Inspired brains never sleep
Dec.
24
Russians are changing: with the arrival of the consumer economy in the 1990s we got serious about satisfying our material desires. But now we are just getting serious once again. And it’s not just the global financial crisis that’s making us think about our inner wealth rather than our diminished bank balances. Media consumption data for the last two years – a period that covers the height of the boom – shows a significant upsurge in the popularity of one of the oldest print formats, the book.
In the country of Tolstoy, Chekov and Solzhenitsyn, books have become popular again, very popular. Thirty-three per cent of Russians aged 16 are heavy book readers according to TNS. Since 2007, reading books has grown faster than any other form of media consumption bar the internet. And Russians aren’t just picking up the latest blockbusters. It’s the hard to read, challenging works that have become increasingly popular. Consumption of pulp fiction has plummeted as we turn instead to Russian or foreign language classics, poetry, historical novels and literary detectives.Government figures show a publishing industry that’s booming with 123,000 new titles produced in 2008, compared to around 80,000 at the end of the 1980s. Russians now read more than twice as much as Americans, with 67% of picking up a book at least once in 6 months compared to just 35% of Americans – according to MRI – who snuggle up with a paperback occasionally. This new seriousness is also affecting the way we communicate.
Consumers are becoming more demanding of the ads they see. No longer content with simple brand messages, they are looking for more targeted and meaningful campaigns. Media planners have responded by investing more in search and behavioural targeting to ensure that consumers get clients’ messages at the most relevant moments.
With this new seriousness in mind, no standard print formats were used for the launch of Windows 7 in Russia. Instead we used advertorials to make people think. We also challenged them to show us how much they knew about Microsoft’s latest product. Asked to demonstrate how well acquainted they were with Windows 7 in launch week, 20,000 Russians took the test and more than 3,600 satisfied the world’s biggest software company with their answers. Russians are getting serious once more and the challenge for advertisers is to feed their minds as well as appealing to their emotions.
Brands need to become more intellectual in the way they communicate. If they want to hit their KPIs they will have to challenge our IQs.
Evgeniy Bobosov, Research Director, Universal McCann Russia
