The Russian exported goods under the umbrella brand: Expectations and reality

Abstract

Subject. The restructuring of the Russian exports is a crucial issue of the foreign trade policy. Considering sanctions against Russia, exports can be reshaped with non-trivial methods. The Russian goods can be successfully offered to the foreign market if an umbrella brand Made in Russia is used. Objectives. The study determines difficulties and opportunities of promoting the Russian goods to the foreign market under the umbrella brand Made in Russia. Methods. The study relies upon general and special methods of research, such as retrospective, systems and functional structure analyses, observation, classification, tool-based techniques for grouping, sampling, comparison and summary, evolutionary and dynamic analysis. Results. The umbrella brand Made in Russia was proved to primarily include goods with the international recognition and gradually embrace promising and competitive goods, but not yet well known abroad. The article points out risks of the strategy as the umbrella brand may absorb some toxic regional goods or brands, which offer poor quality goods. Conclusions. To mitigate basic risks, it is necessary to draw upon the expertise of the Russian local brands and grow a commodity brand. There should be a special infrastructure to support national exporters, including the Russian export center, which should include a special function of foreign trade intermediaries. The foreign trade intermediaries are supposed to practically help national exporters, but also provide training programs for raising the foreign trade knowledge of businesses.