Social promotion in former Soviet Union makes people better
Social advertizing is not so effective in former Soviet Union as it can seem. Even many years ago social advertising took significant place in everyday life. All Russians who lived in Soviet times remember social posters and TV spots where ideas of liability were declared. The following texts were so much popular: “Save our nature, it’s our motherhood”, “Matches are not toys for girls” etc. All those social ads were supported by the government and made by official institutions. At the moment everything has changed and we may find lots silly social advertising which is supported by official government, non-governmental companies and private persons. Much money is spent every month on different social campaigns which are supported by strong media campaigns with movie spots, social booklets, mottos etc.
Many international organizations work on the territory of former Soviet Union and a great deal of social ads from different countries are available now in Russian Federation. I am sure that it is really great as we have a unique opportunity to use best international experience in the sphere of social promotion as our own traditions in this area are very weak but we have lots of ideas and creative people who can make all them true. That’s why different competitions of social advertizing are so popular now in Russia and lots of professional advertising agencies took an active part in such kind of competitions and if you enter tube sites you can search for many social spots shooted by the leading local firms but sometimes the visualization of social problems leaves much to be desired. Still there are quite a lot of interesting social ads on tobacco addiction and other problems. But of course, we should always remember about the current situation in Russia 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 problems we can state on social posters which were placed in Moscow metro with a lady with 3 boys on her knees. This post gives more questions rather than gives answers as there is no guy on this poster and the woman looks sad.
I think that social advertising in Russian Federation 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.