Waste of Space

I have had my eye on this UAP ‘Public Offer’ for a while now, and I am far from impressed.

Everything about this ad is wrong – it is highly ineffective.

First the picture, what Ogilvy called the illustration – the point being that whether it is a photo, diagram or drawing, the visual should illustrate the point that the ad is trying to make.

The word in the English language for this sort of visual is ‘contrived’, which in this particular case should be prefaced with the adverb ‘highly’.

I don’t think I need to break it down excessively: it is very clear even to my ten year old mini-me that the situation being portrayed could not and would not happen in several years of Sundays.

Every ad is an attempt to convince. If you begin your ad (the picture tends to be the first thing that people look at, or the headline, dependent upon layout) with a ‘gambit’ that is unconvincing, how exactly do you expect to proceed to convince?

We sometimes forget that ads are consumed by humans, and that all humans react in exactly the same way to exactly the same things regardless of age, ethnicity, gender or political affiliation.

When something is manifestly fake, even though you do not consciously recognize it as such, although in this case you probably would, your immediate psychological reaction is distrust. Given that ads are a form of communication towards which people are already pre-disposed to be distrusting, to further re-enforce this pre-disposition is simply incompetent.

I do not wish to belabor this point, but when you have between 5 and 7 seconds to capture and hold a readers attention, everything operates at the level of instinct. If you give your reader a reason to instinctively back-off even before you have begun to talk to them, you have lost the battle before it has even begun.

What is even more annoying about this ad is that the visual is, in many ways, completely unnecessary. Let me ask you this: does this picture, in any way, add value to the communication? Does it enlighten?

What has happened here is that yet another curved-swoosh template has been dreamed up by some art director, and some other creative somewhere feels obliged to fill up the space.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, there is a deeper problem with this ad…

What is the point of this ad? What is the communication objective? What particular action is it that this ad is supposed to drive amongst its target audience?

“Easy” I hear you say, “it’s to get us to go and buy UAP shares!”

Well it’s not doing a very good job of it, is it?

Number 1. Why should I rush to go and buy UAP shares? What’s in it for me? (The question that every ad must answer or the people responsible for the transgression should be shot, in both knees).

Where is the information? Where are the 10 key reasons why this is the best investment that I am going to make this year? Where is the ‘killer copy’ that leaves me utterly convinced that UAP is the best insurance firm on the continent bar none and the best investment on the continent after Tullow Oil and land in Lodwar?

Anyone who answers any of these questions by saying ‘check the prospectus’ should be shot, repeatedly.

There is a reason why I have titled this post ‘Waste of Space’, because that is exactly what this ad is. An entire 472.15 cm squared of prime Friday Daily Nation real estate blown on a nothing visual, timid headline and ‘I’m so bored’ copy. Waste. Of. Space. Use the money to buy airtime and call random numbers and talk to the people who answer about why they should buy UAP shares and I assure you that you will get a better return on investment than this ad will give.

Shall I continue?

Where is the f*#king urgency? Three days to go surely means that you want to push people and push them hard to get on the phone to their brokers. Why is the headline so small? Why is it so weak? Where is the “You only have three days left to grab the investment opportunity of the decade!!!” or the “If you do nothing else today, get your UAP share application out of the way!!!” or even the “You snooze, you loose Niggaz…!!!”

N.B. Why do you think that ‘Hurry now whilst stocks last’ is one of the most repeated lines in advertising?

There is a smugness to this ad. An arrogance that suggests the belief that Kenyans do not need to be courted, to be seduced, to be sweet-talked, to be entertained, to be informed and to be respected as thinking, logical, intelligent, money-conscious, self-aware adult human beings. Bure Kabisa!

Same old same old

Another day, another telco price ad.

Now you’ll notice, if you follow these things, that the telcos that generally run price ads are the ones who aren’t green i.e. the fighters. The big boys on Waiyaki Way charge more than everyone else but spend their marketing budget to tell us about new products, promo winners and up-coming concerts.

