My First Blog

When I was preparing for our group presentation I have found a nice article about PR in Russia. It was written three years ago but nothing has changed since then.

We really can say that PR in Russia appeared 17-18 years ago. After collapse of the USSR Public Relations industry has appeared in Russia.

“The Soviet Union had its own working tool of communication – propaganda – and although public relations is now regarded as an accepted communications vehicle, propaganda is far from dead”

“In the rise of the crony capitalism in the ex-Soviet Union and the triumph of the oligarchs, the richest and biggest companies had the best PR: not only did they buy stories, editors and reporters, but entire media outlets. Black PR agents still work in Russia today, but have no future as the market matures”.

“Russian television – particularly national channels controlled or influenced by the government – has a simple way of understanding business news: if the company name is mentioned, it is considered to be an advertisement. This means that the story has to be paid for, regardless of whether a company is creating thousands of jobs or investing millions into infrastructure and social welfare. Some print media outlets take a similar approach, but as the local media market is maturing, there has been a positive change in attitude”.

I absolutely agree with this article. But I think “Black PR” is not dying in Russia. And recent elections showed it. People believe that if they lied once they will lie again. And it’s a pity that such campaigns influence the whole industry.

I think almost every channel has had their reality show. Pop idol, Big Brother etc. All of them are very popular. But that’s nothing new about them now. So TV-men try to think out something really NEW and controversial.

Channel Four was going to broadcast reality show “Make me a Muslim” (I don’t watch British TV so I don’t know the future of this reality show). But I’m shocked of the idea! People watched
“non-Muslims living under strict Sharia law for three weeks”. Participants are “mixed race couple, a gay hairdresser, an atheist taxi driver and a glamour model . . . all of whom are called upon to give up unmarried sex, alcohol and pork, pray regularly and dress modestly”.

Producer of the show said: “I wanted to make a series that had some humour in it. I’m tired of seeing guys with beards who are a bit scary. I wanted to explore how white people come to grips with a religion they’ve kind of heard of. I wanted to portray those people as human beings who go through a range of emotions.”

Or another Dutch reality show! “A 37-year-old woman suffering from an inoperable brain tumor wants to donate a kidney before she dies and will choose the recipient from among three contestants on Dutch national television, a TV network said Tuesday, claiming it wants to highlight a crisis in organ donations.”

People were supposed to decide who would survive and who would die. I thought it was God’s role!

Or in Russia! We have a reality show “Dom 2” (“dom” means house) which has been shown for FOUR YEARS without any stop! It is the longest reality show in the world! Their slogan is “Build your Love” but people go there just to become famous!

And everything is presented as something natural and with good intentions. Popularization of Islam, organ donation and true feelings. For me everything is cynical in those reality shows and I even don’t want to imagine what is going to be next!

Russia is not only Moscow and Saint-Petersburg. There are lots of cities and towns with big potential. But people there are different. Now many companies try to expand to regions. But do they know who is waiting there?

There was a case with one company in Russia. They had a so-called policy – “no advertising” and were very successful. And then one important partner made a term: if they want to sign a contract they have to launch an advertising campaign. They started from Moscow region (small towns around the capital).  And what were the conclusions? People’s reaction was unexpected. They thought that if company had decided to use advertising it was facing some problems. And the image of the company was damaged.

We all know that advertising is not always effective. And moreover it can be damaging sometimes. Especially when companies don’t know their potential customers.