Russian Televsion Ads Costly and Ineffective

Editor,Mr. Pilugin's article on affordable advertising in "A view from the couch" in your Weekend section (April 16) struck me as naive and ill-informed.Having planned and bought television advertising for both Russian and Western clients for the past few years, I feel my experience qualifies me to dispel the myth that television advertising here is "ridiculously cheap."Yes, the cost of television advertising in Russia is indeed less than in the West. However, the rate card cost for a minute of peak time advertising for a Western advertiser is currently $25,000 per minute, and rising, and not the $2,000 figure quoted by Mr. Pilugin. Add to this 20 percent VAT, 3 percent SPT and the new, and as yet ill-defined 5 percent advertising tax, and the cost rises to over $30,000. So what does my advertising money buy me? To be honest, who knows? Media Research is in embryonic form. A combination of unsophisticated media planning and the fact that over 50 percent of Russian audiences reached by television advertising will not be able to afford certain products being advertised for three to five years, further reduces the cost-effectiveness of a minute of advertising.As prices become comparable with Western prices, logically so should the services we are buying. Not so. Given that advertisers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Russian television this year alone, perhaps it is time for Mr. Pilugin's "hard-working, tape-scrounging" television unionists to stop asking the government for more subsidy money and find out what's really happening to our advertisers' money.Penny GoodwinSenior Vice-PresidentBozell SMG