Zhirik Cigs

Zhirinovsky is a top buffoon of Russian politics. A leader of the Liberal Democratic Party is considered by many Russians as the best stand-up comedian in this country. Don’t be bluffed by the name of his party. It relates to liberal democracy as much as five kopecks to a herring head. Also don’t bluff by the word ‘party’. His organization is there to make money not politics exactly as Scientology is a church.

Zhirinovsky already markets one vodka brand with his name (not very successfully, though). This month he launches Zhirinovsky cigarettes brand that he personally endorses even though he doesn’t smoke himself. The brand is here to celebrate Zhirinovky jubilee – he turns 60 years old. This is weird birthday present – cigarettes can kill.

Via Sostav

Foster's Commercial

Foster’s goes on with its American Pie humor ads I wrote about here. Watch its new commercial.

Click on the picture to watch

FYI: beer commercials in Russia are allowed on TV only from 11 pm till 7 am. They shouldn't have any people, animals neither live nor as pictures or cartoon. There shouldn’t be any messages about joys of beer drinking, beer health benefits, etc. etc. Such limitations did really boost ad agencies creative potential. Also after 10 pm time is now called ‘beer time’ as up to 80% of late night commercials are beer ones.

Via Sostav

Related Tags: Russia, Moscow, Foster's, beer, commercials, advertisement

Easter and Bunnies

Russian Orthodox Easter was on the 23rd of April, just several days ago. This is the most important religious holiday in Russia. Not that Christmas is less important but when you survive the Russian winter with its brutal blizzards and -30 frosts; when you thought that snow would never melt; that skies would always be gray and low; and that it would always be dark at 4 pm. Then spring comes, the sun is shining, birds are singing and Ester comes. Wouldn’t you be extra happy over Jesus resurrection?

RMB noted that this year chocolate Easter bunnies, that were totally alien to Russian consumers just a couple of years ago, occupy more and more of shelf place, encroaching on traditional territory of Easter cakes, Easter eggs and Easter eggs dying kits. We should thank chocolate factories marketing managers for that.

Related Tags: Russia, Moscow, Russian Orthodox Church, Easter, Easter eggs, Easter bunnies

Klukva v sakhare

Another nostalgia food product from the old good times when I was young, the sky was bluer and grass was greener. I’m talking about cranberry in sugar. This dainty was very popular in 60’s and 70’s in Russia.

Cranberry is a unique berry. It contains natural preserving elements that keep cranberry fresh for months. Wet cranberries are rolled in sugar powder and when berries dry up they are covered with white sugar crusts.

The joy of eating sugared cranberries lies in the expected unexpectedness. When super sour juice breaks the sugary sweetness.

The new product is introduced under Charmel brand by Udarnitsa Confectionaries.

Related Tags: Russia, Moscow, new products, cranberry, Charmel, Udarnitsa

Oster's poems

Raffi Aftandelian from Maaskva Nashimi Glazami writes about crazy Gregory Oster's verses for kids.

I learned of the children's writer Grigorii Oster just recently. How could I have missed him? His Harmful Advice: a book for naughty children and their parents is just a delight. Unfortunately, it's only in Russian and from what I can see has never been translated into English. I could look at the illustrations for hours!

Oster has such an important take on our reality. Maybe he should take things further and write a book, "Healthy National Ideas" and convey the joy wrought by people living under democracy and other "humanistic" ideas?

I would like to add my five kopeks with translation of a couple of Oster's poems. Unfortunately Raffi makes strict word-by-word translations. I tried to preserve Oster's wacky style and rhyme. Unfortunatelly my English is too shaky. Any editing help will be highly appreciated.

*******

When your daddy's boss will visit
For some lunch or for some coffee
At your house you are given
What a very lucky chance

You can boost your dad's career
If you play one easy joke
On the boss when he is taking
A cup of coffee in his hand

You should sneak up to the table
Just be quiet and very stealthy
And then yell into his ear
"Gotcha! Freeze!" and "Ha-ha-ha!"

