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Russians have often held a negative attitude toward Western advertising. These views are influenced by what they feel are misunderstandings of the value of history in Russian culture, traditional Russian taboos, gender roles, and the Russian sense of humor. The consequence of ignoring language differences, including structure, in advertising also proves to be a serious problem. This article presents the main reasons that Western advertising has, to date, largely been so poorly received in Russia, and identifies principles for successful advertising there-it must "tell a story," appeal to the "Russian soul," and build on verbal, not visual, icons.
Introduction
When the first Western companies appeared in the goods-starved Russian market as the state-directed economy collapsed, these companies did not anticipate significant problems in advertising their products. In the beginning, this assumption proved to be true since the Russian market absorbed nearly every new product, and the "foreignness" of Western advertising was part of their initial attraction (Tretyak, 2001: 194; Rantanen, 2002: 116). Almost from the moment Western advertising companies appeared on Russian TV and significantly outspent Russian companies ("Procter & Gamble Tops List of Advertisers in Russia," 2002), (?note) it became evident that developing a market mentality would not be an easy process. Soviet consumers were not accustomed to advertising, much less Western-style advertising messages (Gricenko Wells, 2000: 188-189). Although Western goods were welcomed, Western commercials were not (Petrov, 2002). Most of them were adaptations with dubbed sound tracks, cheaply re-positioned Cyrillic slogans, and foreign images (Tretyak, 2001: 190-192). According to a Gallup public-opinion poll in 1999, 70% of Russians disliked commercials and were against showing them on public TV (Aleksandrov, 2001). Poll participants stated that they were very annoyed by advertisements, and they found both commercials on TV and general advertising insulting and offensive (Stasina, 2001). The reasons for such reactions on the part of Russians are rooted in cultural differences between Russian and Western (primarily American) societies, linguistic differences between the Russian and English languages, and conflicts between linguistic worldviews. It became evident that global advertising companies did not know enough about the culture to produce ads for the Russian audience, and they turned to Russian companies to design their campaigns (Rantanen, 2002: 120). Much is written on the problems of advertising...