AFFILIATE PROGRAM INTERVIEW Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from, and where are you based now? I’m Ukrainian and I’m based in Kyiv. Despite everything my country has been through, I decided to stay. My family is here, my roots are here, and this is home. I enjoy visiting other countries and cities, but my heart belongs to Kyiv and to Ukraine. Your title is Promo Brand Team Lead, which is not a job title most GPWA members have come across. What does the role cover day to day? It’s one of those roles that needs a little explanation. It’s broad, and it sits where brand, PR, events and communications meet. I oversee our social media marketing, work closely with designers and contractors, manage event and conference projects, coordinate merchandise production and make sure the V.Partners brand shows up consistently everywhere people encounter it. So one day I might be working on the concept for an exhibition stand; the next I’m discussing a campaign with our SMM manager, reviewing visuals, preparing merchandise or coordinating with contractors. There is rarely a standard day, and that’s one of the things I enjoy most about the job. You built the V.Partners brand strategy and brand book from scratch. What did the brand look like before that, and what problem were you trying to solve? When I joined V.Partners six years ago, the brand looked very different from what you see today. Our visual identity was much less distinctive, our media presence was limited, and at industry conferences we were usually behind a small, standard stand. Marina Matviichuk V.Partners Marina Matviichuk, Promo Brand Team Lead at V.Partners, has built her career on making the brand impossible to miss. She joined six years ago and wrote the V.Partners brand strategy and brand book from scratch, turning the program’s signature orange into something affiliates recognize from across a crowded conference hall. In this issue’s Affiliate Program Interview, Marina discusses why V.Partners took the caps off Tier 1 and Tier 2 traffic. She also gets into the new Telegram bot that lets partners check their stats without logging in, her childhood plan to become either a famous singer or a veterinarian, and the 20-hour journey home from a conference that she spends in complete silence. GPWAtimes.org 64
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