SPARE US THESE INCREDULOUS TV ADVERTS

What is your reaction when you see some adverts on TV? Laugh, smile, grin, curse or you keep silent, in an effort to keep whatever thoughts that the advert(s) has conjured from spilling off your tongue?

It is a known fact that adverts do push product sales hence the huge amount of money companies including those with solid brand names invests in trying to seduce the consuming public to patronize their products with excitingly creative adverts.

Internationally known and trusted brands such as Gucci, Nike, Daimler-Chrysler, Toyota, Samsung, Coca-Cola, and Johnnie Walker among others cough up good cash to Ad agencies, all in a drive to ensure that the best of ads are shot and sold to the target audience because they know its benefits.

Come to Ghana and some of the adverts that pop up on our TV screens are to say the least junk.  Some lack creativity. Others leave us more confused. That is, these adverts tend to piss off the viewer(s) they are trying to attract to their products.

Those at fault in this regard are the drink companies, hair and skin product companies. Their adverts in plain words SUCK. It leaves one wondering if they really spent money on it or it was a ‘gift’ some ad company decided to hand them. And even with gifts one must be very choosy in accepting.

Sometimes I’m tempted to believe the communication/ marketing guys of these businesses are ‘inadequate’ when it comes to the importance adverts play in sustaining a business or brand. 

Adverts are to inform, excite, educate and inciting the buying nerves of the viewing public. Unfortunately some don’t adequately do so.

Take for instance the Alomo Bitters adverts, where the guy kept day dreaming about of his Alomo bitters and the amount he will gulp down after a day's work. And when asked to proffer an opinion at a board meeting all he could say was Alomo! How lame could it get? . What about the others where consumers dance their self to exhaustion because they’ve drank a particular brand of alcoholic beverage?

We have seen hair cream ads where we see the lady smearing the cream over a weave on (Jeez). There is this particular one where a lady got a job offer because she uses a particular soap to bath. Oh, and that bottled water advert where the lady stopped her presentation, walked to the end of a colleague’s table to drink a particular brand of water. And what riled me to write this blog post is the one I saw some days ago, about a hair cream for guys featuring actor, John Dumelo.

In the advert, Mr. Dumelo enters a barbering shop in a casual wear (a white T-shirt and a baseball cap). Before we know it, the man has miraculously turned all corporate spotting a suit after getting a haircut. Yes a SUIT. Where or how he got it from, only the director and him could tell. AND IT FEATURES AWARD WINNING ACTOR JOHN DUMELO.

I just can’t fathom what these Ad agencies and their clients think of us the viewers. That we are a bunch of ignoramus who can be served such ridiculous ads? Heavens!

Please we are not. We see them all, your efforts at selling or feeding us crappy commercials. Don’t you feel ashamed when you see those foreign adverts on your screens? How the storyline flows, the voice over accompanying it (some don’t even need them), the camera works, the flawless editing and all? Don’t you my advertising ‘gurus’?

But then, not all Ad agencies are lame. Some have cut their teeth and are internationally acclaimed. They are in a class of their own. And some of their colleagues should learn from them.

Corporate organizations should also come to the realization that adverts are an image selling conduit so if first impressions are anything to go by (as the adage goes) then it is in their best interest to sell us good TV commercials.

Spare us some these incredulous, farcical commercials that shows on our screens.