Social advertising in Russia makes us better
Social promotion is not so effective in former Soviet Union as it can seem. Even during the years of Soviet Union social advertising took an important place in everyday life. All Russians who lived in Soviet times remember social booklets and television spots where ideas of responsibility 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 the government and created by governmental institutions. Nowadays everything has changed and we may find lots silly social advertising which is supported by official government, non-commercial organizations and private persons. Lots of money is spent every year on different social campaigns which are created by popular media campaigns with movie spots, social posters, logos etc.
Many international organizations work on the territory of former Soviet Union and many social ads from all over the world are available now in former Soviet Union. I am sure that it is really great as we have a unique opportunity to use best world experience in the field of social advertizing as our own traditions in this field are very weak but we have lots of thoughts and creative people who can make all them visible. That’s why various competitions of social advertizing are so popular now in former Soviet Union and many professional advertising companies took an active part in such kind of competitions and if you enter YouTube you can find many social spots created by the leading Russian firms but usually the visualization of social ideas leaves much to be desired. Still there are quite a lot of popular social movies on tobacco addiction and other problems. But of course, we should always keep in mind about the current situation in Russia and the main problems which the government has to deal with. One of such problems is demographic decrease as too many people die in Russian Federation and they understand that they should force families to give more births. As an example of social advertising which concentrated on demographic issues we can mention social posters which were placed in Moscow subway with a lady with 3 girls on her knees. This post is more uncertain rather than gives answers as there is no male on this poster and the lady looks disappointed.
I think that social advertising in Russia 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.