Soviet TV Plans to Sell Commercial Time to Advertisers : Now, Comrades, a Word From Our Sponsor

Soviet television viewers could soon be exposed to regular doses of something all too familiar to Westerners: commercials.

The prospect arose at a news conference Thursday to announce that the world’s biggest advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, has been hired to advise the Soviets on how to attract Western advertisers and their hard currency.

The idea is to build up corporate images and familiarize Soviets with the types of products they can expect from President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s consumer-oriented reforms.

“Since our audience is not used to commercials at all, it’s a sort of entertainment for them,” said Jane Tarassova, head of legal services at Gostelradio, the government broadcasting agency.

Gostelradio has hired the London-based Saatchi & Saatchi as its exclusive worldwide consultant.

“The purpose of the consultancy is to help them generate revenue from advertising,” said Michael Parker, deputy managing director of Saatchi.

“We’ll be saying to them: ‘These are the advertising agencies around the world that you will need to talk to; these are the big advertisers around the world who are likely to be spending money on Soviet television.”’

Under Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost , or openness, Soviet television has experimented with commercials for Western products.

Images of Michael Jackson dancing to rock music in a Pepsi commercial flickered across Soviet screens last year, and British Airways, the DHL courier service, Omega Watches and Benetton clothing also have advertised there.

Tarassova said to Soviet viewers, the Western TV ad “is beautifully done, it’s interesting in some sort of way, it presents a piece of foreign music.”

Parker said the consultancy agreement is open-ended. He refused to say how much the Soviets are paying for it but said Gostelradio could expect to take in millions of dollars in ad revenues within the next 5 years.

He admitted that enticing Western companies to advertise in a country where their products aren’t available will be difficult.

“In the short term,” he said, “you will tend to see the sorts of advertisements which are corporate in nature. They are simply establishing the name and reputation of the company against that time when they’ll be in a position to be actively selling.”

Soviet TV broadcasts on two main channels, with regional channels in all the republics. The estimated audience is 180 million, with another 30 million viewers in East bloc countries.

Reaching that audience, Parker said, will cost Western advertisers $17,500 to $35,000 per 30-second commercial. A comparable nationwide TV commercial in Britain, a country of 56 million people, averages $52,500.

Tarassova predicted Western commercials would have Soviet viewers glued to their sets.

“I think for the mass audience it’s a kind of new and interesting thing to watch,” she added.