Social advertising in Russia makes us better
Social promotion is not so effective in former Soviet Union as it may seem. Even in 1980s social advertizing took an important place in everyday life. All Russians who lived in those years remember social booklets and TV spots where messages of liability were declared. The following texts were very popular: “Save our nature, it’s our motherhood”, “Matches are not toys for boys” etc. All these social ads were sponsored by SU government and created by official institutions. At the moment everything has changed and we can find lots silly social advertising which is sponsored by official government, non-commercial organizations and private persons. Lots of money is spent every year on different social campaigns which are supported by Russian media campaigns with video spots, social booklets, mottos etc.
Many international foundations work on the territory of Russia and lots of social ads from different countries can ve found now in Russia. I am sure that it is really importans as we have a unique opportunity to use best world experience in the sphere of social advertising as our own traditions in this area are very weak but we have a great deal of thoughts and creative PR specialists who can make all them true. That’s why various competitions of social promotion are so popular nowadays in Russia and lots of professional advertising firms took an active part in such kind of events and if you enter RuTube you can find lots of social spots shooted by the leading Russian companies but sometimes the visualization of social ideas leaves much to be desired. Still there are quite a lot of popular social videos on alcohol addiction and other issues. But of course, we should always remember about the following situation in Russian Federation and the main problems which the government has to deal with. One of such difficulties is demographic decrease as too many people die in former Soviet Union and they know that they should force families 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 three boys on her knees. This post is more uncertain rather than gives answers as there is no male on this poster and the woman looks disappointed.
I think that social advertizing in Russia 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.