To be a practitioner of marketing and advertising in Russia is no easy task. Marketingwise, Russia is not a "country"; it is rather a huge sparsely populated landmass to which no unified marketing concept applies. For centuries it has been home for dozens of Slavic, Turkic, Finno-Ugric, and many other peoples, a melting pot of cultures.

If you superimpose that mosaic on a bizarre array of regional differences in traditions, ways of life, values, predominant occupations, buying habits, and what not, you will end up with a fascinating kaleidoscope of marketing patterns and recipes.

In practical terms that means that what sells perfectly all right in Moscow, may not impress buyers in St. Petersburg, and even less so in Siberia. The number of possible marketing situations you may find in Russia may baffle description.

What is more, Russian markets are so dynamic that selling points that work today may become out of place tomorrow.

You could imagine that, with the country being like that, skills of top-notch marketers and advertising agents must be in great demand. Nothing of the sort.

The Russian Marketing scene can be best described by Bad Agencies LEading Bad Advertising

The quality of ads in Russia is Bad for 2 reasons. For one thing, most of Russian advertisers don't have great idea of what good advertising is about. For the other, the same goes for Russian ad-makers (including those who man local branches of Western chain agencies). The ads they produce are all too often a waste of the your money.

Oddly enough, you stand better chances to find good, down-to-earth, selling advertising not in Moscow, but in other Russia's places. One reason is that provincial agencies are not spoiled by huge ad budgets of the internationals, which is the case in Moscow. Of necessity, they have to supply the goodies to local manufacturers or retailers for their hard earned advertising Money.