Drinking to the Nation: Russian Television Advertising and Cultural Differentiation

This article explores the utilisation of cultural nostalgia for the past (Soviet and pre-revolutionary) and the concern with Russian cultural values in television advertisements for beer in post-Soviet Russia. In these adverts the effect of the foregrounding of these values is more significant than their effectiveness in selling products. Advertising, as a pervasive element of popular culture, is as contested as any other, such as film or television serials, in terms of refracting cultural discourses. Such adverts are termed,culturally differentiated' to contrast them to global and glocalised adverts (where a few concessions are made to local cultural factors).