In the Politburo sits a jaunty little Armenian who dreams (almost heretically) of a U.S.S.R. clattering with the newest U.S.-style consumer gadgets. He is Anastas Mikoyan, an Old Bolshevik and, like most Armenians, a born salesman. In 1936 he visited the U.S. and was bowled over by its beehive trade in consumer goods, sparked by innovation, advertising, packaging. Back home he planned a great advertising crusade to teach the people to want and use new products. "We should not surrender before the old custom of living on borsch and mush," he said. He even tried his hand at writing a slogan about soap: "He who does not wash himself several times a day is a candidate for the hospital."
Fortnight ago Mikoyan made a fresh start on his life's hope: to give the sluggish
Soviet economy big transfusions of live-wire salesmanship. In a major speech at Erevan in his native Armenia he said: "It is time to think seriously of the organizing of trade advertising, and of intensifying it."
Molding Female Legs. The newspaper ads which Mikoyan wants to revitalize are poky and unimaginative. Only a few are illustrated, with poor-quality half-tones or amateurish line drawings.
A cut of three mousy women adorns an ad saying, culturally, "To inform the population: The Moscow Clothing Trust sells all-readymade women's dresses of silk, wool and cotton." A woman's stocking ad cries up the virtues of "a new fiber called Kapron," presumably a Soviet nylon. "They mold the leg nicely, wash easily, keep shape and color."
The Mineral Waters Trust announces in an ad that it has just received from the Caucasus some bottled waters "good for health." The Ministry of Commerce has weighing scales available. "Goods can be bought for cash," it notes.
Many of the newspaper ads are for cheap food. One such, with a picture of an attractive housewife at her stove, is for "Moscow Meatballs." The Russians have developed soybean food substitutes for flour, cheese and kefir (fermented milk), and these are plugged frequently, along with Kabul, a soya sauce for meats. "Soya cheeselets," the ads say, "available sweet with currants to commercial enterprises. Cost four times less than animal-produced cheeses."
Wine and cognac ads appear infrequently, vodka ads almost never, but the Liquor Trust recently ran an ad saying: "Bring your empty, cognac and wine bottles to the Moscow Liquor Factory."
Because of the nature of the Soviet economy, odd items will crop up in advertisements. "Glass dolls' eyes now being made," the public is told. The Soviet Sculptors' Trust informs collective farm and union centers that it "has ready a sculpture of Lenin by D. P. Schwartz, 2 meters 25 cm. high, made of concrete. Price 3,500 rubles ($875); time of delivery, 2-3 months. For orders, telegraph Moscow Skulpcombinat."
The Medical Manufacturing Shop attached to the First Moscow Psychiatric Hospital "will make cardboard boxes for shoestores, drugstores, etc." But the buyer must supply the cardboard.