So here I am reading that Ogilvy Africa's headquarters will now be based in Kenya. Great stuff, great news, way to go. With this comes the CEO, nope it aint a Mwangi, Mutua or Onyango. Its some Odiero,...now lets not get xenophobic. I have nothing against these dudes.What ticks me off is that the Kenyan (local) Creative does not realise that he is a species facing extinction.
With most companies not sending out locals to gain much needed training, I am afraid that the fight just got harder for local creatives to make it to the top. Why do I say so?
Well, have your heard of something called dual citizenship. A nice answer to any shareholder who would ask who will head agency creative departments when current breed of Odieros go? Answer is simple, some new Odiero who will get dual citizenship chap chap.
Kenyan creatives, what is the point of working your asses off for places that claim to have affiliates with big fat global agencies, while you do not kula the fruits of affiliation.
The only way you can assure yourselves of getting what is rightly yours is
1) Kicking ass at work (Good luck getting a 75Million campaign signed off with your skin colour)
2)Rightly demand what is yours and get your ass trained overseas by your agency or you will just be reduced to that same-o same-o song, "you have great potential tra la la la la but you aint ready".
Unless of course you are happy with being yet another token black creative.
Hey, that's just my opinion.
Very true...I would like to add a 3rd option...start your own agency and hepa from your current one with some serious clients...that is if you are really all that in which case the clients will most def walk with you :-) Good luck!
ReplyDeletedude, you have found the light. now follow it. i quit the agency life because as a local mkenya myself (albeit a colour between black and white), i found little hope of findinf my own hard-earned self-respect from a bunch of overpaid bootlickers that i could not emulate. so i decided to quit the shit and start my own. its tough out there, but you get what you look for in the agencies but never get there - great clients, great work, hard work, freedom and above all, your self respect. all it takes is the will to sacrifice your saalo and start, even as a one-man-show. this is the only way to hit back. we cannot hit back from within the agency because we are all in the same corner. so, dude, you got the guts to take the leap of faith? believe that you do. and you will make it.
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