The contract between Tinkoff Bank and Urgant was signed for two years, the bank reported. Photos of the presenter will appear on billboards and on the Internet, and commercials for the campaign will be recorded with him on TV channels and on the Internet. A commercial with Urgant has already been released on federal channels. According to the plot, the showman is looking for a bank and ultimately chooses Tinkoff Bank. Also, as part of the campaign, the bank has already begun to provide sponsorship to the Channel One programs “The Voice” (hosted by Dmitry Nagiyev) and “Evening Urgant”. The bank representative does not disclose the contract amount. A representative from Urgant did not respond to Vedomosti’s request.

Several years ago, Urgant asked for $1 million for a similar project, says a top manager of one of the large advertising agencies. The showman has already been the face of advertising campaigns for Actimel yogurt from Danone and the mobile operator Megafon.

This is the first time that Tinkoff Bank uses a specific person in a campaign, a bank representative told Vedomosti. “We have never before attracted popular TV presenters of this level to promote services,” the bank’s message quotes the words of Tinkoff Bank media director Mikhail Gorbuntsov.

Tinkoff Bank ranks 37th in terms of assets and 24th in terms of the amount of funds raised from the public, according to Interfax-CEA data. As of August 1, 2017, Tinkoff Bank is the second largest player in the Russian market in terms of the number of credit cards with a share of 11.5%, the bank itself writes.

The bank began sponsoring the “Evening Urgant” program back in April 2017, and at the same time, the bank agreed on larger-scale cooperation with the presenter, as a result, a contract with him was signed in June, a representative of the bank told Vedomosti.

Earlier, the host of the Versus battle, Alexander Timartsev (“Restaurateur”), announced the termination of cooperation with Tinkoff Bank. He did this after Oleg Tinkov’s scandal with Nemagia bloggers (Alexey Pskovitin and Mikhail Pechersky). The dispute began after a video about Tinkoff Bank and Tinkov himself was published more than a month ago. Bloggers claimed that Tinkov flatters the owner of Alfa Bank, Mikhail Fridman, is engaged in dubious business, treats his employees poorly, is rude, does not think about clients and lies. Tinkov filed a lawsuit against the bloggers and filed a statement with the Ministry of Internal Affairs for libel, for which a criminal case was opened. Last week, Tinkov withdrew the claims and filed a motion to dismiss the criminal case.

The new face of Tinkoff Bank