About the Client
Aviasales is the largest flight search platform in Russia. The team also creates special advertising projects for brands and runs bold, creative media campaigns.
The Challenge
Write a fun, interactive quest called Home Alone at the Stadium, set at Zenit Arena. The goal was to showcase the stadium's features and facilities and attract new audiences.
I know next to nothing about football. I could probably even get the number of players on the pitch wrong. But when Aviasales offered me the chance to work on a special project for Zenit, I jumped at it.
The Zenit team wanted to promote their stadium as a place worth visiting on a trip to St. Petersburg. You know, see St. Isaac’s Cathedral, take a walk down Nevsky Prospekt, and stop by the stadium. So the Aviasales team came up with the idea of a humorous mini-quest with the working title Home Alone at the Stadium.
I was brought in to develop the idea further and write the storyline. That meant creating all the copy for the project and preparing a detailed design brief covering the visuals. And I had just four days to get it all done.
How I Came Up with the Special Project
To get people to complete the quest and visit the client's website, it needed to be interesting, funny, and show off the stadium without feeling too promotional. So I started by developing the concept and digging into the details.
We came up with the idea of a mischievous boy exploring the stadium and getting into trouble. Readers would choose what kind of mischief he got up to, discovering different parts of the arena along the way. I went through the stadium's website and studied its floor plans. They showed all the activities available at the venue, so I could figure out where to send our little troublemaker and what he could get up to there. The Aviasales team also provided a detailed brief and plenty of reference materials, so I had lots to work with.
I chose locations based on three criteria: each place had to be interesting in its own right, showcase something unique about the stadium, and offer an opportunity for mischief. Simply showing up at the entrance where tickets are checked? Not exactly an exciting adventure.
To connect the quest with St. Petersburg, I added some local references. For example, at the food court, I suggested an option where the boy shouts, "Can I get a shawarma?" In a city where everyone calls it shaverma, that's already a little act of rebellion. There were also references to smelt, a local fish, and pyshki, St. Petersburg's take on doughnuts.
But the hardest part was coming up with jokes that were genuinely funny while still being brand-safe. The client wanted to show off how great the stadium was. We wanted to create a quest people would actually enjoy playing. Every joke had to be funny, avoid making the brand look bad, and get approved by the client. Play it too safe, and the whole thing becomes bland and boring. Push it too far, and you're back to rewriting.
Some jokes didn't make the cut. My personal favorite was a scene where our little troublemaker asks a waiter to call for Yasha Lava over the microphone (It’s a popular Russian wordplay joke involving a first and last name. When said quickly, they sound something like “I’m a slut.”). After an awkward pause, the waiter suggests asking Elena Golovach for help finding him (This is another popular Russian wordplay joke. Lena is a short form of Elena. If you say the last name first, followed by Lena, it sounds something like “Glansp Enis” in Russian). The client thought that was going too far. I still think it was a masterpiece.