Being one of the three fighter brands in the telco category in this market must be one of the hardest situations that any telco brand could find itself in on the planet. The dominant player bestrides the market like a huge green elephant, continues to generate uber-profits, leads the way both locally and internationally in terms of product innovation, has finally gotten it’s share price moving, is owned by a large number of the citizens of it’s market and has a level of brand engagement with it’s consumers that puts it in a similar league to Apple, Nike, SuperSport 3 and the Catholic Church.

Now this post is not intended to serve as a deification of Safaricom, rather the question I pose today is this: how can any of the three fighter brands have any success in this market, at this time?

Answer number one is that they need to stop running price ads…

The telco category is a very interesting one because it is both exceptionally functional and deeply, human-ly, emotional – as a category it is borderline bi-polar…

At their core, telcos are essentially pipes – they move information from one place to another place, be that information in the form of sound or bytes. The closest analogy for what telcos have become at the functional level would be water and electricity utilities. The core products that telcos sell, namely minutes and megabytes, have become utterly commoditized – indeed in this market they are even more of a commodity than water and electricity, which are relative luxuries to most Kenyans. Given that there is no real supply limit to minutes and megabytes (just build more base stations/lay more cable), one can in fact predict that the price of the commodity that telcos sell will tend over time towards zero – once everyone everywhere is on 7G, and the infrastructure costs have been recouped, what is left to pay for other than running costs and maintenance?

So on the one hand you have a category that sells a product that is turning into a ubiquitous and almost freely available commodity.

On the other hand you have a category that provides a service that is as fundamental to human beings as eating, breathing and reproducing.

Humans are, by our very nature, social animals. Indeed the worst punishment that you can inflict upon a human being, other than to take his life, is to remove him permanently from the company of other human beings – doing so will surely kill him, or drive him mad, or both.

Telco brands may sell minutes and megabytes, but the need that they fulfill in people’s lives is profound – laughter, joy, tears, love, jokes, gossip, romance, friendship, partnership, adventure, plans, moments, understanding, hope, listening, caring, knowledge, sharing, arguments, disagreements, agreements, teaching, learning, everything.

Back a step: the more commoditized the category, the more important the brand. Forward a step: the more emotional and emotive the category, the more potentially powerful the brand.

A step sideways: I know that one of Safaricom’s great strengths is the enclosed ecosystem that it has built around M-Pesa (a la Apple and iTunes, the descendent of high off-net charges in the mid Noughties). This ecosystem penalizes consumers without an M-Pesa account as it cuts them off from the huge flow of money within it. Given that for the vast majority of Kenyans mobile money transfer systems are a tool primarily for the receipt of money, the opportunity costs of not being within the ecosystem are prohibitive.

However this situation is time-bound, and is essentially a matter for legislation. M-Pesa will go ‘open-source’, be it sooner or later, which brings us conveniently back to the brand.

Over and above it’s (sort of) first mover advantage, innovative products, monopolistic tendencies and diverse ownership, Safaricom’s greatest single strength in this market is it’s brand, namely the emotional position which it holds in the hearts and minds of it’s consumers, which is approaching unassailable.

Telcos are, at an engineering level, networks. The secret about telco brands, which nobody seems to wish to discuss, is that they are all based in one way or another on ‘pre-existing social networks’. I repeat the point about humans being social animals, and this is the key key key issue that the fighter brands are not getting.

Individuals do not churn (switch networks, for the non telco types). Pre-existing social network’s churn. Crews churn. Villages churn. Communities churn. Families churn. Churches churn. Individuals do not churn. A network (telco) exists to connect you to your network (social). A network (telco) without a network (social) is isolation, which is madness and death, or both.

Thus I would say (again) that the key mistake that the fighter brands are making is that they keep trying to package the decision to switch to their networks as an individual decision (thus the obsession with price ads) – when it is not an individual decision, it is a group decision (and yes groups do have sub-conscious decision making mechanisms)… therefore the fighter brands are talking to the wrong people…

Every telco brand must first identify the pre-existing social network that it is going to build itself for and upon. Safaricom has taken the high ground, it’s pre-existing social network is called ‘Kenyans’. It came first, it took the position, you ain’t taking it away, even though yu kind of tried to at launch.