And the boss will spill his coffee
On his shirt and on his jacket
And your mommy and your daddy
Will be laughing like they're mad

Then your mom will sure kiss you
And will take you to your bedroom
Where she for many hours
Will be kindly praising you

******

Nothing gives you so much pleasure
At your nose nose-picking
Every person wants to know
What is there that you hide

And if someone is disgusted
We don't force him into looking
We don't pick then at his nose
So why he's bothering us?

PS. This post is not exactly off-topic as I made the translations at a Russian marketing conference.

Starbucks in Russia

Starbucks decided at last to open its first caf? in Russia. I mean on the Russian territory as a Starbucks at the US Embassy in Moscow counts as American turf. Starbucks goofed off with its brand name and logo. It was registered in Russia but for five years the company failed to open a single outlet. Thus the registration was cancelled and immediately a clever Russian entrepreneur Sergei Zuikov became a proud owner of Starbucks name and logo in Russia. He wanted Starbucks to buy its own logo for $600 000 but failed. In November 2005 justice triumphed and Rospatent cancelled Zuikov’s right to sell what doesn’t belong to him.

I’m afraid it’s too late for Starbucks. First, there are at least five popular coffee chains in this country. Second, I’m sure that plastic cups and fast food outlet general atmosphere together with outrageous prices would not appeal to Russian coffee lovers.

I believe that much of the Starbucks success in the US is due to the fact that Americans like (liked?) very bad coffee. When I visited the US for the first time some 15 years ago my first disappointment was coffee. At first I thought the restaurant was bad but then I discovered Americans even like low quality and watery coffee. Highly recommended coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts was only marginally better. What’s more – even at high scale restaurants nobody knew what espresso or cappuccino means. Starbucks proved that the problem lied not in wacky American tastes but rather in weird American food retail marketing.

Related Tags: Russia, Moscow, Starbucks, coffee, marketing

Beeple

This picture was found at Visual Jokes site. Everyone who lives in Russia would immediately recognize a new logo of Beeline – number one mobile communications operator. Only its logo is round and not Apple shaped. I wonder if the guys who came up with this joke never heard of Beeline. Weird.
Anyway, it's not a bad idea for brand stretching into new categories. Like, Beeple communicator.

Related Tags: Russia, logo, Beeline, Apple, visual joke

Who's Foster's guy?

Megan Case encroached on my territory, commenting on a Foster’s Beer ad in St.Pete’s Metro. I have no choice but comment. Megan wrote:

…this merits some discussion regardless. Foster's Beer ads are known for their
borderline offensive machismo, but I wondered if this one was unique to the
Russian market, because I can't imagine it in any civilized country:

It says: You have to give up your (metro) seat to women/you can put the
attractive ones on your lap.

Foster’s Beer was bombarding Russian men with such ads for eight months already, spending millions on even more offensive machismo TV commercials. It seems that they run out of money and can afford only Metro. What’s the result? Forster’s proudly occupies 0.25 % market share in Moscow and 0.15 % in St. Petersburg. Even expensive brands that were never advertised have no problems getting 1-1.5% market share in Moscow simply because there are so many people that buy beer without even looking at the label. 0.25 % could only mean that even people, who don’t give a damn about brand names, try to avoid Foster’s.

What Foster’s did wrong? It tried to import the idea that is totally alien to Russian culture. Foster’s message is not just pointless – it’s silly. Guys from Foster’s ads can only be associated with prototypes from American comedies for teenagers, like, “American pie”. Putting attractive gals on the lap sounds attractive at a fraternity all-boys party (do Aussies have fraternities?). It could also sound attractive to a drunk who lost any sensibility but Foster’s is out of his price segment.

A couple of months ago I witnessed a funny scene at a bar. A group of students (male and female) ordered beer and one of the guys asked for Forster’s. One of the girls looked at him with eyes wide opened and said jokingly, “I better sit away from Max. I don’t think he’ll keep himself under control”. Everyone burst out laughing. Max turned red. I don’t think Foster’s expected its marketing efforts go like that.

