Let's Make a Deal

TRADITIONALLY, THE MAY DAY PORTRAITS STARING blankly across Moscow's Red Square were those of the founders of communism -- Marx, Engels and Lenin--and * the current crop of Politburo heavies. Banners bore slogans like GLORY TO THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION and GLORY TO LABOR. Sic transit glory. This year Moscow has not only dumped the trappings of socialism but hopes to replace them with outright commercialism.

Moscow's city government is offering American capitalists an advertising tabula rasa: Red Square on May Day, the occasion formerly dedicated to the workers of the world. Fortune 500 corporations have received a price list which sets $1 million as the space rate for plastering the whole square with product slogans and billboards, or $500,000 for just the red brick Kremlin wall. "This will be the first official celebration of the new Russia," the ITAR-TASS news agency said in its announcement of the ad sale. "Have your day but bring dollars."

The facade of the department store GUM would cost a U.S. firm (might it interest Wrigley's?) $400,000. The Moscow historical museum is available (possibly the spot for an IBM ad on random-access memory?) for $250,000. Lenin's marble mausoleum is respectfully excluded from the deal, but two slogan-bearing blimps (for a cold-storage company?) floating above it will go for $60,000 each. A few firms nibbled last week, but none bit. The lead time may turn out to be too short for signing contracts and getting big American ads up by May Day. Even so, painters and paperhangers are standing by in Moscow.

Russia's capital already has its McDonald's restaurant, of course. But during this May Day parade in Beijing, Chinese marchers can also plan to slip out for a hamburger and fries. McDonald's largest outlet, seating 700 people, opened last week in a busy shopping district just off Tiananmen Square. Someday it might consider a slogan like OVER 1 BILLION SOLD -- TODAY. For now, its managers probably assume that the Golden Arches are advertisement enough.