But remember that the weakness of a high ground is that it can be undermined. ‘Kenya’ is but one layer of social network (albeit the largest one numerically) that exists within the economy called Kenya.

yuMobile has kind of been flirting with positioning itself as the telco brand for the ‘pre-existing social network’ loosely known as ‘urban youth’. They need to be a lot more explicit about this.

Airtel launched with a Pan-African positioning, interestingly enough very similar to Celtel’s, but this positioning is way ahead of its time, if indeed it will ever have a time.

Orange has no clear positioning as far as I can see (in this market at least).

The point I guess I’m trying to make to the fighters is this: you’re never going to have everything, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a significant something. Identify a ‘pre-existing social network’ (getting tired of typing that) i.e. market segment and set out to own it and own it completely. Design everything you do for that segment. Ignore all others and be utterly monogamous. Go where they go, talk how they talk, dress like they dress, dream like they dream and never ever let them think that you have forgotten them.

The Kenya telco market is not mature, it is full of opportunity. How about a network for Kikuyus, or for Luos? How about a network for teachers, or for rastafarians? How about a network for Chinese immigrant labour? How about a network just for AFC Leopards fans?

My examples may be flippant but the point is deadly serious. No more price ads, identify your (communal) audience, build and build and build your brand for them until such time as you are one the same and indivisible with them. Then you will have your territory and no one, Safcom included, will ever take it away.

Big up yo'self!

At least three times a year its ‘awards season’, and no I do not mean the Oscars/golden globes/grammys, I mean our very own COYA/MSK/Top 100 extravaganzas.

When one of the big brands that you work for wins an award, they will almost certainly want to tell the world all about it – and nothing less than a full page will do!

Now these ads tend to follow something of a template – a big picture of the award(s), a prominent logo of the award winner and a token message of thanks to ‘our customers, staff, blah blah blah who made it happen’.

‘We’ve won an award’ ads are inherently tricky because they are moving your brand into the territory of boasting, and boasting is a perilous artform. If you get it right you will be lauded from and to the roof-tops (a la all the best MCs), but if you get it wrong… ‘Kwani this guy thinks he’s who…?’

There is a deeper question which I have found myself faced with everytime that I have had to write an awards ad – what am I actually trying to say? Yeah we won an award so what? How can I best spin this for the brand? How can I relate this back to what the brand does and promises and offers?

Let me put it another way – should the “we’ve won an award” message be the headline of the ad, or should it be the conclusion?

I think that there is an element of laziness with these ads, on the part both of the agency and the client. The fact that you’ve won an award is not really the point – it’s all the stuff that you’ve done over the previous year that allowed you to win the award that you need to be talking about.

Now I understand perfectly that award ads tend to be ‘time-pressured’. The ceremony was last night and the CEO wants to see the ad in the next day’s paper, and what does he pay you for, and you guys are supposed to be able to think quickly… so the agency people spend all morning running around trying to find a semi-decent shot of the trophy, they plonk on a logo, type ‘thanks blah blah blah', get it approved by a harassed and panicking marketing chic, send it to the papers and then go for a beer or three feeling somehow unfulfilled without really understanding why.

So I guess my message is to Bwana CEO – give your agency a week. If you’re going to spend 600k on a full page, make it count – land a meaningful blow. Get your people to brief the agency (though I guess the agency should know) on everything that has happened over the previous year that has made it such a good year – what products you launched, where you innovated, how you introduced compulsory yoga sessions every morning… in other words give the agency what my old C.D. used to call ‘The Nyama’ i.e. ammunition.

I have always felt that award ads should be much more like advertorials than fashion shoots for a trophy. They should be bursting with news. An award ad gives you the opportunity to talk about your company – and to educate the public about the people and processes behind the brand that they know and, hopefully, love.

Yes of course your brand can’t be successful without the support of your customers, and it is important to thank and acknowledge them, but I feel that the primary audience of an award ad should actually be your own staff – it’s their award, they made it happen, they implemented, they worked long nights, they attended yoga every morning… let the ad be a celebration of them. Of almost equal importance to your staff are your suppliers and partners, without whom you would literally be dead in the water, yet they all too often get forgotten and ignored.

