Rossiiskaya Gazata reports that Internet advertising is continuing to take an ever larger share of the overall advertising market in Russia. Despite the economic downturn that has affected the overall spend.
Internet advertising in Russia grew by 6 percent in 2009, up to 19 billion roubles (approx. $630.6m USD), while the whole advertisement industry in [...]

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After negotiations last year, Google won the contract away from Yandex to provide Mail.ru with contextual and organic search results. However, it’s become clear that instead of a transition from Yandex to Google, Mail.ru seems to have decided to go it alone and use results from their own in-house search engine Gogo.ru.
This shouldn’t be [...]

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Kommersant reports that Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine, is considering purchasing AOL’s ICQ platform at more than $200m.
ICQ has between 40m-50m registered users worldwide with the majority in Germany, Russia, Israel and Eastern Europe. In December of 2009 AOL announced that they would be restructuring and selling off some of that assets, including the [...]

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When I arrived in Russia 6 years ago, it was quite a surprise to find the Russians had adopted the Chinese Zodiac. From October onwards you see references to the coming animal sign all around; in advertising, promotions and products. It is very much part of the Russian New Year tradition. I guess this makes [...]

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The financial crisis has been hard on Russia, with direct foreign investment dropping 45% in the first half of 2009 to $6.1 billion. The economy is expected to shrink 8.5% this year and inflation is in double digits. Some commentators have even begun to refer to the “Bic” economies (Brazil, India, China) rather than the [...]

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ComScore has released a study of the global search market showing that more than 113 billion searches were conducted in July 2009, representing a 41% increase versus year ago. As expected Google was No.1 with 76.7 billion searches conducted, or 67.5% global market share. However the Russian portal, Yandex showed the fastest rate of growth [...]

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This week The Moscow Times has conducted a series of interviews on the state of e-marketing in Russia. Essential reading for anyone working in or considering expanding into RuNet. These should remain open to public viewing, follow the links below:

Changes in Consumer Preference on the InternetBy Inessa Ishunkina, Project director TNS Russia
RuNet of TodayBy Vladimir [...]

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The Russian law “About the State Regulation of Activities on Gambling” comes into effect tomorrow, forcing many casinos to shut their doors. .
Although Vladimir Putin could not have foreseen the economic crisis when the law was proposed in 2006, the implementation could not have come at a worse time for Russia. An estimated 400′000 [...]

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According to the Moscow Times, Microsoft will be investing 10 billion rubles ($300m USD) in Russia over the next three years. The announcement was made on Monday by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at a press conference in Moscow.
Aside from expanding the company’s investment into software for students and startups they will also invest in [...]

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John Rose, CEO of Rose Creative Strategies, writes for the Moscow Times on the subject of using reward schemes to encourage sales during these dark economic times. Interestingly he suggests cross-overs from traditional marketing into the internet, as “penetration is now sufficient in Russia to allow companies to launch national loyalty promotions inexpensively by fulfilling [...]

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