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Dark Marketing in Russia. How to Properly Advertise Alcohol and Tobacco Products on the Market.

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Since the introduction of amendments to the Federal Law “About advertising” of 2012, Russian legislation has become one of the most “stringent" in relation to the advertising of alcohol and tobacco products. While in some countries such advertising is partially or completely allowed, in Russia it is either completely prohibited to promote these product categories, for example through traditional TV, print media, and radio channels, or with significant nuances. However, this does not mean that the task is impossible. There are still legitimate ways to advertise these categories of goods. Generally, they are related to digital tools.

RMAA experts have prepared special material in order to sort out all the specific features of dark marketing while promoting alcoholic and tobacco-containing products on the Russian market.

Alcohol Advertising. Prohibitions and Possible Alternatives of Promotion

Requirements for the promotion of alcoholic beverages in Russia are governed by Article 21 of the Federal Law “About advertising.” This implies as follows.

Firstly, depending on the product type, the admissible distribution channels will be different:

  • beer and beverages based on it (ethyl alcohol content of 0.5% or more of the volume of finished products) can be advertised in retail outlets, on TV and radio during championships and sports contests (except for children's ones), in closed social interest groups, plus, advertising on social networks and on the official pages of the company's websites on the Internet.
  • wine and champagne produced in Russia (ethyl alcohol content of 0.5% or more of the volume of finished products) can also be advertised in offline sales outlets, in closed interest clubs, on social networks, and on the official websites of companies. Besides, the legislation permits promotion in print media (except for a magazine cover or newspaper first and last page), on TV and radio during the broadcast period from 23:00 to 07:00 (excluding live broadcasts and recorded youth sports competitions) and, as an addition to everything, event marketing related to food exhibitions in the restaurant segment.
  • strong alcohol (ethyl alcohol content of more than 5%), wine, and champagne from other countries have more restrictions compared to other types of alcohol-related segment products. You can advertise them, like all others, offline in retail outlets, in closed interest clubs, on social networks, and from pages of the brand's official websites. But TV, print advertising in the media, and OOH are not applicable in this case. Moreover, you need to understand some of the nuances related to the official pages of manufacturing companies. It means that the website itself is not an advertisement, but banners and pop-up windows on it are equal to prohibited promotional materials.

Secondly, the advertising of alcoholic beverages must meet certain requirements for its content. At a minimum, it is required to make a warning of the alcohol hazard as one of the form of physical and psychological addiction (10% of the ad entire area or advert video broadcast). In addition, it is strictly prohibited to associate the use of alcoholic beverages with success and recognition of any kind, condemn healthy lifestyle in advertising, maintain that alcohol is harmless, advert to minors, as well as use illustrated images of people and animals. In addition to the listed above, you should keep in mind the key requirements for advertising in general. That is, it should not call for violence, have wrong comparisons (“first”, “best”, etc. that do not have reasonable evidence for such statuses), deceive consumers, contain obscene images, foreign words without translation, as well as humiliate competitors. The penalty for violation of one of these items varies from 4 thousand rubles to 20 thousand rubles for individual entrepreneurs and from 100 thousand rubles to 500 thousand rubles for companies.

Therefore, in such limited conditions, attention should be paid to the following tools admissible in advertising of alcoholic beverages.

Native content - educational, informative, media in combination with promotion of advertising on social networks. For example, it can be a recipe for making a drink, materials about alcohol consumption culture, interviews with representatives of alcohol companies, etc.

Sponsorship is acceptable in the format of supporting festivals and concerts in exchange for advertising including the placement of logos and symbols on stage, posters, and tickets.

Cooperation with restaurants, bars, and cafes implies branding of the premises, conducting promotions, tasting products, and creating a special cocktail menu for an alcoholic brand.

Closed groups on social networks marked “+18” - where it is permissible to publish facts about alcohol and links to review articles posted on the official website of the brand.

Advertising of non-alcoholic products is for the purpose of reminding about the brand. This option is usually used by large brewing companies that have non-alcoholic beer in their line. Moreover, according to the legislation, animated characters and people can be used in advertising of drinks containing less than 0.5% ethyl alcohol. However, the positioning of non-alcoholic products must be indicated in the content, otherwise advertising will be considered illegal.