PS. A tip for students of Russian – a guy from Foster’s ad is called озабоченный.

Related Tags: Russia, St. Petersburg, advertisment, metro, Foster's, beer

Russian McDonalds is more healthy. Hurah!

“Trans fats” content in McDonalds and KFC foods depends on the country where these fast food chains operate. Danish scientists came to this conclusion after studying food in 43 fast food restaurants in 20 countries of Europe and USA. The results are published in New England Journal of Medicine.

The highest content of “trans fats” was found in American McDonalds and KFC and the lowest in Denmark and Russia. For Denmark the explanation is easy – “trans fats” are banned in that country. But why Russia? Scientists believe it depends on oil prices. In Russia oil is traditionally very cheap and fast food chains do not need cheap substitutes.

Via LENTA.RU

Vodka Fashion

AdAge reports on Soyuz-Viktan’s (Ukraine) ambitious plans to conquer the American vodka market:

S-V, the world's No. 3 vodka producer, is positioning its SV Supreme brand to compete with the likes of Grey Goose and Chopin in the still-hot super-premium
vodka sector. The marketer is also planning to expand into Asia and Western
Europe, but the thriving market for high-end vodkas here makes the U.S. its top
priority, according to U.S. Sales Manager Mark McKethan.
SV Supreme is a new brand, but Soyuz's existing brands SV and Medoff each grew by about 54% last year, to 6.5 million and 3.4 million cases, respectively, according to the spirits trade journal Impact. For comparison, Grey Goose shipped 2.3 million
cases during 2005, and Smirnoff shipped about 21 million.

S-V is also very aggressive on the Russian market although the attempts to boost sales of its Medoff premium brand were unsuccessful. The problem lies in the brand name – Medoff sounds to much like ‘honey’ in Russian but not too many people want to try honey flavored vodka. S-V had to launch a new campaign explaining that its ‘honey’ vodka has no taste of honey.

Another interesting trick to promote Medoff vodka – fashion design for vodka bottles. Clothes for Medoff vodka haute couture comes in different forms. “Medoff Fashion Collection” has one style that was called by S-V market managers “Smooth Style”. Take, for example, this ‘royal’ dress for your favorite vodka bottle. You see an overcoat made of genuine beaver fur exclusively hand trimmed and toned. Sweater is sewn from ultra-expensive Kashmir wool. Please, pay special attention to a gold chain and ebony cane with golden head decorated with Swarowski crystals.

You won’t be ashamed of your vodka bottle looks when you show it to your friends. Next time we’ll talk about exclusive make-up for your vodka bottle and how it can beat other vodkas in “whose limo is the longest” competition.

Via Sostav (more pictures from Medoff Fashion Collection)

Oops

S7 from Siberia

Only ten years ago Sibir (Siberia) was a local airline operating in – that comes as no surprise – from Novosibirsk in Siberia. Only in the last three years its revenue tripled and it got a well-earned national status. Keeping the old name Siberia became somewhat outlandish when its planes fly directly to more than 50 countries all around the world. They even invited Jack Trout, the author of “Marketing Wars” (1989) to come up with a catchy name that would put the airline apart from others and highlight its unique identity. Jack Trout didn’t come with anything useful but Sibir’s new CMO did. The new name is S7 now. The new corporate identity amazes customers with acid bright green and all visual attributes no discount airline can do without. This is an international marketing law: lower ticket prices mean flashier and gaudier design.

What’s more – English-speaking passengers have real fun flying S7. It so happens that Russian flight assistants’ accent is too Russian. When they say, “Ass Seven airline welcomes you on board…” Brits and Americans burst out laughing. (Irish don’t – they fly Ryan Air that is even more fun). Everyone knows, laughter is the best medicine against pre-takeoff stress. Together with cheap alcohol.

