Mints that make you talk

Drink Freedom

Such posters one could see in Kiev (Ukraine) recently. It advertises Georgian wine (Georgia a former Soviet republic. Read more about it here). The caption on the poster goes, “It has more freedom than allowed. Georgian wine is banned in Russia.” Underneath is a standard warning, “Excessive consumption of alcohol is harmful to your health”. What is it all about? A couple of months ago Russian chief health-officer banned imports of Georgian wine on the grounds that it does not comply with standard sanitary norms and regulations. The Georgian government considered the ban as a political attempt to suppress freedom in Georgia as 90% of wine produced there is exported to Russia.

Irrespective of who is right and who is wrong this type of advertising is definitely ineffective. The message is clear but the target audience is probably too narrow. Import ban could hardly be an appealing message to the majority of wine experts. If they do already drink Georgian wine they would not drink more of it. If they don’t drink it but want to support freedom in Georgia there are thousands other ways to do it without getting drunk.

Via Sostav

Related Tags: Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, wine, ban, advertising

Case of wierd self-criticism

What should a guy do if his wife dumped him but he feels really sorry and wants to apologize? The problem is that his wife doesn’t want to listen to him, doesn’t return phone calls, left the house and the guy doesn’t even know her whereabouts.

An original way out of this dire situation was found by an owner of an advertising agency in Smolensk (Russia). He placed billboards all around the town with his mugshot and words, “I am an asshole. I love you very much”. Well, I think ‘mudak’ should be translated by a much stronger word than ‘asshole’ but never mind. All Smolensk residents make bets if the angry woman forgives the poor guy.

Via Sostav

Related Tags: Russia, advertising, billboard, asshole

How to fire designers

Butterick’s editor-in-chief to his designer, “You are fired! Ok. Finish the cover page and then pack your things and get out!”



Question: What the editor did wrong?

Via AdLand

McVodka

MTS eggs

The story with MTS eggs does not stop and everyone expects more surprises. As it turned out the latest commercials with eggs are not final. MTS marketing managers hint that the real new brand symbol is still to come. Something is going to hatch from the eggs. What? Nobody knows. I mean only MTS managers know but they don’t tell.

Zhirik Tea

The leader of Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (that actually has nothing to do neither with liberalism nor democracy) Vladimir Zhirinovskiy is regarded by Russians as one of the best stand-up comedians in the country. This is probably the reason his party always gets into the parliament. But Zhirinovskiy wants to make extra money on his name as a brand. I already wrote about Zhirinovskiy cigarettes and vodka. This time I stumbled upon Zhirinovskiy tea produced by a small factory not far from Moscow. Not a marketing success in any way but there are rumors that Zhirinovskiy strictly orders all his party members to buy only products with his name on them. It costs money be a true Liberal Democrat.

Fit and Tall

Precise marketing strikes on target audience are best at places where this audience is concentrated. Take, for instance, women who want to be fit – the target audience for Special K cereals from Kellogg. Where do you find them en masse? Right – at fitness clubs! The problem with women there, though, is that they concentrate too much on abdominal crunches and pay too little attention to printed ads around. You can solve this problem by placing your ad directly at the crunch and by making it elastic.


The targeted woman not only notices the ad with its power slogan “Find your own shape” but she also witnesses the miracle-working effect of Special K cereal. You see: one moment the woman is fat and short, next moment – fit and tall. Ok, the message with becoming fit is clear how the cereal can make you taller? Don’t forget to call Kellogg’s hot line.

I think this brilliant advertising idea should not be wasted on one project alone. What about advertising steroids to men at body building clubs? Only this time the ad should be extended horizontally, not vertically. A tall and skinny guy becomes short and tough.

Via Cerebro Creativo

Related Tags: advertising, cereals, Kellogg, Special K, fitness

MTS Eggs

Advertising sensitive citizens of Russia are fascinated at a bloodcurdling spectacle – MTS mobile operator re-branding. MTS goes eggs! I already wrote it but snowsquare has a better and more comprehensive story. Snowsquare writes:

Moscow's mysterious egg-advertisements and website finally yielded their secrets this week, as nationwide mobile operator, MTS announced its rebranding.
According to Kommersant, the new branding was developed by British agency, Wolff Olins, which was also responsible for last year's rebranding of MTS's competitor, Beeline.MTS is controlled by Sistema, and the rebranding sees most of the telecoms companies within the group receiving the new branding: Sistema Telecom, MGTS the Moscow fixed line operator), Comstar and Stream all have new logos.
The only question remaining is how Russians' association of the word egg (яйцо,
yaitso) with the word for a (male) ball (яичко, yaichko) will work in this context?

Dear snowsquare! Russians already thought out dozens of jokes on MTS eggs. Not many of them make much sense to people who don’t know Russian but still I tried to translate some of them:

- New Kinder-Surprise chocolate egg with an MTS sim-card inside.
- MTS: Connecting Balls.
- MTS: Ringing Balls of Russia.
- MTS re-branding. Sponsored by Beeline and Megaphone.
- Beware of bird flu! Boil your MTS sim-card before usage.
- Don’t scratch your MTS.
- MTS new customer loyalty programs: Quack-quack, Cluck-cluck and Coo-coo. Coming soon - Cock-a-doodle-doo.

