Message on a bottle: packaging the Great Russian past

This paper employs a visual research method to examine how companies in post-socialist Russia use packaging to construct their brand identity. We analyse the packaging of two product categories in particular, namely chocolate and vodka, and show how packaging is exploited to generate certain types of myths, both about the brand itself and – crucially – about Russia and Russianness. As we show, a large number of brands in Russia build their identity around images associated in one way or another with the country's past. They do so primarily via packaging design. The paper's main contribution lies in the fact that it extends the pioneering work on packaging by Kniazeva and Belk into historical, visual and non-Western areas. In the light of our findings, greater attention needs to be paid both to the role packaging plays in branding and to the socio-historical context in which that branding is itself conducted.