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.