Influencer marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote products on the market. For legislative purposes, bloggers are not official representatives of the media, so they can advertise alcoholic beverages. Therefore, quite often large brands actively use this advertising tool. As a rule, promotion with the help of opinion leaders can be based on the creation of a bright information guide, emphasis on premium product quality, prize drawing, etc.

Particular attention should be given to advertising integrations on YouTube. At the end of 2021, specialists of the Yoloco influencer marketing platform estimated that Russian YouTube bloggers earned approximately 175 million rubles per year from integrations with alcohol brands. According to the study, the top companies that spent the most on such promotion include William Lawson's, Dewars, Belenkaya, Bacardi, and Martini.

Thus, Dewars whiskey was mentioned in videos of Leonid Parfenov (15 integrations per year), Ksenia Sobchak, Artemy Lebedev, and Oblomoff. William Lawson's products were briefly shown up by the popular comedian Satyr. Vodka “Belenkaya” was integrated into the video content of Egor Creed, Timati, Feduk duo & Cream Soda, and on the Comment Out show created by the Chicken Curry Channel. By the way, the latter carried out integrations with Bacardi (6 integrations per year) and the products of the Arkhangelsk brand. Despite the risks from the legislation, the number of such interactions is growing not only on YouTube. Konstantin Morozov, Director of Digital Media at Publicis Media, also noted in an interview with Kommersant that alcohol brands invest in special projects, sponsorship of various events, and promotion on Telegram. As a rule, companies budget the expenses for possible risks or penalties in advance. But even with this, the revenues from advertising alcoholic beverages through influencer marketing still exceed the costs for the implementation of campaigns themselves.

An example of the promotion of the Koktebel brand alcoholic beverages on the Telegram channel of the popular TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak (August, 2022)

Put in other words, there are always exceptions. Despite quite significant legal restrictions, advertising of alcoholic beverages can be successfully implemented using various approaches. Along with this, the most effective of them will be to promote the brand through social networks, as well as influencer marketing. By the way, the latter option is the best to promote tobacco products.

There are Few Chances, but They Still Exist. Advertising of Tobacco Products in Russia

The promotion of tobacco-containing products has much fewer channels and available advertising tools compared to the alcohol segment. If the latter has chances for campaigns in traditional channels (TV, media, partially OOH), then for tobacco brands, tobacco products, etc. all this will be banned.

According to Article 7 of the Federal Law “About Advertising” it is prohibited to advertise cigarettes, mouthpiece cigarettes, tobacco, cigars, smoking pipes, hookahs, cigarette paper, lighters, electronic cigarettes in Russia. That is, in general, all products related to this segment. Furthermore, there are no exceptions in the legislation, such as for advertising non-alcoholic beer. Besides, the promotion of tobacco products in Russia is regulated by Article 16 of Law No. 15-FZ, from which certain conclusions can be made.

The following actions are prohibited:

  • give discounts, coupons for tobacco products;
  • present or give them away for free;
  • imitate tobacco products about the creation of other goods (for example, chewing gum in the form of a cigarette, etc.);
  • use the brand logo for other purposes (for example, the brand logo of tobacco cannot be shown on packs of charcoal for hookah);
  • hold contests and lotteries if the purchase of tobacco products is a mandatory item for participation;
  • demonstrate the process of smoking in children's films, programs, and theatrical performances;
  • conduct various offline events that stimulate the audience to buy tobacco products;
  • attract a tobacco brand as a sponsor, as well as use the identity of such brands as part of charity events.

In short, there are quite a few promotion options. But there are still available integration formats that are not directly prohibited by law. Again, it should be understood that there are possible risks of such advertising. Therefore, advertisers need to be prepared in advance for penalties and take these amounts into the advertising budget. According to Part 1 of Article 14.2.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation, the penalty for advertising tobacco, tobacco products, smokables, or smoking accessories varies from 10 thousand rubles to 25 thousand rubles for individual entrepreneurs and from 150 thousand rubles to 600 thousand rubles for companies.

Nevertheless, let's talk about conditionally safe ways to promote these products.

