Social promotion in former Soviet Union makes the world better
Social advertizing is not new in Russia as it may seem. Even lots of years ago social promotion took significant place in our life. All Russians who lived in Soviet times remember social posters and TV spots where concepts of responsibility were declared. The following mottos were very popular: “Save the nature, it’s our mpther”, “Matches are not toys for boys” etc. All these social ads were supported by Soviet government and made by governmental institutions. At the moment everything has changed and we may find many silly social advertising which is sponsored by official government, non-commercial companies and private persons. Much money is spent every month on various social campaigns which are created by popular media campaigns with movie spots, social booklets, logos etc.
Many international foundations work on the territory of former Soviet Union and a great deal of social advertisments from all over the world can ve found nowadays in Russia. I am sure that it is really great as we have a unique chance to use best international experience in the field of social promotion as our own traditions in this field are very weak but we have many thoughts and creative PR specialists who can make all them effective. That’s why different competitions of social promotion are so popular today in Russian Federation and lots of professional advertizing firms took an active part in such kind of competitions and if you enter tube sites you can find lots of social spots created by the leading Russian organizations but usually the visualization of social messages leaves much to be desired. Still there are quite a lot of interesting social movies on tobacco addiction and other problems. But of course, we should always keep in mind about the current situation in the country and the main difficulties which the government has to deal with. One of such difficulties is demographic decrease as too many people die in Russia and they know that they should force people to give more births. As an example of social advertising which concentrated on demographic problems we can mention social posters which were placed in Moscow subway with a lady with three boys on her knees. This post is more uncertain rather than gives replys as there is no male on this poster and the woman looks not very happy.
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.