I heard you the first time … ENOUGH ALREADY!

If you were anywhere near a radio on Monday the 12th, on the eve of Jamhuri day, even for a few minutes, then you probably heard it. The ad – more like a jingle, that was played incessantly, ALL day, with at least 5 to 10 minutes interval between airings. It’s lyrics “Freedom is coming tomorrow …” were definately inspired(?!) by the classic song of the same name by Mbongeni Ngema. All we heard was the song, followed by the Celtel ident at the end. I really have no problem with the idea, it worked well for its eventual reveal the next day. We had this one little problem:

IT’S ANNOYING!!

While repeatedly assulting an audience with the same ad message might seem like a good idea, it’s in reality a terrible thing to do, much like feeding a toddler mashed pumpkin every 15 minutes. It’s good for them, but they’ll get sick of it, and they’ll never like it again. This isn’t the first ad we’ve had to sit through and bear for more than times than we care to stand. The same perpetrators sickened us with their 40 bob scratch card radio spot. All I remember is a Luo-accented lady yapping away and ululating at the end.

It’s all I would like to remember. Anything beyond that is traumatic.

3 comments

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January 9, 2007 at 6:58 am

Vee

I hear you on the annoyance. But here is a true story that was told to me. In the US there was a spaghetti company that was trying to get into the market. There were already very many spaghetti brands out there. So they decided to not have all those yummy delicious, saucy spaghetti ads but to disgust the hell out of the consumers. It was a risk but it worked. A few months later after the campaign was run, they did a survey on people who were buying their brand. One woman simply said that when she walks into the supermarket it was the only brand she recognized because of the bad ads… none of the other brands came to mind.

Brand recognition works in two ways. Either you create an Ad everyone will love or create one everyone will hate. The point being that the brand has been recognized. If the Ad is hated enough, people will talk about it to everyone else saying how bad it is… which helps the brand even more. In a number of months or years later the Brand can be presented in a nice day… the damage is done… you and I recognize it…

January 10, 2007 at 6:15 am

adboardroom

That’s real interesting, Vee … It’s been spculated by some that some local advertisers have tried the so-bad-it’s-good tactic in their ads. The ‘Exactly’ ad from Safari Cane is one. And the there was the one for Preventor, ‘Tame the Jogoo’ is what it was called I think.

I think I’ll post this in an entirely new post. Thanks.

June 19, 2008 at 1:27 pm

Overweary