The posters were placed at regular intervals on Long Street, Cape Town. This street is not only a busy daytime pedestrian thoroughfare,but is also the hub of the city’s nightlife. A myriad of clubs and bars are here, making it the perfect place for the target market. The street was decked out with election posters, thus the message became doubly effective – leveraging election poster awareness by day, and attracting attention among party-goers after dark.

The goal for this communication was to launch the positioning for Russian Bear Vodka – The Fun Side of Russia. The target market for this brand falls predominantly in the 21 – 25 year age group – energetic party-goers. The primary objective of the communication was to reach these people.

It has been widely acknowledged that the new positioning has transformed what was previously a staid, parity brand Vodka into an entity with an unmistakeable personality in a very short space of time.

Research showed that the perception of Russian Bear amongst the target was its ‘Russian-ness.’ As the Soviet era’s legacy was bureaucracy and oppression – the antithesis of ‘fun’, using the vodka to personify the ‘Fun Side of Russia’ gave the brand a personality synonymous with wry humour. The campaign took the opportunity of lampooning stern Soviet icons like Stalin. Putting a cheesy, leering grin onto Stalin’s serious portrait worked perfectly in the political poster genre.

The launch of the communication coincided with municipal elections in South Africa. A great deal of attention was being placed on the posters of the individual political parties, and they were the subjects of much discussion amongst the general public – especially amongst young voters. Therefore the decision was made to leverage the attention paid to street posters, and to utilise this medium to further the message of Russian Bear.