Related Tags: Russia, airlines, S7, renaming, redisign

Travel agency from Mars

“No one is left without a place in a tourist group” – a printed ad of Voronezhintur travel agency (Voronezh, Russia). WTH are they talking about? I’d better stay away from this company. Just in case.

Related Tags: Russia, Voronezh, advertisement, tourism, travel agency

Fun Not Dead

The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia Canada (ICBC) started a new campaign under the catchy slogan, “It's no fun if you're dead”. Car crashes remain the number one killer of youth, and a leading cause of accidental death for all age groups. ICBC is committed to countering this trend.

Such commitments are certainly laudable but their effectiveness is more important. Does ICBC think that the main cause of the problem lies in the fact that young people are not informed about dangers of speeding, or not informed convincingly enough, or the message is not “edgy and attention-grabbing”? One should be very na?ve to think that if you “edgily” tell a young guy to stop speeding he will stop. At this age behavior of guys and gals is ruled by hormones. Scary pictures only make adrenaline rush stronger. Speeding, sex, drugs, extreme sports – all these things make life more intense. Young people do drugs or speeding not because they are uninformed but because it’s fun. They will start thinking if being dead is fun or not on a hospital bed.

Ok, there’s definitely one segment among young people that will be very sensitive about this campaign and will be very careful about driving. This segment is called juvenile neurotics. Young neurotics don’t date because they are scared of AIDs, they don’t smoke pot at parties because pictures of dead junkies haunt them, and they drive 20 mph because they know ‘being dead is not fun’. The problem is that their whole life is not fun. They think about death so often that it’s cruel to put more pressure on them with “attention-grabbing” campaigns like that. Neurotic guys and girls are often suicidal.

What’s the point of ICBC campaign? To scare young drivers or to give them some fun, irrespectively? I think the latter is closer to truth.
Guys on pictures definitely didn’t die in a car crash. Actually they were dead for at least two or five days (it depends on temperature and humidity).
Dead guy’s friends are stoned like hell, no doubt. “Y’know, gals… Trevor’s kinda cold and stenchy… I think he’s gonna skip this joint…”

Possible headings for this ad,
“Friends don’t let friends go speeding even when they are dead”
“Say ‘no’ to necrophobia. It’s fun.”
“He was the only one who could drive. Montana Driving School”.
“He run out of Heinz”.

Via http://www.nofunbeingdead.com/

Cheap'n'early DVDs

Universal Pictures Rus (Russia) started a price war with pirates. At last it made up its mind to publish cheap DVDs earlier and cheaper. Cheap’n’early DVDs from Universal Pictures cost 150-200 rubles per disc (~$5,5 – $7,2). They are of lower quality and are released only four weeks after the first night. It doesn’t mean that full price DVDs are out from the market. Universal Pictures Rus plans to release them six months after the first night. Their quality will be much better, boxes will be premium with bonus discs and booklets. Full price DVDs cost 300-400 rubles per disc (~ $11 - $14,5).The first cheap’n’early DVD from Universal Pictures Rus was “Doom”. The experiment was successful – sales of pirated “Doom” DVDs became much lower.

Universal Pictures Rus is a pioneer among non-Russian producers in the segment of cheap’n’early DVDs. As for Russian producers, almost all of them fight piracy this way. Pirates make their profits being very fast and releasing new movies almost two or three days after the first night. The quality of such DVDs is often abysmal but they cost less than 100 rubles per disc. An average price for a movie ticket is 250 rubles. So it’s not surprising that many people buy low-quality DVDs just as movies demo versions and they later decide if it’d be fun to watch the movies in full screen with Dolby sound.

Via Vedomosti

No fish 'ryba'

St. Petersburg was always a city with the most weird and (often) bizarre restaurants in this country. ‘Ryba’ restaurant definitely means ‘fish’ but no fish is served there. Italian cuisine – pizzas, pastas, risottos – but no fish. I think it’s a bit mean. Like playing practical jokes on unsuspected customers. The 1st of April every day.