In addition …

Oh, two things we didn’t mention.

One, notice the typos on the ads. One headline says “Responsible drinking is everyone’s concern for everyones benefit”. Yep, missing apostrophe. The said punctuation mark is also conspicuously absent in the one that states “Its about quality not quality watch your limit”. Notice also the missing fullstop between the two separate statments. Surely, the number of reading eyes that scanned the ads should have noticed something mising?

Two, the resposible drinking web page, just like EABL brands’ consumers, can only be enjoyed by those over 18.

(Any typos on this post were purely intentional.)

“Sin Brands” develop a Conscience

EABL recently announced, with quite some fanfare, their intention to initiate and strengthen a number of self-regulation measures. They are obviously aware of the changing face of the market, both locally and globally, where attitudes are a lot more politically correct, and the market is considerably more intolerant toward the negative effects of ‘vice’ brands. Former initiatives by EABL include the attachment of the “Drink Responsibly, Live Responsibly” tag to all their present visual communication, including TV commercials.

While EABL’s sales curve might continue to rise – indicating either that there are more people drinking, or that the same number of people is now drinking more – they are not willing to shirk the responsibility of promoting responsible and safe drinking, as part of what they refer to as “a balanced lifestyle”.

It’s noteworthy that they are doing so before the inevitable action of the government and lobby groups (most notably the National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse or NACADA). Still it’s commendable that they  are doing something about setting the facts straight as far as (ir)responsible drinking goes.

Still, their communication is too ’safe’, so to speak (see below). To change people’s habits would require some more media space, and a bit more shock therapy. Let’s hope they inject more funding into their Responsibility Campaign, especially with the festive season approaching.

Click here to visit their responsible drinking webpage.

For the love of IPO’s

Those that doubted the success of the Eveready IPO (yes,we included), have lately and quiet obviously been proved wrong. Despite the odd bit of negative press, there were still many sightings of the characteristic long lines outside the selected financial intitutions and brokerages. Obviously, there’s lots of money sitting around waiting to be plunged into a promising investment. We’re seriously considering ‘Kithunjino & Daughters Enterprises’ now.

Just to add another view to this issue, it seems that IPO’s have taken another odd life of their own now, regardless of how much (or little) backing (or bad publicity) is put behind them. Their effect now is not very uncomparable to pop culture now. Owning shares now seems to be one of those aspects of modern lifestyles that’s considered healthy, advisable and hip. The yuppy culture now will comprise drinking mineral water, visiting the gym regularly,  taking care of one’s physical appearance, and owning shares in KenGen.

We love this country.

Eveready goes public. Where’s The Noise?

For a company going into an IPO, Eveready East Africa are really quiet. Too quiet in fact, especially in the face of the already lukewarm response so far (See Smart Company; 21st Nov). Any idea why that would be the case?

All I’ve seen so far are a few somewhat half-hearted press ads (nothing like the powerful ones we saw from Kengen – pun intended), and a bit of PR. The folks at Eveready might simply be riding on the hype that KenGen and ScanGroup created. Steven Smith (the MD) looks pretty smug to me, and it seems Kenyans will buy shares into any company going public, even if it went by the name Kithunjino & Daughters Enterprises. While that may be the case, I still think Eveready owe us a lot more than they are giving us in their communication. They want us to buy into them. Surely, it’s the least they can do.

Blame the other things we do

Maintaining a day job, and all of lifes challenges – and then a blog – is really tricky at times. Actually, ALL the time. After a long hiatus, theblog moderator is back to post a short comment to say hi and hope tht you are all well. Coming up will be Sokoni articles we wrote for among others, Nokia (for their annual Face Of Africa beauty pageant), Kenchic (their new ‘kuku’ ads), and the StanChart Nairobi Marathon. Keep it here! Meanwhile, a little strip that brought our little house down. Art Directors should particularly identify with it.

The enigmas of Electricity

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!

Advertising the Power – What an advertising campaign did for KenGen (Published; Sokoni April 2006)

One of the awe-inspiring things that advertising can do, is make us realise things that were around us all the time, but we had ignored or taken for granted. It makes these things tangible, and causes us to re-look at them as if regarding them for the very first time. It changes perceptions. We could compare advertising to puberty, which has been known to transform dorky pimply girls into buxom beauties.

KenGen’s recent thematic advertising campaign did something of similar proportions. We were reminded that electricity is not restricted to a switch on the wall, or a bulb in the ceiling. We became aware of the existence of real people who (we’re made to think) work their rear ends off to make sure that we can light your shacks, watch our TV, heat our bathwater, iron our clothes and read our newspapers. They make sure that streetlights stay on, traffic lights stay working, industry cogs keep moving and the economy keeps growing.

