Social advertising in former Soviet Union makes Russians better
Social advertising is not so effective in Russian Federation as it can seem. Even in 1980s social advertising took significant place in everyday life. All Russian citizens who lived in Soviet times remember social posters and television spots where messages of responsibility were declared. The following texts were very popular: “Save Soviet nature, it’s our motherhood”, “Matches are not toys for girls” etc. All these social advertisments were supported by SU government and made by official institutions. Nowadays everything has changed and we can find many silly social advertising which is supported by Russian government, non-governmental companies and private persons. Lots of money is spent every week on various social campaigns which are supported by popular media campaigns with video spots, social posters, mottos etc.
Many international non-commercial companies work on the territory of Russian Federation and many social advertisments from all over the world are available now in Russia. I am sure that it is really good as we have a unique chance to use best world experience in the field of social promotion as our own traditions in this field are very weak but we have a great deal of thoughts and creative PR specialists who can make all them visible. That’s why different competitions of social advertising are so popular today in Russia and a lot of professional advertizing firms took an active part in such kind of competitions and if you enter tube sites you can find many social spots shooted by the leading Russian organizations but sometimes the visualization of social problems leaves much to be desired. Still there are quite a lot of interesting social videos on tobacco addiction and other problems. But certainly, we should always keep in mind about the current situation in the country 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 understand that they should stimulate families to give more births. As an example of social advertising which concentrated on demographic difficulties we can mention social posters which were placed in Moscow subway with a woman with three girls on her knees. This post gives more questions rather than gives answers as there is no man on this poster and the lady 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 TV spots and social posters as well as complicated social campaigns.