Offline promotion at the sales outlets is possible according to the following mechanics. For example, the seller has the right to give advice to customers on types of tobacco, ask questions about it as part of marketing research and ask for contact information. This tool makes it possible to inform the audience interested in the product immediately before making a purchase.

Publishing content on an official website or on social networks implies informing customers about the company's new products. In other words, visitors of the tobacco brand website (for example, IQOS) or users in a hookah group can be shown a product catalogue without imposing a specific product. Thus, it will no longer be considered advertising, since such content has no purpose of promotion. But a pop-up banner on the website will already be considered an advertisement, therefore it is forbidden to use it. In addition, it is necessary to add + 18 age restriction and warning about the dangers of smoking as a form of physical and psychological addiction to the design of resources (10% of the entire ad area).

Source: iqos.ru

Theoretically, you can use additional mailing channels - mail, SMS, and messengers to inform customers. However, to do this, two conditions must be met: newsletter content must be without direct advertising (for example, a link to an updated catalogue or a new brand in the line) and the client has agreed to receive such data, and the brand can prove it. For example, the same IQOS uses email and asks users for approval for its newsletter before sending materials.

Influencer marketing - as in the case of alcoholic beverages, will be one of the most effective ways to promote. In the same Federal Law “About advertising” there is the following wording that non-advertising references of a product, its manufacturer, or seller are allowed, which are partially integrated into works of science, literature and art. In other words, it can be used for collaborations with bloggers. At the same time, such content should not contain direct advertising references and calls for purchase. How it was before 2019 when Instagram* and Facebook* banned sponsored content publications for bloggers that contain information about the brand.

In addition to the above-mentioned risks, there is another important factor when working with opinion leaders in this segment. This is the age of the audience that watches the blogger's content. A good example is the integration of Philip Morris into the Russian market in 2019. According to the Reuters news agency, a female blogger under the age of 25 was involved in the promotion, which contradicted the brand's policy. After wide media coverage, the campaign had to be stopped and an internal corporate investigation was conducted.

To sum up, we can conclude that it is much more difficult to promote tobacco products on the Russian market than other goods that are under restrictions from the state. But admissible options still exist, although they are also associated with risks due to unclear wording in the law. Of course, one of the most effective ways to promote tobacco products will be influencer marketing and working with bloggers. However, when choosing this advertising tool, it is necessary to take into account the age of the blogger's target audience, as well as carefully monitor the nature of the published content, since it should be informational, not advertising.

Dark Marketing in Russia 2022. Latest News

The sanctions policy towards Russia has been a cause of significant changes in many economic segments of the market. Moreover, most of all advertising industry was affected. In this context, at the beginning of 2022, the heads of the largest Russian media expressed proposals to the government aimed at supporting the industry. One of the possible options turned out to be a mitigation of legislation in relation to some segments of goods, including alcoholic beverages. Experts are confident that this will keep the budgets of the Russian media in positive dynamics, as well as prevent a further decline in the segment. Of course, such proposals are quite justified. Since alcohol sales in 2021 also increased by 7.6% compared to the previous period (mainly low-alcohol beverages). Thanks to this, the alcoholic beverages market has become the most developing segment among everyday goods.

At the same time, tobacco industry advertising may be seriously affected in 2022. The fact is that in the summer of this year, a bill was sent to the State Duma for consideration that proposes to recognize websites with advertising tobacco products as prohibited for the information dissemination. In other words, all Internet resources containing materials about tobacco, tobacco and nicotine-containing products, smokables, cigarette paper, as well as hookahs, tobacco heating systems, and smoking mixtures are automatically equated to such websites. Besides, it is proposed to include all sources in the unified register of information banned within the territory of the Russian Federation. Which makes the promotion of tobacco-containing products even more difficult than it is now.

All these conclusions emphasize that dark marketing which is related with alcohol and nicotine-containing products (and everything linked to them), requires from an advertiser to have a clear understanding of how to act in accordance with Russian legislation. Entrust this task to RMAA experts who are ready to offer the best-possible solutions to promote your brand in this segment.

*Social networks are recognized as extremist and banned in Russia.

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About the Author

A content lead. Natalia runs marketing projects promotion with different digital tools in the Russian-speaking market. 

 

Author Natalia Gorenkova

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