Product policy for the Russian market includes companies decision on product portfolio in particular, which product lines and how many of them to offer for consumers in Russia as well as their characteristics. Namely, should they be similar or different from those offered for other countries? A foreign company should make a decision on standardization or adjustment for brands, packages, and services for the Russian market based on market and research as well as they take into account various external and internal factors. Products policy development as well as other marketing mixed decision should take into consideration such factors as country of origin image or "made in" and all companies reputation. Some results of marketing research on Russian consumers attitude to foreign and local products show that Western consumers products are normally associated with high-quality. This is true for example, for electronics and household appliances, apparel, footwear, watches, automobiles, and other luxury categories. It's interesting that the attitude towards Chinese products is changing. Russian consumers believe that their quality had considerably changed from low to high, especially with regard to personal computers, mobile phones, and clothing. In the case of positive attitude, a foreign company has a chance to use brand names in foreign languages, stress the country of origin in promotion activities. For example, German Pharmaceutical Companies actively use this approach. At the same time, Russian consumer's attitude towards some local products is positive as well, mainly for local food and beverages. Russian consumers consider domestically produced food as healthier, more natural, and organic, having less artificial ingredients, requiring less storage and transportation time. A good quality money value, Soviet Era brands nostalgia could be other factors in favor of local food products. As a result, foreign companies products portfolio could include goods with brand names in Russian and with familiar to Russian consumers product characteristics. Thus, in a candy segment, Nestle Russia product portfolio includes ranges of dark and milk chocolate bars under the brand umbrella Rossiya. At the same time, in the coffee segment, Nestle offers global brand Nescafe gold espresso, the more luxuries one Nespresso, and standardized packaging. The known has a lot of baby food on the Russian brands names, such as [inaudible]. Today, the role of branding for Russian market highly is increasing. Brands could help to identify goods services or entities. Create distinctive images and association in the minds of Russian consumers. There are three approaches for branding applies by foreign companies in Russia. Following the first approach, a company's product portfolio for Russian market consists of global brands and standardized product characteristics. For example, Canons camera, Electric cars of Tesla or sport apparel and shoes of Adidas. The second approach is defined as a global brands with product characteristics adopted for the Russian market. It's the cases of such companies as Phillips electronic household products and lighting adjusted to 2-120 voltage and plucked in configuration. Computers of Asus modify for Russian Alphabet, Nissan cars adjusted for their Russian climate and equipped with their climate control systems and road conditions. In the such approach, a foreign company has a global and local brands in its product portfolio in Russia. This is the case of Nestle, Danone and Unilever companies. A global brand has an international recognition, reflects a high consumers status and prosperity. At the same time, local brands are based on our above discussed country of origin, image, and awareness. Some foreign companies develop the brands with brand names in Russian who both exists in Russian companies and promote their local brands. PepsiCo's product portfolio for example, includes global brands such as Pepsi, 7-Up, Mirinda and local fruit garden J7 and favorite through the acquisition of Russian Juice and dairy products producers, Wimm-Bill-Dann and Lebedyansky. Similarly, Danish Carlsberg brewery, sells beer using the Baltic brand, as well as its global brands. Sometimes for products produced in Russia and for the Russian market companies, create a brand that pretends to be foreign. For example, [inaudible] beer, produced by Baltic brewery, pretends to have a Czech origin, as Russian consumers believe that Czech beer has a higher quality than the beer produced domestically. Today, package of products is used to become a competitive to for attracting consumer's attention for many consumer goods in Russia. As a result, foreign and Russian companies pay a great attention to the decision on products package. Russia shows the same trend in packaging as we could find in other countries. Thus, baggage quality of many products has considerably improved. A new package design is used to differentiate the products, and develop new ones and adjust them to better consumer satisfaction, as well for promotion objectives. Danone, for example, shapes plastic bottles as toys, targeting children. Size of the package in a product line could be important as well. Promotion of smaller or bigger packages during the economic crisis is one of the examples. At the same time, the role of Eco-friendly packaging is less important for Russian consumers today. Only a few of them pay attention to this issue comparing to Western practice. Services is the necessary support element for a lot of products and customer care is it's broader concept. According to the consumer protection law, Russian consumers have to be informed about the product properties in Russian language. So it is a mandatory requirement to support products with the instructions translated into Russian. Foreign companies are used to choose one of three broaches to decisions on products services in Russia. Warranty and after-sales services could be arranged by the companies local agents. For example, authorized distributors and dealers, by the search parties which the company contracts them directly, independent service organizations or by foreign companies own service departments.
