Russia: In need of creative love.(advertising innovations)

While Russia's ad market is growing, creative standards are still lagging behind. But the Russians are a creative people and a generation of David Abbottskis will soon emerge.

Russia is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and advertising is keeping pace with the strong growth of the past few years.

The streets of the cities are awash with billboards and you cannot change channel on the TV without catching an ad. Why is it, then, that creative standards are lacklustre, with just one campaign from Russia featured in the Gunn Report for 2005?

It is difficult to talk up Russian advertising creativity. Richard Pinder, the regional president of Leo Burnett for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is more certain than most that the country is on the cusp of a new, more creative era, but he does not gush about the product as is.

'In Russia, it's patchy,' he says. …