It is a fact that the need for electricity could, for many, well assume basic status. KenGen, by positioning itself as the principal provider of this fundamental need, has placed itself high in these consumers’ product perception hierarchy; that space in their mind that is shared by quasi primary need products, like mobile phones and alternative medicines.

The HISTORY.

The Kenya Electricity Generating Company, KenGen, was formerly the Kenya Power Company (KPC). Registered in 1954, one of KPC’s initial tasks was to construct a transmission line between Nairobi and Tororo in Uganda, and develop electricity-generating facilities in the country.

Fast forward to January 1997, and KPC was formally separated from KPLC in the midst of a reform wave sweeping through the energy sector and the entire economy. KPC assumed the role of power generator and KPLC played distributor. Come October 1998, and KPC was re-launched under a new name and corporate identity. KenGen was born.

KenGen, assumed ownership of all publicly owned power-generating plants, and maintained its relationship with KPLC, selling its generated electricity to the sole distributor. A little over half a century later, KenGen is doing dreadfully well. Sample the stats, Kshs.2,000,000,000 (!) profits last year alone, 80% market share, 4.2 billion (chargeable) units of electricity annually, and optimistic progressions of a 7% market growth rate every year. But you probably knew that already, and that, we can attribute to one dazzling advertising campaign, courtesy of the good folk at ScanAd.

The CAMPAIGN.

Spread across print, TV, radio and outdoor, this campaign took place in two phases. Phase One, sold KenGen, the brand – using thematic communication to speak on what KenGen is all about. Phase Two, sold KenGen, the company – a more tactical sell that sought to herald its impending Initial Public Offering (IPO).

The two phases followed a similar vein, showing us how much we take electricity for granted, by asking us (and having us ask ourselves), “Where does electricity come from?”
Whoa. Tough one.
They answered that it comes from natural elements, wind, water, steam, and oil.
But who on earth can convert those into electricity, and bring it to me?
Why big, strong KenGen, of course. KenGen can, KenGen has, and KenGen will.

It was a simple idea. One would think it wouldn’t really stir the spirit and warm the blood. ScanAd blew that notion right out of the water. They brought in Matthew Peevers of Sounds and Pictures to direct and produce a simple but stirring pair of TV commercials.

The brilliantly shot ads made use of time-lapse effects to show various cityscapes, capturing their visible transition from broad daylight to twilit darkness, and the consequent setting in of a different kind of light – KenGen generated light. They cut to show a similar presence of KenGen in the industrial sector, retaining the same stop-motion effect. They went on to display token shots of various KenGen power plants, artfully using the same visual effects to take us through what would otherwise have been a bland day-in-the-life visual of KenGen employees.

They even dared to venture into the dangerous waters of incorporating company directors into the ad. While we’d have shudder at the ominous repercussions, they cleverly sorted it out by capturing stills of the bosses standing in those power-poses that you’d see on movie posters and pop music CD covers. They then superimposed these shots in unconventional positions on screen with the power plants in the background.

In between all these cuts, they ensured that white titles flicker onto a black screen much like fluorescent tubes do, each title summarizing what the voiceover was saying, just in case you got too caught up in the imagery.

The BOARDROOM SAYS …

KenGen has made history by successfully running an introductory thematic ad campaign, and following it through immediately, almost concurrently, with a tactical share issue campaign. There was absolutely no breathing time in-between. That’s a first. Imagine a boy meets girl scenario, where the lad encounters, befriends, dates, courts and marries the lass, all in one sitting.

Granted, the folk at KenGen could have gotten away with a stand-alone communication of a sale of shares. It had a lot going for it already. The stock market is at its best. Potential investors had read the signs, word had gotten round, and excitement was piqued. A healthy cross-section was ready to get involved; seasoned investors, multi-millionaires, housewives, business owners, high school graduates; they all awaited the IPO with a giddiness so intense, that it swayed the Nairobi Stock Exchange, and caused mass downward shifts in other share prices.

At the time of writing this, only a few days remained to the share issue. You know by now how it turned out.
Much as KenGen had an easy sell in hand, they opted for the straight and narrow, choosing to invest in communication for the long-haul. Without going into the introductory and long-lasting thematic pleasantries, they would have compromised on a chance to build the kind of equity that will last beyond short-term benefit.

KenGen and ScanAd knew what kind of product they had in hand, and what idea they had mind. They refused to take something so apparently passable and chose to give a simple, yet somewhat awe-inspiring story to it. They carried through an informative, effective and engaging advertising campaign, rolling it out strategically and ingeniously. This can already be touted as one of the most successful campaigns of 2006. Kudos to all involved. With the brand built, deals sealed, and shares vehemently trading, let’s see what happens next.

