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Library Journal Review

Burandt was assigned the task of opening the Moscow office of Young and Rubicam in 1988, a time of rapid change in the Soviet Union. His office was the first advertising agency in the world's most challenging marketplace--challenging because the concepts of choice and brand products were unknown; because of the difficulty of introducing market research in a country where people routinely lie to protect themselves and where advertised products are not available; and because advertising was defined in the Soviet Encyclopedia as recently as the 1940s as ``swindling.'' Gorbachev's desire to move to a free market system changed all that, and a joint venture with a State trading company made Burandt the first Western ad man in Moscow. Burandt tells his story in an anecdotal style, and while he does not give do's and dont's and how-to's, he does present an extraordinary glimpse of capitalism's pioneering efforts in penetrating a planned economy. While not an essential purchase, Burandt's entertaining book presents a historical snapshot of a society at a point of monumental change.-- William W. Sannwald, San Diego P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Burandt, unfortunately, fails to cap his claimed distinction as ``first American adman in the U.S.S.R.'' with a first-rate book about it. The Soviet Union was still extant when the Young and Rubicam agency opened a Moscow branch, the joint venture Y & R/Sovero; 18 months later, when Burandt turned the office over to his successor in April, 1990, the agency's ledgers showed a ruble profit and a dollar loss, and clients included Kodak, Xerox and Rodale Press. How it all came about ought to make an exciting, instructive tale, but Burandt and Giges, an Advertising Age editor, present a product that's likely to be a hard sell. The book's chronology is haphazard and the material covered repetitive. Yet there are wonderful anecdotes here about the frustrations of finding and equipping an office in Moscow, training a Russian staff, bribing Soviet bureaucrats (Y & R/Sovero could procure a telex number only with the pay-off of a woman's blue sweater, size 14). And poignant to read about is the agency's Colgate launch giving away 70,000 ``tiny'' tubes of toothpaste, for which Muscovites happily queued up for hours; astonishing is the tampon campaign for Johnson & Johnson after competitor Tampax, which introduced the product there, sold two million boxes in three days. J & J had planned to price its tampon at one ruble, until women, who previously had to rely on home-prepared rags, told market researchers that they would gladly pay up to five rubles. Perhaps it should be suggested to Boris Yeltsin that priority production of sanitary napkins could salvage the Russian economy? Photos not seen by PW . (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Expect to laugh as advertising person Burandt recounts his one and a half years of trials and tribulations opening the first joint-venture communications firm in Moscow. Expect to feel some sadness, too, hearing about a society beset with long lines of customers buying essentials, where fear of government retribution is still common, and grayness and dullness is the color and tenor of the land. The fight for office space at Druzhinnikovskaya is lost to the KGB (because of the building's proximity to the U.S. embassy); the plea for a telex number is heard only when the clerk is presented with a sweater as a gift for her daughter. On the other hand, the willingness of many Soviets to learn the "American way" and the excitement of being the first stranger in a strange land counterbalance Burandt's daily, even hourly, frustrations with the Russians. ~--Barbara Jacobs