Kazakhstan is a highly competitive ride-hailing market where most potential users already have a preferred app. For inDrive, winning new users meant fighting not only for rides, but for attention. The challenge became even harder when competitors dominated the influencer space, working with many of the country’s top bloggers. Instead of joining the same expensive battle for paid influence, inDrive looked for a different kind of influencer: one already present inside people’s homes. That influencer was Alisa, the Yandex voice assistant — available through Yandex Station, a device present in every sixth household in Kazakhstan.
Problem
inDrive needed to create attention, conversation and app installs in a market where traditional digital ads and influencer partnerships were easy to ignore. The task was to turn a standard digital video placement into something more interactive and memorable — without relying on paid influencers, expensive production or a large influencer budget.
Solution
inDrive created Not Your Influencer — a digital campaign that turned Alisa, the Yandex voice assistant, into an unexpected media partner. The campaign used specially crafted video ads that triggered Alisa when played near a Yandex Station. Every time the ad appeared, Alisa reacted and answered, turning a passive video view into a live interaction inside the room. Instead of asking people to click, comment or participate manually, the campaign activated the audience’s own device. A standard digital ad suddenly became an interactive home experience, with the voice assistant joining the conversation and extending the message beyond the screen. By using a competitor-owned ecosystem in an unexpected way, inDrive created a zero-influencer-budget campaign that behaved like influencer media — only the “influencer” was already in people’s homes.
Results
In less than one week, the campaign reached 8M people, generated 1,200+ comments and 70,000+ reactions, and drove a 20% increase in installs — with 0 ₸ spent on influencer and production budget.