More On The Way

Hi People,

The sequel to the last Sokoni story “The Beautiful Game Begets Beautiful Ads – Part 1” comes in a couple of weeks hopefully. We have to wait for it to be published first! Have no fear, though. There’s still enough to chew on. Remember the KenGen IPO? Of course you do. Well, remember the ad blitz that preceded it? No worries if you don’t. Just check out its Boardroom review on the next post. We’ll also throw in a rambling on doing advertising work for electricity, and the factors that make it such an interesting product/service to work with.

You’re comments are still welcome. Later!

Oh brother! Not another one!

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?

Beautiful Game begets Beautiful Ads – Part I (Published; Sokoni July 2006)

There’s really no other sports event, or world event for that matter, that compares to the FIFA World Cup. Indeed, so much has already been said about this spectacular blitz of football action, that we don’t quite know what we can add to it that you will find new. Nonetheless, we’ll try. In this article, we’ll feature those commercials that led up to the event, and either whet our appetites for it, or sold us products or services we’d find useful during World Cup month. Next issue, we’ll take a look back at the ads that punctuated the action, and entertained (or exhausted) us in between half-time breaks, and sponsored segments.

First, a look at the event itself:
The FIFA World Cup is a brand by itself; its trophy is one of the planet’s most recognizable icons. The World Cup (notice how nondescript those words are, world cup) carries its own character – an aloof, mysterious, almost untouchable makeup, but one that is doubly tangible and profound. We might never really figure out the ambivalent exhilaration this brand generates, but who ever said we should? We’d rather just allow the deluge of hype to submerge us totally; and this one time it’s fully justified. Besides, it happens for just one month every four years. This excitement thankfully carries itself across to advertising. It seems that football season is one of those times that we can truly have a good time on TV. Viewers worldwide simultaneously receive two 45-minute periods of absolutely commercial-free entertainment, and the premium advertising space in-between means only serious advertisers qualify. Often – not always – the advertisers ensure that their media budgets are justified, by flighting ads worth the grandiosity of the event.

This episode of the World Cup saw a number of local and international advertisers take advantage of the hype to sell their brands, and ideas. We’ll focus on the curtain-raising campaign for Nakumatt, Sony Wega, and Coca-Cola.

NAKUMATT

Nakumatt surprised us with their pre-World Cup spot. It is set, like most of its other TVCs, in the supermarket aisles and counters. This time round we get a glimpse of almost all its countrywide branches, thanks to a relevant and effective idea. Business is as usual in one branch of the supermarket, until a football drops from a basket and rolls towards a customer. Without missing a beat, he artfully dribbles the ball, and finally kicks it hard enough to launch it all the way to a different Nakumatt branch. Another football-crazy customer receives it and also launches a deft display of footwork before passing it to yet another customer in a different location. This entertaining action continues all through, the ball flying to branches as far away as Mombasa, Kisumu and Kisii. In between, we are treated to humorous variations in the action. One staffer instinctively kicks the ball away from an intricately stacked pyramid of tin cans, a security guard curiously regards the action through his CCTV screens, the action is frozen at intervals to allow for titles such as ‘quality’ and ‘value’ to appear, and every player displays such skill – we wonder why they aren’t on the national team.
The clincher comes at the end, when a teller, at a totally different branch from the original one, catches the ball and swipes it through. Its price is displayed without a hassle, as would 40,000 other items sold in Nakumatt’s seamless network. Good one.

We must point out though, that the said idea, as scintillating as it is, is by now very unoriginal. We saw a similar execution on the MTN TV spot for the African Cup of Nations. The creatives and director involved had obviously seen many football ads before they got to work on this one. There’s a buffet of shots, angles and techniques that we’ve observed on many an international football ad. Other shots, meanwhile, are amusingly goofy. One for instance, has the ball whooshing through the air, superimposed against a waterscape, towards the setting sun. It then descends into dry land, where the sun shines like it was noon. The end shot has the hero winking at the camera so hard that his face jerks to the side, almost like he was sucker-punched. Nonetheless, this is a spot that has its audience entertained, and Nakumatt glorified further.