So next time you win an award, stop before you run to shout to the world about how clever you are for winning it. Big picture of a trophy? Seen that, turn the page – minimal impact, minimal added value to your brand… You might not win another award for a while, so seize the opportunity – carpe diem – and make the most of it. After all if you don’t make the most of it, what was the point of winning it in the first place, other than to experience a brief post-coital glow which will soon fade in the face of the next quarterly investors briefing. Finally, people will appreciate the effort (customers and staff). They will read the stories, they will look at the pictures, and they will conclude, in agreement with you, that yes, these guys did indeed deserve to win the award.

Re-branding

I must admit I quite like the slightly sly way that 540 went about their re-brand. No full-page ads and ‘I am Britam’ campaigns for them – simply replace ‘540’ with ‘SAX’ and get on with it. Same colors, same style, same font, same everything else, just a slightly different logo.

Re-branding is becoming quite fashionable – Kenya Power, Unaitas, Athi Water and Britam itself are some recent examples that spring to mind.

A re-branding exercise is no small task, especially for a brand that has a high level of mass awareness like Kenya Power. A brand is of course a much more complex animal than just a logo – as the 540/SAX example well demonstrates – it is the accumulation and culmination in the consumers mind of a large number of associations with and experiences of the brand over time – in other words, it is a rep.

Now, before I proceed, it is important to note that a ‘rep’ is something that can be built (slowly over time) or destroyed (very quickly) either intentionally or unintentionally. The vast majority of brands in this town (excluding the multinational boys) tend to be built unintentionally – by which I mean that the particular ‘rep’ that the brand has acquired is a by-product of everything that the brand has been doing as opposed to an objective in and of itself.

This last sentence essentially lies at the heart of what a re-branding exercise is all about – it is an attempt to design a brand, and the expressions of that brand, in such a way as to create a particular, pre-meditated and business-objective-focused ‘rep’ for the brand in the consumers mind.

This is the key point – a brand is a set of managed perceptions, and creating one is a process of meticulous management.

‘Sonko’ aka Gideon Mbuvi M.P. is a very good example of what I’m talking about. He has ‘packaged’ himself, and meticulously maintained the packaging of himself as being ‘by the urban youth, of the urban youth and for the urban youth’. That in many African countries he would soon be moving into grandfather territory isn’t the point, the point is that he has set out pro-actively, and in a calculated manner, to create the set of perceptions in his audience’s minds that will enable him and empower him to achieve his political/business goals. Sonko is not an ‘an accident’, Sonko is a brand…

N.B. I’m not saying btw that I’m going to vote for the guy, I just admire his work at a professional level.

Sonko further serves as a very useful ‘thought-experiment’ vis a vis the purpose of re-branding. In his case, it is inevitable that his present ‘brand position’ will become untenable – botox can after all only take one so far. He will therefore reach a stage in his career where he will be obliged to re-brand – and it is the thinking behind this process that so well illustrates how one should correctly go about it.

The first thing he will have to do is identify a new (economic/social/demographic) ‘constituency’ i.e. market. Then he’ll have to look at who else is playing in that market (competitor analysis). Once he’s identified them, he’ll then have to figure out how he’s going to differentiate himself from them in such a way as to elevate himself above them without being so differentiated as to differentiate himself out of the category (his brand position). In figuring this out he may look at international trends (Malema, Castro, Malcolm X) and he should try and get a feel for how his market/constituency is evolving (position for tomorrow, not for today).

Once he has figured out all of the above, documented it and had it approved by his board of directors, he can now set about giving expression to his new brand position. Should he wear a tie, or bow-tie? One color, three, patterns? How about a hat – evolve from baseball to bowler? Still in a Hummer? Range Rover to common? A chopper? An airship? Should he change the way he talks? Kiswahili kisanifu? The Queens’/Kijana Wamalwa’s English? What about where he hangs out? A bit less of ‘the club’ and a bit more Karen Club…?

The point is that whatever he decides, his decisions will be to serve a purpose – to build the rep/brand he needs built to enable and empower his political and economic goals.

Thus a re-brand is always a business decision, and it must be driven by an understanding that where you are presently positioned is not where you need to be positioned to perform at your optimal level.

The last lesson from the future Sonko – don’t leave it too late! Review your position on a regular basis and slowly evolve your brand to keep it fresh and relevant for years and years to come.