Once communists came to power, the designs (and products themselves) became increasingly atrocious and pretty tasteless. But for the brief period in the 1900s, Russian consumer culture approached the sophistication and creativity of that in Europe.




Check out John Grieves from Berdyansk, with his agricultural equipment company:
(playing on the famous brand of John Deere, no doubt)



Russian traditional folk art is amply reflected in commercial posters:
(including some influences from Bilibin's illustrative style)



This mighty warrior is looking for beer (source of his strength?) -



The smiling lady is holding beer:



But this distinguished-looking gentleman is holding not beer, but "kvas" (bread drink, a fermented mildly alcoholic beverage made from black or rye bread) -



It helps when there is a huge variety of product to advertise: check out the extensive choice in beers from pre-Revolution Russian breweries: German, Bohemian, English Porter.



It seems that pre-revolutionary Russian beer industry was well on its way to become the "New Bavaria", as the poster above proudly proclaims.

I think they should revive this beer bottle-style, it's very distinctive:



An artsy ad for the Russian Tea:



Continuing to sweets and chocolate... "Just try to take the chocolate away from me, I'll show you!":



Crawfish! Well, actually crawfish-looking candy:



Other wonderful posters: for automobile show, and gun powder -





Not commercial, really elaborate poster celebrating 300 anniversary of Romanov's Tzar dynasty:



Very strange combination:



And a greatly atmospheric setting for bars of soap:




Even Communists Need to Advertise Sometimes...

...by normal (printed paper) means, that is, not by insidious propaganda. Of course, they'd rather use Orwellian brainwashing, but such technology could not be obtained at the time. So they had to resort to the normal "capitalist marketing" ways of pushing their miserable (or almost unobtainable) products to consumers.



Funny thing, though - most posters advertise a generic product, such as "The Chocolate", "The Ice cream", "The Cigarettes" - supposedly convincing the masses to try them more often. There were no trademarks, no variety of flavors to choose from (or a very basic choice) - so the only thing you see on the poster is the huge lettering "Eat more... Drink... Smoke!"

This one just says "Smoke Cigarettes!" (does not matter, which kind) -



These are admonishments to cook hot dogs. Yes. Eat more hot dogs, wherever possible.



Some generic ice cream: