Bado iko more

Now my sources tell me, and I have many, that the agency responsible for the Tusker ‘It’s our time’ campaign is BBDO in London. This is the same agency which produced the ‘Refresh your Roots’ campaign which had Kenyan men complaining that they don’t dance on tables. They are also the UK agency that handles a lot of Diageo’s work, especially for Guinness.

Now BBDO is a ‘hot’ agency, of this there is no doubt. Their client list reads like a ‘who’s who’, or more like a creative’s wet dream, ranging from uefa and Mercedes-Benz to Famous Grouse, Mars Bars and the Economist. It is easy to see why any brand or marketing director would want to work with an agency like theirs - no doubt their offices look like something out of a Hollywood movie and they probably throw amazing client parties, which is all good, but what is not really all good is the fact that a Kenyan brand of the status of Tusker is being entrusted to a bunch of London boys – and there are two reasons why it is not all good, which I shall now proceed to break down for ya’ll ‘onetime’.

Reason No. 1: Where the hell is Kenya?

Ok chances are that if you’re working for a top-notch agency in London you probably do know where Kenya is. You probably also know that Kenya has beautiful beaches, loads of wildlife, a fiery political scene and dudes who can run. However you probably don’t know much more.

On a wider context, you are probably aware of the fact that Africa isn’t quite as messed up as it used to be, that things are beginning ‘to happen’, and that we are the next next next ‘big thing’. Infact you can see this ‘African renaissance blah blah blah’ thinking all the way through the Tusker ad (it’s what’s called a comfortable cliché) – infact again, when I think about it, the ‘it’s our time’ concept is little more than a (poor) attempt to remix Shakira’s ‘It’s time for Africa’…

The thinking behind the 'it's our time' campaign is a bit patronizing and is quite typical of the West’s bi-polar view of Africa – that we are either a basket case to be pitied or bright-eyed young things who need a pat on the back – jolly good, it’s your time now… The scene in the ad where it goes to London and somehow the shock waves from Kenya are causing an earth tremor is to my mind very indicative of the whole viewpoint of the commercial – that somehow the recognition that we seek as Kenyan men can only be found around the board room tables of London… I don’t know if anyone else finds this bit of the ad somehow very Nigerian…?

I could digress into an analysis of the psychological underpinnings of the phenomenon known as neo-colonialism, but I won’t, for now…

I like to draw parallels between the world of advertising and the world of stand-up comedy. The truth of the matter, in both artforms, is that cultural understanding and cultural reference points are very important. There are very few stand-ups, if any, on this planet who can bring the house down in every capital city on this planet, the reason being that what is funny in Berlin is not necessarily funny in Bangkok, and what is funny in Beijing is not necessarily funny in Bamako (making the huge assumption of course that everyone speaks the same language, which they don’t.)

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those guys who say an ad must be made in Kenya and by a Kenyan in order for it to work with Kenyans. I do not believe this to be true, and there is plenty of evidence to show that it is not true. What I do believe though is that it is considerably harder to talk to a culture with which you are unfamiliar, and only those communicators who have a truly profound understanding of what makes humans tick as humans are able to consistently and successfully communicate their ideas across cultures and over time.

Muppets

The fact that BBDO are sitting in London and don’t have much understanding of our local market though doesn’t excuse for me the poverty of their work – if you’re advertising a beer from Africa that has a big elephant on the front and is called Tusker then the very least you can do is make your ad big, bold, awesome, earth-shaking and elephant-bull-like you Muppets…

Reason No. 2: We’re trying to build an industry

It is actually quite frightening, as a Kenyan ad man, to think that one of the very few true Kenyan ‘big brands’ is being shipped off to a London agency. What this means quite clearly is that the marketing people at eabl don’t think that there is an agency in Nairobi that is capable of handling and building their flagship brand.

Here in Nairobi the vast majority of brands with a significant ad-spend behind them are the multi-national FMCG’s – the Coca Colas and the Unilevers and the P&G’s and the Reckitts. Much as all the brands that these conglomerates ‘house’ are ‘with’ and agency in Nairobi (by virtue of affiliations), none of them are really with an agency in the sense of having a deep and meaningful intimate strategic and creative relationship. By and large the brands come pre-positioned from abroad, and the campaigns come pre-designed from abroad, which means that the work of the Nairobi agency is largely to adapt and to implement.

What this means is that the number of local brands for whom the local agencies have the opportunity to produce good work for is rather limited – Safcom, eabl themselves, some of the banks, a few manufacturing outfits, gava and NGO’s. Therefore when one of these local brands, and one of the most iconic at that, decides to take it’s work ‘off-shore’, we should all be very afraid and it is a sad day for the industry.

And industry is indeed the relevant word. This is not about one particular conglomerate or new, hot upstart. This is not about some guys who are well-connected and some other guys who are undercutting everyone else. This is about our collective output and prospects as an industry. I would love to be able to say to eabl that the Kenyan ad industry is super-hot, and that we churn out a killer-campaign every month, but we just don’t… Niko na Safaricom and Mimi ni Member are two bad-boy campaigns that spring to mind, but if you can name me another eight from the last decade I’ll be very surprised.

Wapi Compe?

For me you only get an industry, and a vibrant one at that, on the back of competition, and our industry, such as it is, is sorely lacking in genuine competition – competition for accounts, competition for talent, competition for awards, competition for glory… because there is so little competition, there is no drive to excel, which is why, as an industry, we are not producing a hit a month, which should be the minimum by the way…

I’m not saying that we don’t produce good ads, we do, on occasion, but I’m not talking about the ‘occasional’ funny radio spot or witty headline. I’m talking about the big campaigns that inject themselves into the Nation’s psyche there within to live for generations. These are sadly few and far between.

Ads telling you how to wash your hands and disinfect a toilet, on the other hand, we are masters at, which is wonderful, but ads that kids grow up to tell their own kids about, wapi?

I believe that it is in the long term interests of the marketing departments of Nairobi to have on their doorstep the most vibrant ad industry in Africa (and if you think that Lagos is sleeping, you are sleeping). I therefore think that the marketing departments of Nairobi have to make a conscious effort to help to build the ad industry – after all, they are the ones who fuel it. By way of example, the marketing fraternity should be aghast by the fact that the ad industry does not have an annual awards ceremony, because what that means is that the ad industry isn’t all that bothered to compete and showcase it’s work, which further means that the ad industry isn’t all that bothered about producing competitive work for you… do you get me?

I would love to see Tusker come back home. After all, we can’t do much worse of a job than the London boys, and if you still want to go offshore, I found these Ugandans who had a fair bash at a Tusker ad all of their own…