Experience Abu Dhabi Summer Campaign on Novy Arbat Media Facades
Promote Abu Dhabi as a summer destination to Moscow audiences through large digital facades in the city center.
+19.6% MoM growth in Yandex searches for Abu Dhabi in June
Background
The Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) is the government body that develops tourism and culture in the emirate and promotes it abroad under the Experience Abu Dhabi brand. Its attractions range from beach resorts and the Yas Marina Circuit to cultural landmarks such as Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Russia is a market where Middle Eastern countries actively compete for travelers. Ahead of the campaign, RMAA Agency prepared a report for the client on how other destinations reached this audience, using data from media suppliers. According to it, in 2025 Saudi Arabia and Dubai ran both online and outdoor campaigns, while Qatar relied on online placements alone. For the summer of 2026, DCT Abu Dhabi decided to bring its "Summer in Abu Dhabi" campaign to the streets of central Moscow.
Goal
For six weeks in June and July, Abu Dhabi was to become part of the view on Novy Arbat, one of the most recognizable streets in Moscow, and on Zubovsky Boulevard. We needed to bring the client's summer creatives to every facade and back each one with documented proof of the airtime it delivered.
Each of the seven screens had its own resolution, and two facades switched to a 60-second format at night, so one master video could not run everywhere. Legal teams at the media owners also reviewed every layout and refused English words such as "experience" unless they formed part of a registered trademark or came with a Russian translation, which meant that no display could go live until its creative passed this check.
We therefore had to solve every technical and legal question screen by screen so that the summer campaign reached every facade.
Solution
Screen selection
RMAA Agency built its proposal around Novy Arbat, a central avenue where offices, shops, a cinema and tourist routes keep pedestrian and car traffic high throughout the day and into the evening, and added the RIA Novosti building on Zubovsky Boulevard, which stands near a media and business cluster. These locations reach a culturally active audience with spending power, and the avenue regularly carries campaigns for premium hotels, luxury real estate, automotive and fashion brands, as well as for another national tourism board. From this shortlist, DCT Abu Dhabi approved six facades, five of them on Novy Arbat, including displays on the Dom Knigi bookstore, the Oktyabr cinema, the 165-meter Sfera shopping center, and the Former Khleb Store.
Campaign execution
We adapted each creative to the requirements of its screen. On the Oktyabr cinema facade, our team added 18-pixel black bars so the video fit the required frame, and for Novy Arbat 28 we transcribed Yas Marina into Cyrillic at the media owner's request and prepared a 60-second nighttime version. When a legal comment concerned the English words in the Experience Abu Dhabi brand name, we passed it to the client with a ready solution, either a trademark certificate or a Russian equivalent.
Screens went live as approvals came in, with four Novy Arbat facades starting on June 2, the 7A facade and the RIA Novosti building on June 16, and Sfera on June 23, and the flight ran until mid-July. Most screens played the 15-second spot every five minutes, while Novy Arbat 28 and Sfera, where the client bought a doubled share of voice, showed it about every two and a half minutes during the day. The plan also included bonus placements at no extra cost, which added four days on the Unimall screen on Novorizhskoe Highway and a second slot on the RIA Novosti building.
Delivery monitoring and reporting
RMAA Agency tracked delivery through an independent outdoor verification service on the four main Novy Arbat facades and through media owner reports on the other screens. The service logged every play by date, address and creative, and we compiled this data into monthly reports for June and July that compared actual airtime with the plan for each screen, showing shortfalls as openly as over-delivery.
Results
The six-week flight delivered more airtime than the contract required and gave the client a documented record of every play on the central Moscow facades.
- Higher search interest in Abu Dhabi. According to Yandex Wordstat, searches for "abu dhabi" grew from 15,973 in May 2026 to 19,096 in June, the first month of the campaign, which equals 19.6% month-over-month growth.
- Seven iconic digital screens in Moscow.
- Almost 92,000 ad plays.
- 1,405,362 seconds of airtime, or about 390 hours.
- About 34 hours above the contracted volume.
- Independently verified delivery.
