Social advertizing in former Soviet Union makes Russians better
Social advertizing is not so popular in Russian Federation as it may seem. Even during the years of Soviet Union social promotion took significant place in our life. All Russians who lived in Soviet times remember social booklets and TV spots where ideas of responsibility were declared. The following mottos were very popular: “Save the nature, it’s our mpther”, “Matches are not toys for girls” etc. All those social advertisments were supported by Soviet government and created by governmental institutions. At the moment everything has changed and we may find many various social advertising which is sponsored by official government, non-commercial companies and private persons. Lots of money is spent every week on different social campaigns which are created by strong media campaigns with video spots, social booklets, logos etc.
A lot of international non-commercial companies work on the territory of Russia and lots of social ads from different countries can ve found nowadays in Russia. I am sure that it is really importans as we have a unique chance to use best international experience in the field of social advertizing as our own traditions in this sphere are very weak but we have many thoughts and creative people who can make all them visible. That’s why different competitions of social advertizing are so popular today in former Soviet Union and a lot of professional advertising agencies took an active part in such kind of events and if you enter YouTube you can look for lots of social spots created by the leading Russian firms but usually the visualization of social messages leaves much to be desired. Still there are quite a lot of interesting social ads on alcohol addiction and other problems. But of course, we should always keep in mind about the current situation in Russia and the main difficulties which the government has to sort out. One of such difficulties is demographic decrease as too many people die in former Soviet Union and they know that they should stimulate people to give more births. As an example of social promotion which concentrated on demographic problems we can state on social posters which were placed in Moscow subway with a woman with three boys on her knees. This post is more uncertain rather than gives answers as there is no male on this poster and the lady looks not very happy.
I think that social advertizing in Russian Federation just starts its way and in the nearest future we will see lots of great examples of TV spots and social posters as well as complicated social campaigns.