostol on April 22 passed to the LLC itself ^[6] July 13, 2016 Apostol LLC was renamed New Strategy LLC. A month before, Tatyana Laskina, who was previously a co-owner of Portal CJSC, which ceased operations in 2011, was appointed the general director of the company ^[6] .

On July 22, 2016, the Moscow Region Arbitration Court received a bankruptcy petition for the “New Strategy”, the lawsuit was filed by Statio (Statio Project LLC), which designs office interiors and supplies office furniture and equipment ^[6] . The reason was the non-payment by the Apostle of 1.28 million rubles as debt for the delivered goods of this organization. In October 2016, the court introduced a monitoring procedure for the “New Strategy”, the total amount of claims against the “New Strategy” (as well as the successor of the “Apostle”) by December 2016 was about 12 million rubles ^[6] . The bankruptcy procedure lasted exactly two years and ended on October 4, 2018.

By this time, most of the Apostol’s subsidiaries were liquidated or changed shareholders, it follows from the Kontur. Focus". So, the successor Apostle Media “Informrazvitie” was declared bankrupt in the fall of 2016 ^[6] .

After the resignation of Tina Kandelaki from the post of general director, her duties until June 2016 were occupied by Yulia Vostrikova, who worked at the agency for six years. After Kanedlaki’s departure, “Apostol” could not win state tenders in 2016, although in 2015 the agency received 15 contracts totaling 338.5 million rubles, and in 2014 - eight contracts for 98.6 million rubles. In February 2016, the director of the Depot WPF branding agency, Alexei Andreev, noted that Apostol received state contracts “due to the personal ties of Tina Kandelaki ^[6] ”.

Internet projects

Talk Show "Unrealistic Politics"

In mid- 2008, the Apostle launched the political talk show "Unrealistic Politics" together with journalist of the Kremlin pool Andrei Kolesnikov and TV presenter Tina Kandelaki.

The first release of the program was posted on RuTube.ru on September 11, 2008 ^[19] . In the first two days, 25 thousand people watched it, which was a very serious figure for the Runet ^[7] . In 2008, a significant portion of the audience of central television was uninteresting in politics ^[20] .

“Unrealistic politics” was launched without start-up capital: there was not even enough money to rent a movie set. To promote the show helped Tina Kandelaki ^[21] . In autumn 2008, representatives of the social network Odnoklassniki suggested Tina to become the face of an advertising campaign ^[22] . The TV presenter agreed in exchange for traffic; under the terms of the contract, the network allocated 9 million impressions per day to the program’s banner ^[23] .

Over the six months of the program’s existence on the Web, more than 5 million people watched it. The program was written in blogs and the media; on average, 150 to 300 thousand people watched one issue per week ^[24] .

About six months later, in March 2009, REN TV acquired the rights to broadcast “Unrealistic Politics” . The program, therefore, became the first Internet pilot in the history of the Russian media business who managed to get to one of the federal channels ^[23] .

Post TV Internet Channel

With the money from the sale of the rights to issue the “Unrealistic Politics”, the Apostle launched the Post TV ^[1] Internet TV channel, which lasted from March 2009 to April 2010. The channel's programs included such programs as “Old Men Can't Be Here” with Zakhar Prilepin , “Fantastic Breakfast” with Dmitry Glukhovsky , “Men's Games” with Oleg Taktarov and “Real Sport” with Victoria Lopyreva . The total audience of PostTV projects reached more than 5.6 million viewers per month ^[25] .

At that time, Andrei Kolesnikov decided to focus on cooperation with television, and Kandelaki and Brovko decided to take up the communications business. It was decided to leave Kolesnikov from Post TV after creating a separate company with Kandelaki, which was engaged exclusively in the production of “Unrealistic Politics”. Outside the framework of this program, Brovko and Kandelaki continued the development of the Apostle ^[26] .

Face.ru Social Network

Simultaneously with Post TV, in April 2009 Apostol launched the Face.ru closed social network for representatives of the fashion industry ^[27] . The total monthly audience of Face.ru was about 2 million people ^[28] .

The Face.ru Award from Face.ru survived six ceremonies, the last held in December 2009 ^[29] . Later, the leadership of the Apostle decided to close the project due to the passivity of the audience ^[30] .

TV Projects

From October 2009 to January 2012, the Apostle released an infotainment program in the form of the Infomania infotainment for the STS channel ^{[31] [32]} .

In 2010, the program received a special prize from the Telepress Club TEFI for an experiment in the convergence of television and the Internet. At TEFI, Infomania was nominated twice ^[33] .

In early 2010, the Apostle signed a contract with the Yellow, Black & White Group (YBW Group), which worked closely with STS . Under the terms of the agreement, the Apostle began to promote the Ural Dumplings show on social networks and blogs. Under the contract with the YBW Group, Apostol also promoted the sitcoms Voronin , Daddy’s Daughter , the series Toys , Margosha and Amanda O.

In 2010, the Apostle signed contracts for PR-service of the Incity brand and the Centro shoe store chain ^[34] . Subsequently, the project was sold to TNT ^[35] .

The year 2011 for Apostle began with a contract for the production of the Russia in Figures, Food for Strength and the Right Choice programs for the Seven TV channel (Disney Channel since December 31, 2011) ^[36] .

From September to December 2011, the Moscow-based 24/7 program, created by the Apostle, was broadcast on TVC . The program was nominated for the TEFI Prize ^[1] .

In 2013, the Apostle’s daughter , Apologet Studio, shot a series of popular science films “5 Senses” for the Russia-2 channel. The premiere took place in November 2013 ^[37] .