SONY-WEGA

The Sony Wega spot, our personal favourite, is absolutely amazing. It’s a different kind of ad, with an idea that’s so intriguingly simple and well executed, it’s almost surreal. Its treatment is authentic, laid-back, almost retro, and very, um, ordinary. Captured entirely in just one shot, we see two nondescript young men engage in an extraordinary show of football expertise, only they are not kicking around a football, but an old black box, which we later realize is an old TV set. For the entire duration of the spot, they pass the box to one another, each effortlessly pulling off every juggling trick in the book. Not once does the action, or the box, touch the ground. All this occurs in an absorbing unpretentious way. There’s a mild and modest method applied to it – no hype, nothing too noisy about it – except at that point when one of the guys delivers a hard boot that crashes the telly against a wall and into smithereens. Why on earth would one do that? The answer comes at the end. “Make room for a Wega”. Brilliant.
Really, I wish all ads grasped audiences and delivered ideas the way this one does; in a straight, understated fashion, but to gut-wrenching effect.
I wonder how many takes they had to pull off to get it right, how many outtakes there might have been, how many TV’s they had to be slam into the wall before they wrapped, how many kids may have taken the ad a bit too literally and tried the same thing … how many advertisers will learn to take such risks and feed the audiences such effective shockers.

COCA-COLA

The Coca-Cola spot, in many people’s books took the cup (gauche pun intended). First flighted during the half-time break at the much-publicized Barca-Arsenal UEFA Cup Final in May, the ad is as simple as it is intriguing. Executed entirely in clay animation, it brings across the simple premise, “We All Speak Football”. The tagline is quite something by itself. Yes, football does bring people of diverse cultures together. Human beings with no physical, cultural or lingual similarity are moved by the spirit of the game, and for that duration of time that we are under its spell, differences between us cease to matter. Coca-Cola were well aware of the ammo they had, but still, rather than follow the well-beaten path of harmonious, emotional, worldwide-friendly communication, they chose to use another language we all understand – dreadfully effective humour. The spot begins by establishing various characters going about their daily tasks; an Einstein-esque scientist prepares to dissect a lab rat, a chef is about to chop the head off a live de-feathered chicken, and a lumberjack readies a final swing of his axe at a terrified tree. All the while, each of them is listening to his radio as a match is relayed to them live. We then hear that a goal’s been scored, and all the resulting celebration turns enemies into friends.
The mouse gets up rejoicing along with the scientist, and they hug. The naked chicken does a jig and bumps chests with the chef. The woodcutter and tree embrace, and the poor tree falls. Then, we see a cactus and balloon hug. A short stocky man seated in bed with his wife leaps out and does a jig just before a handsome stranger, obviously the wife’s boy-toy, pops out of the wardrobe and joins him. The awkward moment doesn’t last in the face of celebration, and the two, both in their underwear, embrace like old buddies.
Just writing down the description makes me realize how crazy the spot is, but it works, effortlessly. It’s all executed exquisitely. One could watch it over and over and snigger like they were seeing it for the first time. The attention to detail is superb; the tree cringes as the cutter takes his last swing, the squeaky lab rat has a bald patch where the incision would have been made, the translucent balloon’s face is drawn on with a felt pen marker, the balding husband wears old long-johns while his wife’s handsome ‘mister’ wears briefs and socks over his well-sculpted frame. The facial expressions are clear, the music (quite similar to the Safaricom thematic tune) fits into the action smugly. And in the midst of it all is the brand – good old Coca-Cola – proving once again why it’s one of the world’s most powerful brands, and pleasantly surprising us with a somewhat different way of carrying out its advertising.

PRINT:

NTV
The print front was not any quieter. NTV, the only one of TV’s Big Three that didn’t have the rights to screen the tournament, ran a print campaign, titled ‘Women’s World Cup’. All set in pink, they weighed down the other side of the equation; the one where normal life can continue outside of the World Cup fanaticism. What the games held for the guys, NTV would match up in their programming. Good one.

MOBILE PLANET
Mobile Planet also ran an sms promotion (one of a multitude) that thankfully had some good advertising work to go with it. This one’s grand prize was a trip for two ladies (I had expected some backlash from anti-stereotype feminists) to Dubai during the duration of the Cup. Such headlines as ‘This World Cup, 32 Nations Compete, Six Kenyan Women Win’ and ‘Boys, this World Cup, Tell the Girls to Get Lost’ graced our newspapers. An amusing campaign.

NANDO’s
Finally, the Nando’s chain of restaurants put up outdoor communication encouraging us not to miss a minute of the action by ordering takeout food, obviously to save us from such arduous tasks as cooking, or eating out while the games continue. That’s a different way of looking at things!

All this said, we are watching for what other advertising ideas the World Cup has spawned. See you next issue.

AOB:
If we were to look at all the communication that’s out as a result of the World Cup, plus a plethora of humorous e-mails doing the rounds, we could safely judge that men dig the tournament, and women absolutely hate it. But surely, can we define audiences so broadly? Doesn’t this point to many other targeting errors and inconsistencies that marketers may involve themselves in? You tell us.