Thursday 17 April 2008

Marketing in Moscow

There is a huge add hanging next to the red square where we had the last douzend years the hotel Russia. It's big, and it's nice. They pinned some car models on it complete with lights.
I drive by it every day, and I am really impressed every time.

Now two weeks ago a Germany guy (living in London) showed me the add and recognized that there is a significant difference between all Russian car adds and the German one.
All this adds in Moscow are about "be the first", "be the fastest"... . In Germany it is more like "Advantage with technique", "For The Nature" or "Drive Comfortable".

As more surprising as that you spend you driving time here staying in traffic jams just producing smog. And even if the streets would be free (e.g. Tuesday night, 3 am) the condition of the streets don't allow you to speed too much.

Of course, also in Germany (great highways, no speeding limit) is a clientele which wants to drive fast. But this is the 18 - 25 year, poor, VW or Fiat target group.
You would not make for them a 1 million dollar add next to the red square (respective the Reichstag).

This observation is actually really interesting if you want to push a product in the CIS market. Make yourself a favor, don't copy your western campaign, don't appeal on the brain, not even on the heart. You want to sell, to target the balls.

P.S.
The picture I got from http://englishrussia.com/?p=1839 (thx), as that my sucked.

Saturday 12 April 2008

jam

I am pretty unhappy right now, 3rd time this week I stay in an traffic jam because they closed the streets due to a politician.
They like to to it. For approx. A douzend high ranking officals theycut a piece out of the pie which reassembles moscow where all traffic goes in circles.

Someone may wonder, how this can happen. Don't Russian have helicopters?
Or the sense to calculate the economic costs of sending their capitals into the infrastructural meltdown twice a day?
Believe, sure they have both. I secretly assume there plains another componente with in.
This middle Asian touch to show who has the big balls and is the patriarch.

And who shows all the damn rest of this town better who is the boss, as the guy in a convoy with 180 km/h when all the rest stays in traffic jam.

Here is a link, who support this thesis. There you see that this behavior becomes worse as more Caucasians.



About this blog

This blog is a close up on Russia and the CIS. I am not giving you the big picture.
I would anyway fail. I am too long here. So beauty & decay,
education & corruption, high culture & kafka-style administration are meanwhile normal for me.
So this blog is like a painting from from Roy Lichtenstein... when you are with your nose on it :) You will just see the dots, not gaining any understanding of the whole.

Most things will look strange in this blog. But you can be sure, I would not live here, if there would not be a lot of great things here. Unfortunately, the weired stories are more interesting to tell & read.
Don’t judge Russia on this blog, if you want to know the country, come over and take a look by your own.

Gilles