USE ME, I'M FAMOUS!

Theory and practice prove that the use of super stars in advertising generates a lot of attention from the public. So how is the Kenyan advertising fraternity doing when it comes to choosing brand ambassadors? Have we chosen the right ones? Are they relevant? Have they done justice to the brands they represent? Here's my opinion.

Julie Gichuru: Dettol Handwashing Campaign
This is a no brainer. Julie was the perfect choice. Her personality emits warmth, care and knowledge. Julie has initiated and taken part in several philanthropic campaigns over the years. The ad was also executed in a simple manner. It didn't look like out the place acting. Just good ol'Julie. "If I don't take care of them, who will?" Babes, you can take care of me any given day. Hell I can even trust you to baby sit my daughter.

Wahu: Rexona Anti Perspirant
Here's another association that I find pretty cool. Most chics simply adore Wahu. She has this girl next door personality which she easily switches to the sexy lass who's married to the first person who comes to mind when you think Kenyan A list celebrity. The girls would definitely listen to Wahu and the glitz that was captured on the billboards was right up her ally. I found the TVC a tad bit exaggerated, but hey that's just me. Considering that she's a chic always on the move, hard working and an excellent stage performer; I'd say that they got this one right.

David Rudisha: Kiwi
Talk about a great opportunity lost in execution. The storyline was kind of cool but what raised debate was the whole "fyatu fyako" saga. But maybe its only a few up-town guys who notice the accent. Is the reaction the same in the Rift Valley? Maybe not. Shoes, durability and the World Athlete of the Year? Yes, I buy the connection and its perfect but clearly the directors had a really hard time getting the guy to read the auto-cue. Ok, I'll let it pass, at least the ad remained relevant to his trade.

Sheila Mwanyiga: Vaseline Cocoa Butter
Totally correct. Sheila is another favorite with the girls. She is a girly girl so to speak. The kind of chic that women find approachable for chit chat and advise. The girl is also a total knock out in my books so the association here clearly works. The execution was smooth, sexy without shouting. The exact thing that I guess a chic wants when she uses Vaseline Cocoa Butter. Simply perfect.

Nameless: EABL responsible drinking
Ok EABL decided to get Kenya's most famous male singer and use him to endorse a drink driving campaign. Was it a good decision? Hell yeah. You see Nameless is the kind of guy who makes a living from working late night after late night yet somehow he has managed to maintain star appeal without getting involved in scandals. The dude is hardly known for insobriety. If Nameless came up to me in a bar and told me, hey teddy you are too plastered to drive si you take a cab.....I would probably listen to the logic. Whether I would go home is a whole different ball game.

Amani: Airtel
Not bad. When Airtel did this they were hoping to swoop the youth market. Did the campaign work for them? Mimi pana jua. What I must say though is that Amani was a great choice. With all those MTV awards plus no major scandals she fitted in perfectly. Lively and bouncy (Yes, two of them really bounce). Lets not forget that she had already crossed borders and worked with various continental artists before the campaign, so her association with stars was relevant.

Suzzane Owiyo: Harpic
Now, now, now. Here's one that really caused a lot of debate. Suzzanne Owiyo and toilet? Toilet and Suzzanne Owiyo? SHIT!!!!(pun intended). I really do not get the connection here. Do guys connect her with home care? I don't think so. Would she work for something like Visa cards or Kenya Airways? I think so. Owiyo is definitely a great and celebrated Kenyan but the connection with Harpic I do not really get. I would really like to know your opinion on this one. My opinion? Nope, Harpic missed the boat on this one.( By the way did you know that the Nyambane Harpic campaign sent their sales soaring through the roof?).

Jua Kali: Orange
Here's a perfect example of a wasted opportunity. Jua was at the height of his career but Orange was at the height of the unknown. Cool personality not so cool brand. 10 million bob worth of Jua Kali endorsement went down the drain. If you ask me the execution was totally lousy. What were these guys thinking? Anyway at least Orange contributed to the Kenya music industry in its own weird way.

