Social promotion in former Soviet Union makes Russians better
Social advertising is not so popular in Russia as it may seem. Even in 1980s social promotion took an important place in usual life. All Russians who lived in Soviet times remember social posters and TV spots where ideas of liability were declared. The following texts were so much popular: “Save the nature, it’s our mpther”, “Matches are not toys for girls” etc. All those social advertisments were sponsored by Soviet government and made by governmental institutions. At the moment everything has changed and we can find many silly social advertising which is supported by Russian government, non-commercial companies and private persons. Lots of money is spent every year on different social campaigns which are created by strong media campaigns with movie spots, social booklets, mottos etc.
A great deal of international non-commercial companies work on the territory of Russian Federation and a great deal of social advertisments from all over the world can ve found at the moment in Russian Federation. I am sure that it is really great as we have a unique opportunity to use best international experience in the sphere of social advertizing as our own traditions in this sphere are very weak but we have lots of ideas and creative directors who can make all them effective. That’s why various competitions of social promotion are so popular today in former Soviet Union and lots of professional advertising agencies took an active part in such kind of competitions and if you enter tube sites you can find lots of social spots shooted by the leading local companies but usually the visualization of social messages leaves much to be desired. Still there are quite a lot of interesting social movies on tobacco addiction and other problems. But of course, we should always keep in mind about the following situation in Russian Federation and the main problems which the government has to sort out. One of such difficulties is demographic decrease as too many people die in Russia and they know that they should force people to give more births. As an example of social promotion which concentrated on demographic problems we can mention social posters which were placed in Moscow subway with a woman with 3 boys on her knees. This post is more uncertain rather than gives replys as there is no man on this poster and the woman looks sad.
I think that social advertising in former Soviet Union just starts its way and in the nearest future we will see lots of great examples of video spots and social posters as well as complicated social campaigns.