"Smiling makes the day go quicker"

"Smiling makes the day go quicker"

This advertisement is at once bizarre and telling of Russian advertisements as we have experienced them throughout the course. While it begins with a young boy screaming at a poster in his room, it transforms into a cheerful family endeavor to redecorate (with items from IKEA, of course) in an image of what the happy, modern Russian family might look like. There is the quintessential grandmother, two parents, and two adorable children. (One of whom is going through a punk rock stage in her teens.) The use of Western music and clearly Western clothing choices as the teenager basks in the awesomeness of her wardrobe is a fantastic read into the lifestyle that IKEA wants to present to its Russian consumers – buy our wardrobes and fill them with plaid and jeans. This is hip, this is cool, this is modernity. Even the amount of actual stuff featured in the commercial – see the ending scene where the two children are surrounded by all the material comforts of their childhood – is telling for what it promotes as norms of this new consumer culture that the Russian middle class is now buying into.

Jenna Louie

Tankus the Henge. "IKEA advert Russia/Россия - Smiling Makes The Day Go Quicker." Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8H5qwDOp7I.

February 26, 2012.