COLUMN ONE : TV Ads in Russia Are, Well, <i> Odd</i> : Linking a product with a pitch is not their creators’ strong suit. Indeed, viewers are often left wondering just what’s being sold. But they’re mesmerized anyway.

\o7 MOSCOW\f7 —  A sleek gray car--nothing like the clunky Ladas most Russians drive--glides along a gently curving road. As the car passes a misty forest, a huge Saint Bernard bounds up to greet it. A solemn voice intones, “When the fog dissolves . . . ,” and then a name flashes on the television screen:

“Inkoros.”

Huh?

A dog and a car? “When the fog dissolves?” Inkoros? What’s all this supposed to mean?

Apparently, not much. After all, it’s only a commercial--Russian-style.

Long denounced by the Great Soviet Encyclopedia as “a means of swindling the people” and “a social weapon of the exploiters’ class,” advertising has arrived in capitalist Russia as a vital business tool. And television has become the hottest forum.

But to American eyes, the 30-second spots that flash on Russian TV look somewhat bizarre. No perky housewives, no squeezably soft toilet paper, no kindly pharmacists recommending super-strength nasal spray.

In fact, viewers often can’t even tell what’s being sold.

Instead of peddling consumer goods, most TV spots here promote businesses themselves, from stock exchanges to radiator factories, mini-breweries and holding companies. In Western ad lingo, the goal here is shaping the corporate image--getting a company’s name known in a market--rather than what advertisers call “product recognition.”

“Much of Russian advertising is ego-driven,” said Bruce Macdonald, director of operations in the former Soviet Union for BBDO Marketing. “What are these stock exchanges and commodities markets doing on television? Are they trying to attract new customers? To get a competitive edge? If so, you wouldn’t know it from their ads--it seems they just want to get their names, addresses and phone numbers on the screen.”

Inkoros, the company Russian viewers will now forever associate with a gray car and a Saint Bernard, is an example. Its spot gives no hint that Inkoros offers financial services and no tips on how to get in touch with it--a problem in a country with no Yellow Pages or telephone directories.

As to what the fog is all about . . . well, that’s any Russian’s guess.

While ads like this are oblique, they may be good enough for Russian firms that still haven’t fully defined themselves. For example, unlike American banks, which use commercials to promote special services or premium interest rates, Russian banks need to focus first on convincing customers that it’s safe to stash money in a non-government institution.

What’s more, as President Boris N. Yeltsin kicks off his mass privatization program, under which every Russian citizen receives a free voucher good for investment in former state-owned property, pushing company names has become especially important. Several large firms have begun trolling for investors with 30-second TV spots that tout their fiscal soundness.

*

The room is hot, sultry, bathed in golden sunlight. A bare-chested man leans over a worktable and sands a block of wood, his muscles rippling with every movement. At the window, a delicate woman with long, curly hair watches him. The wind tugs seductively at her robe. The last wood shavings curl onto the floor, and a word appears emblazoned in the table: “Suprimex.”

*

“Those Suprimex ads are great,” one Russian advertising executive said recently. He paused for a moment, then added tentatively, “As far as I know, Suprimex is a construction company.”

Not exactly. Suprimex sells computers.

Linking the product with the pitch, it seems, is not Russian advertising’s strong suit. One reason is that few Russians have had any formal training in the art of selling.

Creative types have flocked to the nascent industry for the last three years, mainly, as one Russian advertising executive put it, because they could tell it would be big business when capitalism finally took root. With little experience in the private sector, many rely on videotapes of Western commercials as informal teaching manuals. Yet they lack the resources to hire actors and buy high-quality equipment, so they have developed a low-budget alternative to slick American spots: a few provocative images and then a close-up focus on the company logo.

“Last year, it was fashionable to show a pretty woman smiling,” said Vladimir Solovyev, deputy director of the Intourreklama advertising agency. “This year, it’s computer graphics.”

His boss, Alexander Damirovich, added despondently, “No one has an overall idea of how to advertise.”

Intourreklama, which for years created propaganda for the Soviet Union’s official travel agency, is one of the few ad firms with experience in promoting goods. But its affinity for bland propaganda has crept into its commercials: In the company’s showcase spot, the camera focuses on a bottle of New Yorkskaya-brand vodka half-buried in the snow as a monotonous voice explains that this version of the age-old Russian drink is made from “a high-quality, elite sort of American wheat.”

Recently, a handful of big-name joint ventures, such as the American-Hungarian-Russian firm Young & Rubicam/Sovero, have set up shop in Moscow. But most of their clients are Western companies seeking to develop campaigns for the former Soviet Union. Russian firms tend to stick with the cheaper local advertising agencies, which can produce a commercial for less than $1,000.

Although Russian consumers say they much prefer Western commercials, they also admit to contentedly absorbing the random images and dull lectures that Russian advertising executives turn out. In a country with no remote-control devices and generally only four fuzzy channels, viewers aren’t able yet to “zap” commercials.

Even the most boring ads attract attention. With Russian airwaves relatively uncluttered--as a filler, the national channel fills its screen with a ticking clock for a minute or two before each newscast--commercials can’t help but stand out.

*

A German shepherd’s profile fills the TV image. For 10 seconds, the glum-looking canine stares off - screen, panting. Finally, it turns its head to look at the camera. Again, one word: “Alisa.”

*

Introduced two years ago on what were then state-run Soviet networks, TV commercials are considered prestigious no matter how they look.

Large companies, like the trading firm Alisa, often buy air time simply to broadcast their names. Although unsophisticated by Western standards, these no-frills commercials seem to enhance their sponsors’ image.

