Alina Efimova spoke on opportunities to promote SMEs at a SPIEF session

On June 5, as part of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2024, experts discussed key areas of consolidation between the state and large and small enterprises at the session “Sustainable Partnership between the State and Business.”

Alina Efimova, Deputy CEO of Sales and Business Development at GPM Ads (part of Gazprom-Media Holding), told participants about the role of media in building strong national brands and scaling SMEs.

The discussion was focused on government stimulus measures for SMEs and the economy, the role of major corporations in the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and the search for effective interaction mechanisms. The participants of the session were representatives of state structures: the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the governments of the Moscow region and St. Petersburg, and large companies such as OZON, VK, Promsvyazbank, RUSAL, Avito, HeadHunter and other companies and government organizations interested in sustainable partnerships with small businesses.

The moderator of the session, Tatiana Ilyushnikova, Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, emphasized the special role media corporations play in SME development, as well as the large pool of expertise accumulated by the players, which can be used to scale new domestic companies.

Alina Efimova spoke about the public’s attitude to Russian brands and short-term expectations:

“Today, we already have 70% of consumers purposefully buy domestically produced goods, and almost 80% expect Russian brands and companies to have a stronger presence in the domestic market in the near future. So we know that strong national brands are extremely important for a robust economy in our country.”

A prerequisite for exponential business growth, the transition from small to medium and large business, is to advance knowledge about it, build a brand, and foster customer loyalty. At the same time, at each stage of business development there are various effective tools to fulfill specific objectives of the enterprise. Conventionally, these strategies can be divided into Marketplace first, Digital first, and TV first, depending on the degree of distribution of the company. The key point is to find a tool that corresponds to a specific stage: contextually targeted or media advertising, or influencer marketing, which is particularly effective in the digital sphere. In this respect, a balanced media mix is important.

“A perfect example is real estate company Etazhi, which, thanks to licensing and a 360° cross-media campaign based on the brand of the family sitcom ‘SashaTanya’ saw a 20% increase in completed transactions,” noted Alina Efimova.

A study conducted by NAFI found that more than half of young entrepreneurs have built their businesses after they were inspired by the success of others. At the same time, the number of individual entrepreneurs under 25 years of age has increased by more than 1.5 times over the last four years. Alina Efimova expressed confidence that Gazprom-Media Holding, which independently produces its own original content, is well-positioned to inspire young people to engage in entrepreneurial activities:

“A generation is emerging that is not afraid to make mistakes and try their hand at starting a business. The show “Tomboys Rule” (Patsanki Rulyat) is this year’s bright and daring premiere, which is exactly in this niche.”

The key role of the media industry is also to share the experience of promoting businesses of different sizes by creating educational products for SMEs, as well as to popularize entrepreneurship in general.

“We have considerable experience in promoting SMEs and popularizing entrepreneurship. The Friday! channel has a project called “Now I Am the Boss!”, which we launched with our reliable bank partner, Sber. It is dedicated in particular to real small and medium-sized businesses. Entrepreneurship education is also an important focus for us. As part of the training course for SMEs, which we launched together with SME.RF Corporation and RACA in 2023, we discuss the effective use of media tools, from digital to outreach media. Our employees also give lectures in media classes and teach at universities,” Alina Efimova pointed out.

GPM Ads and Friday! TV channel are part of Gazprom-Media Holding.

Gazprom-Media Holding is the general media partner of SPIEF-2024.

A recording of the session is available here.