Black and yellow stripes - new corporate identity of Beeline, major competitor of MTS.

Related Tags: Russia, mobile communications, advertising, re-branding, MTS, jokes

Force of Nature

Another masterpiece of DIY advertising and design was found by an alert Advertka blogger at a Perekrestok supermarket. Sila Prirody (Force of Nature) company is launching a new product – quail eggs that are really good for you. “Improves your health but not only your health” – goes the slogan. What else quail eggs improve?

I mean, being a guy I don’t wish to grow boobs like that. Not with my hairy chest.

Via Advertka

Related Tags: Russia, marketing, advertising, quail eggs, DIY

We are not Albanians

This is not a joke. A Russian Course by by Alexander Lipson in cooperation with Steven J. Molinsky.

Human Meat

Animal Liberation Victoria (Australia) organized a special show to protect animals. This veggie organization packed its activists into plastic boxes complete with price tags.

Industrial production of human meat? 785 Australian dollars a carcass that is not even skinned and disemboweled? I don’t think this is a good marketing idea.

First, it takes humans far too long to gain grow comparing to broilers (42 days) or pigs (185 days). Second, the ratio of fodder conversion is totally unacceptable. For instance, broilers for every 2.4 units of fodder gain 1 unit of weight. Although theoretically it is possible to breed some special hybrids of humans with good fodder conversion but it takes too much time. That brings us to the problem of genetics and unsatisfactory level of variety between humans. The differences in human body constitution are so broad that it makes carcass calibration simply impossible. Then, breeding of humans is fantastically expensive. We need huge sheltered farms. We are talking here not only about fattening and finishing areas, but also about separate grounds for a parental herd, for cubs and a special department for stud-humans. We also need a decent feed mill but I cannot even imagine what bills for mixed fodder would be.

To put it short – prime costs for human meat even in live weight will be so enormous that even Bill Gates wouldn’t be able to afford a human steak for his birthday.

Via alv.org.au

Related Tags: Australia, animal liberation, human meat

Teaser Ads

Scraps of Moscow writes about a strange re-branding campaign of MTS mobile telephony provider:

There is something strangely appealing about the crazy drama of these "secret" ad campaigns. I can remember several from my time in Moscow. The silliest was one that involved a bunch of posters with nothing more than the letters "AB" (if memory serves) and eventually turned out to be advertising a new (and ultimately unsuccessful) line of potato chips being promoted by Alla Borisovna Pugachova, an aging, overweight pop star. Happily, I think the Russian marketers have become more sophisticated in the past couple of years, although some of snowsquare's photos suggest there are still companies taking a low-budget approach to advertising.

Another, more recent - and more captivating - campaign of this type involved a man with his hand on a curvaceous figure that looked like the silhouette of a woman, with the caption, "So that she doesn't leave [you] for someone else." ("Chtoby ona ne shla k drugomu") Turned out the ad was for car alarms, and the man was resting his hand on what emerged (in the second version of the ad) to be a luxury automobile.

Only we call such campaigns not ‘secret’ but ‘teaser’. They are very effective but incredibly expensive. If I’m not mistaken the fashion started some six years ago when one day Moscow was packed with billboards with strange questions, like, “Where’s money?” and nothing else. Two weeks later stickers appeared over the same billboards “Kommersant Daily Newspaper”.

Also read snowsquare on the topic of MTS re-branding.

Caption on the picture - "Are you ready?"

Related Tags: Russia, Moscow, marketing, advertising, billboard, teaser

Another Reeb Lokos

I already wrote about Sokol beer brand and its controversial advertising. “Reeb Lokos” is a mirror image of “Sokol Beer”. Sokol commercials were always very post modernistic in the meaning – nobody really gets the idea but it looks very creative and interesting. Rodnaya Rech’ ad agency launched a new commercial for Sokol. It’s on air since March, 20 and puzzled thousands of beer fans. Bottles of Sokol beer grow in a carton box, make up many branches, break the box and form a weird tree. The slogan is “Reeb Lokos. In the name of Good!” the tree of knowledge of good and evil, indeed!

Click on the picture to watch

It is not yet clear – should I buy Sokol or should I not?

Via AdMe

Related Tags: Russia, Moscow, advertising, commercial, beer, Sokol

Y-ah-d

Russian forums and chat rooms visitors, who spent most of their spare time online, developed their own language the call Albanskiy. In fact this is not a language per se but an alternative orthography and grammar. яд (poison) becomes йад and автор (author) becomes аффтар. Take, for example, a very popular way to say ‘boo’ in comments section: “аффтар выпей йаду!” – “author, drink poison!”

With the help of “Alco-Hall” company this appeal can get almost harmless respond. The new 8% alcohol drink “Йад” (‘poison’ in Albanskiy) for bloggers who suck. The particular poison on the picture is sausage flavored.

Via Sostav

Related Tags: Russia, Moscow, alcohol, drink, new product