“When you see an ad run for a month or two, you understand that the firm paying for it is not poor,” said Oleg Vishnevsky, the 31-year-old manager of the Russian advertising agency Metapress. “If a company can put money into advertising, it must be prestigious. But there’s no artistry involved.”

For seven decades, commercials were unnecessary in an economy like the Soviet Union’s. Supply was limited and demand was enormous, so there was no point in trying to stimulate more buying. What’s more, there was only one brand, Government Generic, and one price for every product.

Now that Western brands have invaded Russia and entrepreneurs have begun to import food and clothing from Asia as well, consumers--especially those with lots of cash--do have choices. Private kiosks and even some government stores now stock Coke and Pepsi, Snickers and Mars bars, Jack Daniel’s bourbon and the Russian-sounding but American-made Smirnoff vodka.

Dubbed into Russian, spots for Western products have taught millions of Russians how to pronounce tongue-twisters like Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum, Oil of Olay and Vidal Sassoon Wash and Go Shampoo. Every avid TV-watcher knows what these products are--even though they may never have seen them in neighborhood stores.

Although foreign firms must pay six times as much as Russians for air time, the rates are bargains: $3,000 for a 30-second prime-time spot beamed to 38 million viewers during Russian TV’s evening news.

*

A fax machine hums; a man sends a quick message to his girlfriend. Cut to a bridge, where the lovers meet and embrace to the strains of Percy Sledge’s soul hit “When a Man Loves a Woman.” As they kiss, two phrases scroll across the screen: “Do business with us. Holding Company.”

*

Somewhere on the road to capitalism, Russians learned a key to Western commercials: Sex sells.

Unencumbered by “family values,” they throw a hodgepodge of sensual images onto the screen to peddle everything from computers to banks. Sometimes it’s blatant--leggy women in miniskirts caressing laser printers or curling up on car hoods. More often, it’s a montage of images that may be attractive but are so random and irrelevant that to Western eyes they seem absurd.

As it turns out, the oddly named Holding Company is using those romantic images to sell office furniture.

“They still think in the old mentality of: ‘People will buy whatever we make. We just need to inform them our product exists,’ ” BBDO’s Macdonald said.

As a result, Russian commercials are startlingly devoid of superlatives. There are few bests, cheapests, healthiests or fastests. No “tastes great,” no “less filling.” Almost no sales patter.

But that’s starting to change.

This month, the hard sell will finally come to Russian TV. Armed with 1,000 South African-made slicer-dicers, businessman Igor Rivkin will introduce “special discount price,” “limited time only” and other direct marketing techniques to Muscovites.

He figures the market is ready.

“Russians don’t know what a normal TV ad is,” said Rivkin, who has traveled in the United States several times and still can’t get over the home shopping channels he saw there.

“When they see concrete goods displayed and hear how wonderful they are,” he predicted, Russians will be ordering slicer-dicers by the case.

*

Neon sweat suits, high-top basketball sneakers and bright-colored jackets whirl dizzyingly within a gray box. Underneath flash the phone numbers for Logobaz, a firm that markets Brooks sportswear.

Another spot: The camera pans around an office crammed with high-tech equipment. In the background, a voice intones, “From computers ... to calculators . . . to printers. . . . “

*

The handful of Russian commercials that do push consumer goods tend to target young business people hooked on conspicuous consumption.

The products they showcase are way beyond the reach of most families. A personal computer, for example, costs the equivalent of a Russian worker’s life savings.

“It’s humiliating, because these ads have nothing to do with people’s lives--they’re just rich people on the TV screen talking to each other,” said Maria Volkenstein, a Russian sociologist who studies commercials.

And when they talk, they use the language of the Western material world.

An ad for a tiny commodities exchange that operates from offices slightly bigger than a walk-in closet features footage of the Hong Kong stock market buzzing with hundreds of brokers. A commercial for a business newspaper spotlights men in natty Western suits driving Volvos. A spot for mobile phones shows an up-and-coming entrepreneur dashing though a hectic day.

Far removed from Russia’s gritty poverty, these fantastic scenes play on young capitalists’ aspirations, just as American ads seek to convince middle-class families that owning that certain car or drinking that certain liqueur will bring instant popularity.

*

As classical music builds to a crescendo, a shiny Chrysler zooms around a corner. For the next 30 seconds, cars and Jeeps--in postcard-perfect surroundings that look suspiciously familiar to American viewers--roll by. The model names, in English, flash below. “From Radar,” a somber voice declares, announcing the import company’s name. “Prices in rubles.”

*

Because they want to build commercials around lifestyles unavailable in Russia, some ad agencies stoop to piracy.

The CNN “Money Line” logo, IBM’s Charlie Chaplin look-alike and the harried executives from AT&T; spots all show up in Russian commercials. Even Pepsi-toting Michael Jackson was pirated into service by a firm desperate to give its ads some American flair.

In one particularly flagrant case of video piracy, the Russian tabloid Argumenti i Fakti lifted an entire TV commercial from one promoting a British newspaper, televising the ad with only one change--the Moscow paper’s Cyrillic masthead was laid in to replace the telltale Roman letters spelling out the British paper’s name.

Because Russian law is fuzzy on the matter of copyright, executives who see snippets of their companies’ pirated TV spots in Moscow have little recourse, Western advertising executives said. There’s no precedent of protecting intellectual property here, so Russian firms appropriate ideas and footage with impunity.

During Russia’s first ad contest this fall, judges were instructed to evaluate the entries based on world standards. After reviewing the clips, the panel concluded that no commercial was worthy of the grand prize.

Instead, judge Ivan Chimburov said with a wry chuckle, “We had to give awards for potential.”