Kamchatka crab

Art studio “Siniy Dirizhabl” designed a new package for red king crab from “Severnyie Promysly” fishing company (Murmansk, Russia). Apparently this incredibly expensive crab is becoming more and more popular as Russian fishing quotas are growing thus making the crab cheaper. The story of red king crab in the Barents Sea is very interesting.

Red king crab is known in Russia under the name Kamchatka crab (камчасткий краб). It is the biggest and one of the most expensive in the world. While the population of red king crab in the area of the Kamchatka peninsula started to decline rapidly some 35 years ago Soviet biologists tried to find a new home for it – the Barents Sea/ At first it was just an experiment but surprisingly red king crab found the Barents Sea a new paradise. Finding no foes and good food sources red king crab started multiplying like mad eating almost everything around the nothern Kola peninsula and nothern Norwegian coast.

Wikipedia writes, “Environmentalists and some local fishermen fear the crab because it eats everything it comes across and is spreading very rapidly (despite this threat, some fishing quotas on the crab are still in place). Other fishermen see the king crab as a blessing, as it is a high priced delicacy in some countries”.

Ad Theft

Alex Shifrin from eXile writes about ad theft that is still common in Russia.

So the other day I decided to hold a tender for pizza. My idea was to call four different pizza delivery places, and let them in on my little plan, which was very simple -- each of the places would have to deliver a pizza to my office by the middle of the day, I'd eat them over the next week, and whichever pizza I liked most, I would pay for. Well, at least partially pay for.
If that sounds incredibly stupid, then you now understand how an advertising agency feels when it's called by a potential client to pitch for new business.

In addition to every other pitfall, the ad market in Russia runs a very possible risk of having your ideas outright stolen. Take for example the case of a major beer distributor, which I'll just call Ass Candles Ltd. Ass Candles is a beverages distributor, meaning that they negotiate exclusive distribution deals with various brands, and distribute these throughout Russia. In Ass Candles' case, they handle many of the top imported beers you probably drink.

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Such thefts were pretty common just 10 years ago but I rarely hear about them today. First, only start-up agencies would agree to submit scenarios or even concepts for free. Pay us 5 000 dollars and we'll answer your pitch. Second, there are means to put the thief on the black list. You can do it, for example, through sostav.ru

Kotleta in a bun

Few people know outside Russia know about Anastas Mikoyan and I think some 90% of Russians think that Mikoyan is a sausage brand. This is true – Mikoyan is the most popular brand of meat products in Russia named after Anastas Mikoyan – the People's Commissar for external and internal trade from 1926 till 1939. He is known for “importing” dozens of American food technologies from the US to the Soviet Union. The idea was to build giant food producing plants and America was then the only country in the world to offer frankfurter producing factories with an output of 100 tons a day. American businessmen loved Mikoyan. On a single trip after one short “excursion” into a factory that produced 80 tons of frozen convenience food a day he could say, “We want five of them. Now!” Thanks to Mikoyan Russians learnt the taste of industrially produced food: ice cream, sausage, frankfurters, canned milk and mayonnaise, etc. Not that there was no ice cream or sausage in the Soviet Union before but it was home made - not by giant khladokombitants or myasokombinats.

Some products imported from America by Mikoyan were success but some failed. For example, Mikoyan wanted hamburgers to become popular Russian fast food. But ‘kotletka in a bun’ even after special promotion and advertising campaigns couldn’t win the hearts and stomachs of Russians. Actually the Soviet advertising was almost always about forcing people to eat something they don’t like.

Stumbled Upon

"From Master's Hands" sausage. Invented by masters of DorORS BelZhD meat processing plant in Belorus.

Insatiable Fiend

Snickers and BBDO Moscow use archetypal Russian bogatyrs equipped with powerful military balalaikas to fight with the Insatiable Fiend for the possession of “incredibly nourishing bar of Snickers”. This commercial is silly but fun.

Click here to watch.

Via Adme