Where did all the good ads go?

Tom Odhiambo

If one may ask: What do Peter Marangi and Eveready Paka Power have in common?

For the generation that comes after the 1980s, only Peter Marangi is familiar. But for those born earlier, they will remember Eveready Paka Power as one of the most arresting adverts to ever appear on Kenyan radio.

Captivating: Most adverts are concentrated in Nairobi. [PHOTOS: PIUS CHERUYIOT AND JONAH ONYANGO/STANDARD]

The advert, then associated with one of the celebrated radio announcers in the country, was something I looked forward to every evening. It made my day. It was memorable. It evoked energy. And it was creative. So, is Mr Peter Marangi.

Few Kenyans perceive advertisements as products of creativity with the capacity to entertain. Many probably see them as mere promotional material meant to sell goods and services. Or even simply as billboards or handouts that spoil the environment. Such views have merit. Indeed, some adverts in Nairobi are an eyesore. Consider those metallic boards that compete with the flowers to proclaim how "this space has been rehabilitated by X and Y in conjunction with the City Council of Nairobi".

What sense of irony (or humour) is this? How do you beautify the environment by adding scrap metal to it?

But what I wish to reflect on, after much travelling in different parts of the country, is the artistic and entertainment aspects of the various adverts. From billboards, leaflets, jingles to wall paintings, most adverts simply do not sell — if that is the original intention of the producers and owners of such adverts. For instance, there is this advert showing a bus headed somewhere (wherever its destination is) with a sheep’s head jutting out the window and a silly looking fellow with a chicken in his arms also looking out the window.

Where exactly is this bus going? In which part of the country do people still travel like that, with livestock such as sheep or goats in the bus? Why is the man holding chicken in his arms in the bus? Is this humour? Was it a way of replaying stereotypes about some Kenyans? What is the ‘message’ in this advert?

I have unsuccessfully tried to decode the advert and relate it to the service that the advertiser is rendering.

Which brings me to the gist of the matter. Adverts, most often, are meant to communicate. The idea is to express an intention or introduce a service or commodity. Simplicity and clarity are key to how the advert is received. But to achieve the two, the creator of the advert has to be creative.

Creativity, on the other hand, demands that the artist has to think about the audience, seek to understand its sensibilities, be alert to the possibilities of the message being prejudicial and still manage to address as broad an audience as possible.

Some of these expectations may not be learned in the classroom. Often, what they teach in school is about ‘sell, sell and sell’. But in the real world, one needs to think creatively how to use in equal measure the book-knowledge and life-knowledge.

Life knowledge is what makes possible the ‘durability’ of Peter Marangi. He is not simply funny. He brings verve, novelty and a sense of humanness to the screen or radio. An encounter with him on screen enlivens one. It reminds you the product is not something that is being forced on you but rather adds value to your life.

Creative advertisers should also reflect on the different characteristics of the market. Indeed, ingenious advertisers may not only reach a particular segment of the market but will also draw in those who are not primarily addressed.

Ingenious

The ripple effect of a good advert creates waves that may reach beyond the intended radius. To do so, the creator has to think very much in the mould of other professions in the entertainment industry. Many films cut across ages, races, religious affiliations and educational backgrounds. They do so by investing in multiple languages and symbols.

Yet, our advertising industry sometimes behaves as if the only people worth addressing live in Nairobi. If you travel upcountry, for example to Western Kenya, you would think that consumers of various commodity brands do not live beyond Kangemi. Major adverts simply end there.

Nakuru, Eldoret and Kisumu are major towns with populations ranging between 350,000 and 500,000. Surely, this is a market worth selling to. But even in Nairobi, adverts discriminate on the basis of age, gender and social class. Where is the creative energy that would transform these adverts to messages that sell across these social differences?

What we need is an advertising industry that also entertains. Consumers need to be turned into followers or even fanatics of a commodity. They are not zombies who will simply endure a boring advert repeatedly telling them about a brand they have probably grown up with and to which they are loyal. They need some affirmation that they will continue to benefit if they retain the loyalty; that the rewards they receive from continued purchase of the product are better than if they switched to another brand.

Monotony

Also, the advert — whether on billboard, TV, radio, newspaper or leaflets thrust into your face when you are stuck in a traffic jam — is meant to be some kind of monotony breaker. It is supposed to offer stimuli different from the common fare of stale news on the TV and airwaves. It should help you reflect more not only on the product being promoted but also life in general.

In a consumerist age, where selling and buying have overridden most other social activities, a clever advert may just be the right reminder about the vanity of ostentatious consumption that has bedevilled our working class with backbreaking debts.

Adverts are a form of cultural production of a given society. They have clues as to the consumption patterns, social-class differentiation, industrial sophistication or even political and ideological orientations within a society. However, at the end of the day, it is a form of communication. They should not be irritating, offensive, prejudicial, stereotyping or insulting. But the worst that adverts can be is to be boring; as if to imply that consumers can only see but not think.