Using Scary Legends in Russian Place Branding Focused on Generation Z

Relevance. In Russia there are many depressive territories that are associated with horror legends. Local governments of such territories face with the problem of attracting tourists. At the same time, we can see the trend of popularization of the horror genre in popular culture. Today we face with generational change, when generation Z begins to participate in the economic life of the country. The purpose of this work is to develop the concept of "horror marketing" and determine its place in the General theory of territory marketing, and to develop practical recommendations for Russian depressive territories, which are associated with horror legends, for the implementation of "horror marketing" aimed at attracting tourists of generation Z. As the part of the empirical study, secondary data were analyzed, and a survey of representatives of generation Z (students of several Moscow and Moscow region Universities) was made. A qualitative analysis of the survey results was conducted. The results shows that horror is popular as an entertainment genre among representatives of generation Z (1), representatives of generation Z are interested in visiting territories with a horror brand (2), the infrastructure of the visited territory has a low degree of importance for generation Z, but a minimum level of comfort in accomodation and transport is necessary (3), generation Z spends significant amount of money on travel (4), representatives of generation Z are interested in visiting the Russian province with a horror brand (5), representatives of generation Z estimate a trip to the Russian province with horror brand in the range of 30-50 thousand rubles (6). The results of the empirical study made it possible to make the following recommendations for managers (local authorities) of Russian depressive territories that are associated with horror legends: (1) they should create a development project of the territory aimed at creating an image directly related to the local scary legend; (2) creating excursion routes to places that are associated with the horror legend; (3) creating a package offer for tourists in two formats: a) transport from Moscow + accommodation + excursion, b) accommodation + excursion; (4) the cost of a package offer should be in the range of 30-50 thousand rubles. These recommendations are primarily offered to territories located in the Central region. The work closes a gap in current research on the types of "perverse" marketing, as well as the research on the possibility of using horror in branding Russian depressive territories.