Old Russian Ads

Well, if to continue the ads subject started today, it’s pretty reasonably to mention that Russian modern advertisements have no style. I mean, during the long Soviet Era Russian people were deprived of the commercial initiative. Only the state sold small choice of goods to people via it’s wide trade network and they didn’t need to care about advertisement - people bought stuff just because they had no other choice. There were almost no any foreign goods in Russia during 70 years, and those that were for sale were mainly from the friendly Eastern-European communistic states and even those were considered by people as a big luck to buy, so they were not needed any advertisement and were out of stock in minutes after arriving to some state-owned shop. Nobody was allowed to run a shop or any other business including production or importing. So for 70 years the advertisement industry of Russia just ceased to exist and ceased to develop.

Later, when the Soviet Union collapsed and people were free to do what they want - in commercial meaning of this - the need for advertisement service arouse, but because none have any experience on design of such products they just went the simplest way - started copying advertisement looks from the Western world. That’s what we see now almost in any Russian or any else ex-Soviet city - the ads look like they are implants from some other kind of a commercial body - all their look, the fonts used etc - are alien for the Russian culture. It’s a great pity there are only a few tries to find the unique Russian commercial style in the outdoor or printed advertisement - and well, nobody knows how it should look the real Russian Ad.

Meanwhile here we have some ads from the past, from the times when they still had the initiative to buy sell produce and advertise. Maybe they carry some key for how the modern Russian ads should be looking, but of course just copying this 100 year old style won’t solve the problem, it would look so outdated.

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