Chastny Correspondent (Site news), April 12, 2010

SUCCESS STORY — 4: OBSTETRICIAN-MARKETER, Lilia Skopintseva

Samvel Avetisyan, SSE Russia alumni and a well-known Russian specialist in brand creation, creator of Tinkoff and Darya and incumbent owner of Arkhideya company, told Chaskor how he rose above reality and what he was doing now. The campaigns for promotion of this or that brand arranged by Avetisyan were usually considered successful. Samvel Avetisyan did not come to becoming a well-known and respected brand manager at once: he was a researcher in a library, an author of some historic publications and even member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Preliminary history Samvel Avetisyan graduated from the historic department of the Leningrad University (LGU). There were only two ways of further career in the Soviet times: either being a party bureaucrat or a researcher. Avetisyan chose the profession of historian, he started post-graduate studies and worked as researcher for the Pubic Library (now it is the Russian National Library) for seven years. During this period Avetisyan wrote some publications dedicated to political history of Russia of the first third of the 19th century. Between 1978 and 1988, Avetisyan was member of CPSU. In 1993, Avetisyan decided to change the profession because he had to maintain the family but science did not bring much money. It seemed to him then that science was his vacation and it was not easy to leave it. However, the shortage of money had its effect and Avetisyan decided to risk. The next step in his further career was announcement in a newspaper saying that a marketing manager was wanted. The manager was necessary for the company of well-known entrepreneur from St. Petersburg Oleg Tinkov. Avetisyan worked for Tinkov for ten years on three projects in which he was curator of advertising and marketing. Establishment of Tekhnoshock chain of consumer electronics stores became the first project on which Avetisyan worked. Afterwards the project was sold. Darya was the next brand on which Avetisyan worked. Promotion of this brand was remembered for an interesting PR action when before New Year 2002 Avetisyan hanged 200 posers in women's consultations and maternity hospitals of St. Petersburg. The posters said that every Darya born in 2002 would be paid a benefit twice as big as the benefit from the state. The action was incredibly successful: 800 Daryas were born in St. Petersburg in 2002 (there were only 45 of them in 2001). The third project of Avetisyan in the company of Tinkov was launch of beer brand Tinkoff. In 2005, the last project of Tinkov was sold again and hence Avetisyan decided to work on himself. After sale of the last project (Tinkoff beer) he started working on himself having organized his own project, a marketing company for helping of birth of ideas. Arkhideya Avetisyan established Arkhideya in January of 206. Arkhideya is a small firm that occupies only one floor of an office building and its staff consists only of seven people. Projects of Arkhideya are connected with various sectors: consumer services, electronics, food products, alcohol etc. Majority of projects of the company works on outsourcing terms now that the client undertakes. Arkhideya charges money only for development of ideas. The company does not do all the rest, for example, design and creation of advertising. According to Avetisyan, before the crisis people often turned to Arkhideya due to the motives far from branding and marketing, sometimes for increase of the low self-esteem by the mere fact of cooperation. The quantity of clients of the company grew bigger lately. Along with this, those who really need this turn to the company. The company usually has not more than ten projects per year. According to Avetisyan, this is quite enough and he says that he does not have a task of making Arkhideya company "number one." In 2009, turnover of Arkhideya amounted to about $2 million "It is impossible to teach someone business" In autumn of 2004, Avetisyan studied at marketing courses of business school INSEAD, they cost about 20,000 euros. However, according to him, he understood fairly quickly that the education will not be very useful. Such education is good from the standpoint of networking or acquisition of new connections and relations. It was interesting to communicate with colleagues from Paraguay, Angola and even with a prince from Saudi Arabia. Thirty-four students from 18 countries studied at the courses in France together with Avetisyan. Samvel went to the courses rather because of curiosity. He wished to see what a foreign education structure was like. After that Avetisyan made sure that it was impossible to teach someone business and business was a matter that enabled people to get only empirical knowledge. Avetisyan is convinced that specialized educational institutions like MBA make similarly thinking and dull "broiler managers." This is done for mechanism of a big company to work without interruption but not to contribute to growth and development of bright and charismatic leaders-entrepreneurs. Obstetrician-marketer Samvel Avetisyan considers himself rather a free artist than an entrepreneur. In America this is called free-agent. Avetisyan says, "If I had a business card, I would write "obstetrician-marketer" there. My competence is to help entrepreneurs and to contribute to normal birth of ideas. As an artist-obstetrician I know how to receive birth of ideas and offer the pregnant entrepreneurs to push correctly. Sometimes there is a false pregnancy and this entire attempt to create a brand turns into a pantomime." Avetisyan confesses that he sympathizes with the entrepreneurs because in majority of cases they do not belong to themselves trying to resolve the dilemma painstakingly: either you have a business or business has you. The major part of businessmen makes money not to live but lives to make money. Avetisyan explains, "I have quit management to have a possibility to manage my time. If the work does not let you enjoy sweet doing-nothing (travel, spend more time with the family, get acquainted with clever and beautiful people), I do not need such work." On branding Since 2003, Samvel Avetisyan has been teaching the basics of branding in Stockholm School of Economics first and at the social department of MGU afterwards. Since 2006, he has read special course "Metaphysics of brand" in Moscow Higher School of Economics. According to Avetisyan, brand is a truth that does not exist but that has a determining importance for the consumer. Avetisyan says that it is impossible to see a brand or to touch it on shelves of stores but along with this it is located on a certain shelf of the consumer's consciousness. For example, Mercedes is a brand if it is important for the consumer in the form of a kind of value (status, prestige) and a heap of scrap if it does not mean anything like a value. Hence, the task of marketers is to sell the same thing an endless quantity of times investing a new value in it every time. This means that the function of marketing is recoding of things. Avetisyan presumes that for this purpose a market should have at least two qualities: marketing ear (to guess the necessary trend in the noise of time) and marketing vision (to see for which value the consumer is looking in a familiar thing. Avetisyan explains, "A thing is not what is made but what lives in the head. There are no things outside of the consciousness of the consumer. That is why the same automobile may be both a transport vehicle and a phallus imitator (like in case of Hummer) or a sign of bad taste (like in case of Bentley)." Avetisyan is convinced that it is impossible to copy a brand or an idea but it is possible to steal it. It is possible to copy only what has been made by hands. The idea exists only in singular and has appeared a long time before human being (Avetisyan says "There was a word at the beginning") and this means that it will be even after him.