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The purpose of this article is to report on home‐grown methods to build financial brands the Russian way.

This is a viewpoint article based on the author's experiences of working with leading Russian banks as the managing director of SCG London, international strategic branding consultancy.

The increasingly competitive – and crowded – Russian retail banking market has led to a growing awareness of the importance of branding in helping domestic banks distinguish themselves.

This article is of value to bank marketers wanting a brief overview and introduction to bank marketing and branding in Russia.

To evaluate the chances of success for Auchan in Russia, and draw conclusions for retail internationalisation theory.

Provides a comprehensive analysis of the Russian retail landscape and emerging patterns of consumption, especially in the capital Moscow.

The success of Auchan's Russian venture will depend on the extent to which the retailer is able to leverage its three sources of competitive advantage in its domestic market, namely the hypermarket concept, the channel mix, and the environmental context. This in turn will be a function of its ability to exploit its retail marketing skills, distribution abilities, unique retail formula, strong retail brand, or a combination of these.

The paper is not built on empirical data, but is speculative.

The paper's primary value lies in the call which it contains for a more eclectic conceptual framework underpinning retail internationalisation theory. Such a framework would reflect the importance of a firm's capital structure, and also pay greater attention to organisational dynamics. Attention to these issues would enable researchers to reflect more accurately the reality of the retail internationalisation process in emerging markets.