As the first round of voting in the presidential election nears, candidates left, right and center are turning to television to get their messages across to voters.
In one ad, Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz promises to 'freeze out the parasites' – apparently a reference to businessmen and bureaucrats. In another, a microphone-wielding incumbent Leonid Kuchma works an adoring crowd of young voters. In a third, animated Soviet-style hero agricultural workers march from the fields to vote for speaker Oleksandr Tkachenko.
Slick they're not. But remember, campaign ads are still new to Ukraine, having made their first appearance in 1994.
Although they haven't yet reached the level of sophistication seen in the United States, where campaign ads have been aired since 1952, ads here are quickly approaching financing levels seen in older democracies.
A 30-second slot on Inter costs from $125 (from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.) to $850 (at 6:05p.m.) and $1,000 (at 6:25 p.m.) and that's not counting a hefty advertising tax and VAT.
Nevertheless, some ad insiders say candidates aren't getting value for their money.
'In general, Ukrainian candidates don't take a very professional approach toward their political ads, and they actually underestimate how effective they can be in influencing voters,' said Roman Kindrachuk, director at Radioaktive Productions, a Kyiv-based commercial/film production studio.
Part of the problem is that too few agencies here, if any, specialize in political advertising.
'Almost all ad agencies only do political advertising for the campaign period,' said Lev Polyakov, director of the Moscow-based Center of Political Advertising Nikkolo Media. 'But there's much more to political advertising than shooting a campaign commercial.'
However, most Western-based ad agencies try to stay away from political advertising altogether.
'We've not been looking for a client who wants a campaign commercial in Ukraine,' said Kindrachuk. 'We don't get involved in politics here.' So who's making these commercials then?
Few media insiders are willing to say, but they agree that it would not count in a candidate's favor if it were publicly known that a Russian ad agency was producing campaign ads for a Ukrainian presidential candidate.
Besides, Article 33 of the law on presidential elections in Ukraine prohibits the participation of non-Ukrainian citizens in political advertising.
Whoever's behind the ads, they carry weighty responsibilities.
'Those who do political advertising should be aware of the higher degree of responsibility their work involves in comparison to those who advertise home appliances, for example,' Polyakov said. 'The product political advertisers sell will have a deeper impact upon the consumers' lives and the country's future.'
'A good campaign ad can sway the voter's opinion by providing a compelling, logical argument in favor of the candidate or by creating an image for the candidate that voters find attractive,' Kindrachuk said.
Pouring dirt on your opponent is also a poor tactic, ad agencies say.
'Unfortunately, many politicians, not just in Ukraine, think they can make themselves look good by making their opponents look bad,' Kindrachuk said. 'This results in a lot of negative campaign ads that only serve to lower people's opinion of politics in general.'
Some believe the best approach is to treat a candidate as a product, employing the same strategies as one would use in promoting, say, chewing gum.
'Judging by the mechanism of influencing viewers' thinking, the campaign commercial does not differ from any commercial advertising fast moving goods such as chewing gum because it includes minimum rational arguments and maximum manipulation of the viewers' consciousness,' said Aleksandr Zotikov, director of the department at Moscow-based Profil Magazine.
'Recent elections in the United States and Britain employed advertising campaigns [that] treated candidates as products,' said Kindrachuk. 'In some ways, this is a bit cynical, but it also forces the candidates to firmly establish their positions on political issues.'
