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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.
We can’t get enough of Scott Adam’s wit! Here’s more from Dilbert. Enjoy
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If you happened to look at last Tuesday’s Daily Nation (Dec 5th), then you saw the BIG ad. You innocently flipped through Smart Company (undoubtedly the Daily Nation’s advertising Cash Cow), and got baffled somewhere at the middle when your eyes (by then accustomed to small black newsprint) were met by a humongous “20″ on Page 10, placed next to an equally gigantic “00″ on Page 11. You then turned the page to see another “00″ on Page 12 and then “0/-” on Page 13. You then eagerly turned to Page 14 to see where it would all lead to, and there you found the glorious reveal. “The biggest unsecured personal loans EVER”.
The folk at Barclays have obviously pulled off an advertising first to hype up their 2,000,000 bob (geddit?) unsecured loan. They have used not one, not two, but FIVE full pages of precious newspaper space to tell of a product of no less magnitude. This, my good friends, is the way to get mass attention: reach out from your medium, grab your audience by the neck and shake ‘em into noticing you – kindly by force, so to speak.
We were absolutely impressed, simply because of Barclays’ commitment to get the message across and do it in an unconventional way, using a conventional medium. Oh, and just so you know how much it might have cost, each full page must have set them back about 340,800 bob. Multiply that by 5 and you come to the humble sum of Kshs.1,704,000 spent in one sitting. Spent. Not wasted. Or blown. Or squandered.
We waited for some other material. An equally attention-grabbing radio spot? An eyeball-wrenching TV Commercial maybe? We’ve seen nothing yet.
Still, we wait patiently.
While writing out the KenGen Ad Review, we thought a bit on electricity; and the interesting intricacies involved in selling and advertising it.
First, would we call electricity a product? To some extent, yes. It’s measurable in standard units. Its provision is charged by each measure unit, like all products are. It goes through its own kind of production line, making use of a certain raw material to generate a finished product.
We could also refer to it as a service. It is largely intangible and we don’t buy it off a supermarket shelf or a dealership. We largely interact with its results, and (thankfully) not electricity itself. Add to all that, the fact that electricity is a utility, whose provision has for a while been associated with a parastatal (government-managed authority), and thus subject to the consequent fluctuations suffered at the whims and wiles of government.
Electricity is also amorphous, we can’t say that one consumer’s electricity looks, feels, sounds or tastes better than another’s, although its byproducts can. And if other players were to come onto the scene they’d have to cut his niche in the area of efficiency and value, but would still provide the same basic product.
See the point?
Well, that’s just us rambling, and we enjoy it!
There are certain media that are best used as long as their novelty and wow-appeal last. Once the excitement around them wanes, and differentiating lines fade away, they begin to recede into the landscape of the ordinary, and advertisers have to work much harder to get themselves noticed.
Take for example the sponsorship slots that are up for the bidding on TV. Many advertisers have realized that, rather than play their full TV commercial and pay heftily for it, they can thriftily spur the audience by showing just key frames alongside a sponsor board, or something. With so many sponsor-able items available, the only things left untouched are other commercials!
In one stretch of prime time viewing, you will stumble upon four out of five shows sponsored by various brands, each apparently relevant to its corresponding show. Then, in-between ad breaks, you are likely to see a different sponsor invest in shouting-space on the ‘Next On’ slot, another on the ‘Next Up’ slot, and yet another on the all too familiar 45-second pre-news Clock Face slot. Come the news broadcast, and you’ll see a couple of other sponsors “bring you” the mid-news extras like famous quotes, special features, past stats, and interesting tit-bits. There will be one sponsor each for the business news, sports news, and weather forecast, then another sponsor will be likely to claim responsibility for the existence of the viewers’ sms-poll results. If lucky, one brand could even own the news broadcast’s closing credits.
Where does that leave the targeted consumer? Does he buy into the whole sponsorship cabaret? With so much being thrown at him, and with everything looking and sounding the same after a while, we highly think not.
What do you think?
Greetings people!
Yes, the Ad Boardroom has been considerably quiet. Our apologies for that; we’re doing so much out there, we hardly have time to blog away. Nonetheless, we’re still writing our articles, the latest ones being on the advertising flurry we experienced during the World Cup. You’ll be seeing those articles here soon. Also, watch out for our past articles. We’ll be posting those very soon as well. You can reach us here, or via e-mail on adboardrom@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you.
See you later!
