As we entered 2020, I was promoted from Editor-in-Chief to the Head of the Department. From that moment, I've taken responsibility not just for the content but for budgeting, people management, and overall team success. Little did we know what was approaching. I've had to learn how to lead the team the hard way.
With the first shock of the pandemic and lockdown, the advertising industry went on pause even for the bands which aren't directly affected. The pause resulted in the loss of 25% of the budget in that sector. And we've also lost a few months' worth of our revenue in the industries that are affected directly (the likes of sports, travel, leisure, etc.)
Reduced briefing time from 5 to 2 days.
Switched from doing sales proposal by request to initiating the project on our side to tackle 25%-decrease.
(we knew our clients' products, their do's and dont's so we'd ideate without a brief and approach the clients with our ideas tailored specifically to them).
Ideated on the projects that might fit several clients in particular industries and put them out for an open sale.
(This has also been an indirect benefit. We know that while the projects might not been bought, different types of ads were purchased. This helped the whole company not just my department).
The company offered each department to develop their own format for working during pandemic. Fully remote, mixed, office or anything in between that fits their workflow. We've chosen to go on full remote.
The year 2020 in Belarus is also marked with the elections and the followed political crisis. Being the biggest online news outlet in Belarus, TUT.BY has been truthfully covering the events. Authorities were not in favor of the approach. On May 18, 2021, TUT.BY office was raided by Belarusian special forces. 15 employees including the Director-General, Chief Accountant, Editor-in-Chief, CTO were detained. 14 remain in custody up until now. As our work in Belarus was rendered impossible, I stepped up to the calling and moved to Kyiv to help reestablish the outlet.