Ezekiel Kemboi: Milo with Actigen E
Milo selected Ezekiel Kemboi for his champion status in the Kenyan sports arena. This choice could not have come at a better time for the brand especially with the way this guy performed at Daegu (Remember the dance?). Milo has always been associated with sports and champions so their choice here was great. Imagine if they had chosen to go the Samuel Wanjiru route....walalalalala.

Wyre: Samsung dual sim
Wyre is a dude who represents the cool factor. I believe Samsung made a good choice here. If the objective was to make dual sims look cool then they achieved it in my opinion. The only thing that fell flat on its face was the radio campaign. A chic comes up to Wyre and screams oh my god its Wyre, can I have your autograph? Wyre then says, you can either have my autograph or this cool samsung phone so pretty girl "make a choice, make a choice". The chic then chooses the phone and Wyre belts out "She said dat". Pretty corny. What I would have done is simply get a cool Wyre music piece done for Samsung.

Wilbroda: Royco
When it comes to touching base with the real mwananchi, lets just face it Citizen TV has taken the cake. Somehow they have managed to make huge stars out of their cast and I tell you these guys are huge in the mashinanis. Wilbroda was used pretty well to sell those Royco cubes. She was in complete character.She's the kind of woman who would knock on your door with udaku for five centuries and not leave. Pretty okay when it comes to creating attention for the brand.

Wilbroda, Jalango & Awinja: Molo Milk
There's something I really like about this commercial in its raw Kenyan comedic fashion. Its pure slapstick, pure silly. You cant help but laugh at those two clowns. Nice choice of personalities. Only one major snag. The guys go "Usiseme maziwa, sema Ngombe" while the brand is Molo Milk. Now, if the brand was called Ngombe Milk that would have been a clear win. If the packaging has a fat ass cow then maybe it makes sense. All the same lets watch this space and see if those two clowns will generate a spike in the Molo Milk sales graph.

Celebrities indeed play an important role in the Advertising industry and no doubt Kenyan celebs are starting to make a good amount of cash from brand endorsements. But here's my advice. Choose your celebs carefully, lest you just might be flushing your money down the toilet (No relation to Harpic, I swear).


Hey, that's just my opinion.

Omera,....but do they say!

Y&R Kenya wins big at 2011 MSK Brand Warriors Awards

At the recent 2011 MSK Brand Warriors Awards, the Y&R Group in Kenya announced that five of its clients were among the top winners.

 

Top advertising campaigns included: Pay-TV challenger brand, Zuku winning the Best Product Launch award; yuMobile, the mobile telecommunications company achieved a second place for Best Promotion Campaign for the 'No Monkey Business' campaign and positioned fourth in the Best Market Offense category.

Other Y&R Kenya clients winning awards included: Toyota and Ecobank in the Best Corporate Launch category; Aga Khan Heart and Cancer Centre in the Best Product Launch category and Co-op Bank was ranked in the Best Promotion Campaign for its BizWise SME loan campaign.

Chairman of Y&R Africa & Indian Ocean, Chris Harrison commenting on the agency's performance said, "In this era of cut-throat competition we are pleased to note that most of our clients choose to be with Y&R because our work is effective. These awards acknowledge those clients and our teams who work closely with them to deliver results."

"Great ideas drive business, and great ideas are our business" Harrison concluded

WORDS OF WISDOM

David Ogilvy was a college dropout, a chef, a door-to-door salesman, and a copywriter. Starting with no clients and a staff of two, he built one of the largest advertising agencies in the world.

Need some inspiration? Here are some of his most famous quotes. Hey, thats just his opinion.
“The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.”

“I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.”

“I don’t know the rules of grammar… If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.”

“Good copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You’ve got to believe in the product.”

"If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative."

"Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product."

"I once used the word OBSOLETE in a headline, only to discover that 43 per cent of housewives had no idea what it meant. In another headline, I used the word INEFFABLE, only to discover that I didn't know what it meant myself."

"On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar."

"The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything."

"The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her"

"The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be."

"The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace."

"There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about 50 per cent more readers."

"What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it."

"You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with something dull. When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire."

"Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine."

"Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them."

"Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals."

"I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information."

"If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out — either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time."

"Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything."

“If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don’t let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising.”

“First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it.”