Advertising in Russia
Starting advertising in Russia for the first time, organizations might encounter unexpected legal issues.
Advertising and marketing in Russia is regulated by two federal laws:
- Federal Law on Advertising
- Law on Protection of Consumer Rights
According to Federal Law on Advertising ad is considered to be illegal if it is either not credible or not honest. Article 5 of the mentioned federal law contains criteria of credibility and honesty of the ads in Russia.
- incorrectly compares advertised product with other similar pruducts
- disgraces the honour or discredits business reputation of third parties (including peers)
- does not meet specific requirements concerning methods, time or location if the ad represents a product, trademark of which is similar to another trademark that has to comply with requirements and restrictions
- is an act of unfair competition according to anti-monopoly legislation
Advertisement is not honest if it contains unreliable or untruthful information about:
- advantages of the advertised product over other available for purchase products, that are produced and sold by other market participants
- any characteristics of the product (it's contents, nature, date and method of manufacture, designation, origin, consumer properties, conditions of use, certification, service life, conformity marks, expiration date, period of service. Real case: in July 2018 Tinkoff Mobile got penaltized by the Federal Antimonopoly Service.
- assortment, availability and package
- price, payment options, discounts and other conditions
- shipping, repair and maintenance
- warranty liability
- intellectual property rights
- permissions to use national symbols (symbols of international organizations)
- official recognition and awards
- recomendations, given by third parties
- experiments, trials and researches and their results
- addtional advantages or rights of the buyer
- actual level of advertised (or another) product demand
- volume of production (or sales) of advertised (or another) product
- based on risk competition periods, rules, quantity of prizes and their delivery methods
- sorces of information, that has to be disclosed according to Federal Laws
- place, where potential customers can receive information before negotiantiog a contract (if required by other federal laws)
- producer or seller
- obligor upon a security
Advertisements in Russia must not:
- incite the commission of unlawful act
- call to violence
- bear a resemblance to road signs or by any means endanger the safety of road/train/water/air-traffic
- form negative attitude towards those, who don't use the advertised product
- contain pornography
- use foreign words and expressions, which may misrepresent information
- demonstate public authority approvals
- contain demonstration of processes of smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol (however, there are a lot of ads of non-alcoholic beer on federal channels)
- use health-care and pharmacy workers (and characters, who look like them) if the ad is not related to medicine
- point at use of human embryonic tissues in production of the advertised product
- point at curative properties of the advertised product unless the product is a medicine
- use offensive or violent language
- contain offensive words/comparisons/expressions concerning race, gender, nationality, social category, age, language, official national symbols, religions, religious symbols, cultural heritage sites of the Russian Federation, cultural heritage sites, that included into World Cultural Heritage List