New research shows a majority of Russians think advertising is a nuisance. This is good news for those suspicious of consumer culture, but bad news for advertisers.

Until the industry starts cleaning up its act, experts say, it will continue to turn people off to advertising.

"It is the irresponsibility of our advertisers and our producers that is to blame," said Igor Rozhkov, director of the Russian Advertising Council, speaking to a round table on regulation of the advertising industry. "The advertising industry has grown quickly, but our methods of regulation are not keeping up."

The Council publishes the Russian Advertising Code, a document that provides voluntary guidelines on advertising. It is recognized but rarely observed by advertisers and agencies, which often simply find it more profitable to ignore it.

"So long as advertisers continue to get rewards from shock advertisements, they're not going to pay attention to the Code," said Rozhkov. "People complain about the advertisements for beer, the advertisements for cigarettes, but at the same time everyone smokes, everyone drinks, and everyone watches the soap operas that the advertisers pay for."

Vladimir Ananich, a member of the Advertising Council, stressed that the point of regulation is to make sure advertising corresponds to social values.

"A society that has gone down a democratic path has the opportunity to work out its own ways of creating an advertising culture that does not offend people," he said, adding that efforts to get advertisers to adhere to voluntary guidelines are complicated by political maneuverings.

"Advertisers have in the past found it more effective to lobby parliament to improve legislation than to engage in a system of self-regulation," he said.

Advertising in general is held in very low esteem by Russians – a survey at the end of last year by media analysts Comcon, for example, estimated that almost two-thirds of Russians found television advertisements a nuisance. That's down from 81 percent in 1996, but still high in comparison with Western European countries such as France, which has both a strict regulatory regime and a high percentage of people who say they value the advertising industry.

The controversy around beer advertising in the Duma indicates that stricter government legislation is perhaps the only thing that would get ad firms to agree on a voluntary code of conduct.

One proposed legislation would forbid using humans or animals in beer ads and outlaw those ads that "create the impression that consumption of beer is important for the attainment of sporting or physical success."

In response, the beer lobby put together its own Code of Honor that set out voluntary guidelines for advertising beer. Not all major brewers have signed up, however. SUN-Interbrew, producers of Klinskoye beer, is a notable exception.

Countries with a long history of advertising cultures have developed more advanced systems of regulation, either through consensual self-regulation supported by the industry or through government regulation.

The problem for Russia's relatively fledgling advertising industry is that neither approach is working.

Alexander Borodai, dean of the Department of Advertising at Moscow's Humanitarian-Social Academy, said advertising is currently regulated legally by the Anti-Monopoly Ministry, which can fine advertisers for infringements. He said neither efforts at self-regulation nor state regulation had been particularly effective.

"There's just no interest in the Code because it's easier to pay the fine and carry on than try to adhere to some kind of document," he said.