From project Putin to brand Putin

In 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin was declared the most powerful person in the world (Forbes 2015). However, Russia itself, although once again a major geopolitical player, was experiencing an economic and budgetary crisis. The gap between the image and the reality testifies to the power of Putin’s celebrity status but also hints at a compensatory element in its motivation. Not only was Putin decidedly not a celebrity prior to coming to power in 1999, first as appointed Prime Minister and then as elected president the following year, but his public image, carefully managed from the start, became more extravagantly oriented towards celebrity style after 2005. The timing and significance of this change is the subject of this article.