Partnership with Private Companies

Partnership with Yota

Joint work with the largest Russian mobile Internet provider Yota and Apostol began in May 2010 with a test period after which Apostol formed a proposal with a clearly defined communication strategy ^[38] . After the concept was approved, the company became a client of Apostol. From the first days of cooperation with the Apostle, Yota literally blew up the info field: the reason for the close attention of the media was the announcement of plans to launch the first LTE network in Russia . Publications about the plans of the LTE operator came simultaneously on the front pages of two leading business publications - Kommersant ^[39] and Vedomosti ^[40] .

The "Apostle" supported Yota in a conflict with Roskomnadzor , during an attempt to take away the allocated frequencies from the operator to build an LTE network . Vladimir Putin put an end to the protracted conflict of interest, in the presence of which an agreement was signed with the Big Three operators and Rostelecom on the allocation of frequencies ^[41] .

In December 2010 in St. Petersburg , the Apostle and Yota held the Yota Space festival ^[42] . In the same year, the festival took third place in media quotations among other events of a similar format, losing only to the Moscow International Film Festival and Kinotavr. At the end of 2011, Yota Space won the Global PR nomination for the PR Week Awards. The award is considered equal to the Oscar in the PR industry ^[43] .

Collaboration with Oriflame in Russia

In March 2012, representatives of the Oriflame company approached Tina Kandelaki with a proposal to become the face of a cosmetic brand in Russia and the CIS countries ^[44] . Tina's fee from participating in this project amounted to $ 2 million. Her contract was a record - the most expensive personal contract in the history of Russian advertising ^[45] .

Collaboration with government companies

As of October 2015, the share of state contracts of the Apostle was 60% ^[17] .

Rostec

Apostol began working with Rostec State Corporation in 2012 , when it decided to change its approach to managing its own brand and external communications strategy ^[46] . In December 2012, the Apostle rebranded Rostec and updated its name, logo, slogan, website and other elements ^[47] . "Russian Technologies" changed its name to Rostec , a new site was launched ^[48] . For his work, the Apostle received $ 1.5 million dollars ^[49] . Rostec was one of the largest customers of the agency ^[18] .

In March 2014, the “Media Dialogue” information field monitoring system for the first time presented a rating of Russian state corporations, which reflects the visibility of the brand and the top officials of companies in the media. According to the results of 2013, Rostec State Corporation and its head Sergey Chemezov became the leaders of the media rating. The state corporation also came out on top in terms of the growth dynamics of information transparency ^[50] .

Aeroflot

Throughout 2012, Apostol collaborated with the largest Russian air carrier, Aeroflot . The contract was concluded in the amount of 64 million rubles ^[51] . The contract was concluded without a tender, that is, in violation of Federal Law No. FZ-233. According to Alexey Navalny , a member of the company's board of directors and public figure, the airline pays on time, and the Apostle does not fulfill its obligations ^[52]

In July 2013, the Apostle won a new competition for servicing accounts on Aeroflot social networks ^[53] . During 2014, the company must ensure an increase in the number of subscribers to the airline’s pages on social networks. The amount of the contract is 27 million rubles ^[51] .

Kalashnikov

On May 4, 2014, a number of media outlets drew attention to two tenders on the government procurement website. One of them concerned the development of a site for the Kalashnikov concern, and the second concerned brand development; the cost of each tender was 20 million rubles. Tenders appeared on the government procurement website in late April, and by April 30, the acceptance of applications for their implementation had already closed. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin reacted negatively to this initiative, and promised to initiate a competition check ^[54] .

On May 15, Kalashnikov summed up the results of the competition for the development of a new brand, the winner of which was Apostol, which indicated in its application the minimum cost of completing an order of 15 million rubles. At the same time, the bid price announced by Kalashnikov is 20 million rubles. The new brand should be introduced by the Apostle in the fall of 2014. The competition for the development of a new site was canceled due to a change in the terms of reference, and also due to the fact that one of the two participants in the competition could not provide a full package of documents. This time, the concern promised to pay rebranding without budget funding - at its own expense and attract investment ^[54] .

Soon after, one of the bidders - the company DEFA, appealed to the Federal Antimonopoly Service tenders for the development of the brand and website. According to her, the concern violated the law by posting tenders just five days before the filing of applications, although this period should be at least 20 days ^[55] .

Aeroflot Contract

In 2012, without a competition, that is, in violation of Federal Law No. FZ-223, a contract was signed with Aeroflot for 64 million rubles. According to Alexei Navalny , a member of the board of directors, Aeroflot pays on time, and Apostol does not fulfill its obligations ^[52] .

Using bots and artificial cheats

Ruslan Leviev, a lawyer at the Anti-Corruption Foundation , led by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, published in a LiveJournal post accusing the Apostol news agency of watching Aeroflot videos, creating a network of bots to promote the Rostec state corporation’s website, as well as promoting political hashtags on Twitter . Apostol’s CEO Vasily Brovko called Leviev’s exposure on his Twitter account “conspiracy theories” ^[56] .

Apostle’s employees were accused of using “Internet trolls”, who wrote in the online media and social networks positive comments about the actions and initiatives of the Russian authorities and criticized opposition supporters. ^[6]

Plagiarism of the New Moscow logo

Agency "Apostle" was suspected of plagiarism. Bloggers have discovered the use of a free graphic template to create a logo from craftsmanspace.com ^[57] . Председатель счетной комиссии Госдумы, депутат Александр Агеев попросил Генпрокуратуру проверить на что были потрачены 15 млн рублей, которые выделили из бюджета г. Москвы, при этом фирма не уложилась в указанные в договоре сроки и предоставила проект на полгода позже. ^[58] .