COMPLACENT MARKETING
MARKETING PAST
WORKING HOURS
By Diana Obath-Osano
O
n a typical Friday evening,
roaming around town, traffic
is hectic. You manage to get
through the madness and settle in at
your favourite spot with friends or
colleagues, and get down to telling
stories of the week now past.
Sooner or later, you find yourself
swooned up in the euphoria that is
Nairobi’s middle class most favourite
thing to do – people watching.
Never mind that everyone walking
in through the door is dressed to kill,
with cologne or perfume to sting
the sense of smell and a swag to
draw everybody’s attention to their
statement walk while they try to
locate their friends.
And so on goes the evening, every
time someone walks in, in an almost
synchronized unison, everyone stares
at the lady or gentleman head to toe
and you can almost tell that they
have already concluded what they do,
where they live, and even what their
name might be.
In small groups you see people taking
selfies, in other groups the discussions
are going on via text message because
everyone is on the phone, and in a
corner, usually at the balcony, is a set
of young middle aged men, whose
seats were reserved since 5pm.
They are loud and confident. They
drop big names and talk about big
cars. They recount loudly the events
of the previous weekend and roar
‘‘On some level, as a marketing professional,
you know the truth. We all do. These are the
fake it till you make it type of people. They
need to rave their egos with delusions of
grandeur, when in reality, they are modest
average people.’’
14 MAL 11/16 ISSUE
with laughter as they recall that they
cannot recall what happened last
weekend.
They all dress the same – typical birds
of a feather. They have a cool swag
and expensive watches. You never
see them raise their hands to call a
waiter. They arrive and sit and empty
glasses arrive behind them.
When they need a refill, it comes in
an ice bucket and a bottle sparkler
to top it off, as if to make the
announcement to everyone present
that it is the third bottle of whiskey
in just a couple of hours.
Most importantly, they know the
manager. How did I know this? If a
waiter is a second late with the ice,
they call for the manager – literally,
shout across the place that the
manager should present themselves
and they demand for another waiter.
In the other corner is a group of
women, probably having a ‘chama’?
Wine is flowing in plenty on that
table, usually accompanied by some
bitings earlier on in the evening. Then