After statements Following the Federal Antimonopoly Service's announcement that advertising on Telegram and YouTube is illegal, major advertising groups have begun suspending their advertising campaigns in the messenger, Vedomosti reports.
Specifically, the Media Direction Group advertising group (ranked top 8 by media purchase volume in 2024 according to Sostav and the Association of Communication Agencies of Russia (ACAR)) has suspended its placements. As its managing director, Denis Maksimov, told Vedomosti, the group is taking "all possible measures to maintain the effectiveness of campaigns while transferring them to other channels."
A representative of the Rodnaya Rech group of companies (top six by media purchase volume in 2024) said advertisers reacted to the announcement in varying degrees, with some suspending their campaigns as early as yesterday evening. "We, including our lawyers, are monitoring the situation, awaiting official clarification, and are ready to act promptly based on incoming information," he noted.
Sergey Efimov, executive director of OMD Resolution (part of OMD OM Group; part of Group1, the #1 agency by media purchase volume in 2024), told Vedomosti that many clients have sought clarification regarding the legal framework for placement in the messenger, and only 10-15% of them have submitted requests for the possibility of removing ads from Telegram. He noted that virtually no advertising campaigns have been stopped at this time.
NMi Digital (part of NMi Group) reported that it has not received any requests from clients to cancel Telegram advertising campaigns, but is conducting a full audit of the placements and recommends suspending Telegram advertising campaigns until the circumstances are clarified. Other agencies also report that most advertisers are not canceling their placements, awaiting official clarification from regulators.
According to Vasily Yashchuk, Director of the Creative Division at Kokoc Group, the advertising ban on Telegram and YouTube will affect resources that account for approximately 70% of the influencer marketing market (advertising with bloggers): 40% on Telegram, 30% on YouTube. Another 15% came from VK, and the remaining 15% from TikTok, Rutube, Zen, Twitch, and other platforms. The influencer marketing segment was previously estimated to be worth 50-60 billion rubles in 2025, according to the Association of Bloggers and Agencies (ABA).
Currently, neither Telegram nor YouTube are included in the registries of resources where advertising is legally prohibited, said Dmitry Grigoryev, Director of the Legal Department at European Media Group. These include the unified register of domain names, website page indexes, and network addresses containing information whose dissemination is prohibited in Russia (maintained by Roskomnadzor), the list of undesirable foreign and international organizations, and the Ministry of Justice's list of extremist organizations. Furthermore, Telegram and YouTube are still included in Roskomnadzor's register of social networks, he added.
Currently, there is a discrepancy between the possible interpretation of the FAS position and the regulator's actual actions, noted Yulia Sinitsyna, partner in the Intellectual Property and Information Technology practice at the law firm Chervets.Partners. "If the FAS position is officially confirmed, this could mean a broader interpretation of the advertising law—the ban would apply not only to completely blocked resources but also to platforms with partially restricted access," she said.
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Source: 3dnews.ru
