Social promotion in Russia makes you better
Social promotion is not so effective in former Soviet Union as it can seem. Even in 1980s social advertizing took significant place in usual life. All Russian citizens who lived in Soviet times remember social booklets and television spots where concepts of responsibility were declared. The following texts were very popular: “Save the nature, it’s our motherhood”, “Matches are not toys for children” etc. All those social ads were sponsored by the government and made by official institutions. Nowadays everything has changed and we may find many silly social advertising which is supported by official government, non-governmental organizations and private persons. Much money is spent every year on various social campaigns which are supported by Russian media campaigns with video spots, social posters, texts etc.
A lot of international non-commercial companies work on the territory of Russian Federation and many social ads from all over the world are available now in former Soviet Union. I am sure that it is really importans as we have a unique chance to use best international experience in the field of social promotion as our own traditions in this area are very weak but we have a great deal of ideas and creative PR specialists who can make all them visible. That’s why different competitions of social promotion are so popular today in Russian Federation and many professional advertizing agencies took an active part in such kind of events and if you enter tube sites you can look for many social spots created by the leading local companies but sometimes the visualization of social messages leaves much to be desired. Still there are quite a lot of popular social advertisements on tobacco addiction and other issues. But of course, we should always remember about the following situation in the country and the main problems which the government has to deal with. One of such problems is demographic decrease as too many people die in former Soviet Union and they understand that they should stimulate people 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 metro with a lady with 3 children on her knees. This post is more uncertain rather than gives replys as there is no guy 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.