About advertising

Driving through the fast developing city these days, one can observe many new buildings rising left, right and centre and at great speed. What was a landmark yesterday is all of a sudden overshadowed by a multi-storey building tomorrow. What would happen if there was no shortage of cement is anybody’s guess. Competing with new high rises are the ever bigger billboards decorating the sides of the roads and roundabouts on which colourful images are displayed, intended to catch the attention of passers by. These mega adverts are meant to encourage the public to buy whatever product is being displayed and appeal to anybody’s fantasy about having a good time, being associated with a certain class of people, getting good services and being able to trust the quality of a particular product or service. Key for the advertiser is to connect to what potential buyers would find important in life; an appeal to their values, in other words. This is done all over the world and so also in Ethiopia. Many companies appeal to what children like, for example a little toy in a box of cornflakes. Others target the youth, mothers, women and men, depending on their product. Examples include famous football players having a certain soft drink, a pretty girl standing next to a bottle of Scotch, another pretty girl lying down on a mattress, a mother holding a smiling baby and a container of lotion, not to forget successful business men using a certain computer or mobile phone. Very often products are displayed in sex appeal fashion, promising results that are only laterally connected to buying the product. This is interesting as adverts indeed appeal to emotions and situations that clients can connect to, suggesting that when buying the product in question good things are to follow automatically. This is not true of course and the wise customer checks prices and quality before pulling out the wallet or signing the cheque. You don’t become a good football player by drinking a certain soft drink; neither do you become a successful business man holding the latest handset. The pretty girls also don’t come along with the bottle or the mattress. In any case, adverts try to appeal to what excites people.
For the past few weeks I have been driving past some mega adverts in town and I sometimes find it difficult to instantly grasp the message. This is may be because the advert is so big that I cannot see it all at once, while driving past or it may be that I cannot connect my way of life to the message in question. One mega advert for example shows a young lady happily driving a car, while strapped into a seatbelt. The suggestion here is that using the advertised product will have a lifesaving effect. A good metaphor I would say and it explains the confident smile of the young lady, knowing that she will be well protected should the need arise. What is interesting though is that next to nobody uses seatbelts in this country. Seatbelts are for sissies, are uncomfortable and stain your clothes, not so? Everyday I get surprised again by the way parents and drivers put little children on the front seat next to them without strapping them in the seatbelt. Any slight sudden application of the brakes would catapult them forward with the risk of hurting their head or break a few teeth. A real collision would have instant serious consequences. Somehow the radio, TV and even billboard messages by the traffic police don’t seem to have any effect. With nobody using a seatbelt, how big a chance would there be then for the advert in question to be understood or taken serious? The advert may not really connect to what people value and in fact may even have the opposite effect instead.
Another huge advert, positioned quite strategically at a junction somewhere in town, displays a Mursi woman and man working at a computer, indicating the suitability of the particular brand for the Ethiopian market. Very original I must say and it made me smile when I first saw it. It still does. Interesting enough, I can’t remember the name of the brand. Admittedly, I am not good at remembering names. Perhaps the scene on display distracts me too much from catching the company’s name, which is a pity because it misses the point of the advert.
Another interesting observation is that the advertising on ETV seems to be very popular as it takes the form of a short drama or comedy, showing what common people can indeed connect to in real life. This indicates that it is important for the advertiser to know what the daily life of the audience is like. Knowing their culture is important as well to have insight into what is and what is not appreciated and acceptable in a certain society. What works well in one part of the world may not be appreciated somewhere else at all.
Advertising is thus more complicated than it seems and multinationals spend huge amounts of money to market their products in a way that appeals to the public in different parts of the world. When considering advertising it is important to find the answers to a few questions first, like for example:
Defining: what is characteristic of your product and how does it benefit the potential buyer?
Targeting: who are your potential customers and what is their background?
Connecting: what appeals to your clients and how can you match your product with their values?
Reaching out: what media will reach your buyers? Billboards, TV, radio, newspapers (which?), websites, flyers, etc?
Having the answers to some of these questions will help you design your advertising strategy and focus on your potential buyers. This may be more effective than copying what others do, here or in other parts of the world.