OUT OF THE BOX
OUT OF THE BOX
THE MINEFIELD IN MARKETING : HOW NOT TO MARKET
By Richard Njeru
If the best-laid plans of marketers often go awry , just imagine what happens to the bad , the incompetent , the misinformed and the worst-laid of plans . The history of marketing is littered with botches and blunders at every stage of the new product process , from product or value creation to fiscal value capture .
There are the famous cautionary tales that we can all relate to and there are those that disappeared from the radar so fast most of us cannot even remember them . Whether it be having advertising banned , the arrest and prosecution of those involved or absolute rejection by the public , these flops make up an advertiser ’ s ( and their clients ’) worst nightmares . How Not to Market looks back at various failed marketing campaigns and practices . They are cautionary tales of relics from the business junkyard .
The Faiba Ad
There are two advertising campaigns that aired in Kenya sometime back and had , as a result of their themes – one controversial , the other ingenious - migrated into the Kenyan news headlines and social conversations .
One was for the unique and insightful broadband internet product ‘ Faiba ’ that uses an animation of life in an office in the Stone Age . The actors were wearing skins and hides in the office ( which is a cave ) and one of them was using a slow download service .
The execution idea of the advert was that his office colleague - seeing as he was frustrated by the slow service - introduced him to a faster download service which he used to download a song in seconds and proceeded to dance to it . It used a genre of music that was popular with many Kenyans and might have been as unique and successful as the 1990 ’ s Barclays Bank advert through which the bank introduced the innovative ATM service to Kenya . This highly successful campaign , like the Faiba ad , also used a Lingala song to engage with the market .
The Faiba advert was successful in its objectives having merged old and new ideas to showcase the efficacy of its product . Indeed so successful was the campaign that the term ‘ Faiba ’ become synonymous with reference to a fast and reliable internet connection in popular social discussions . It was also ingeniously creative of them to choose that product name , and then give it a local twist , to ride on the back of the optimism generated by the then newly laid intercontinental fiber optic cable .
Condoms Campaign
The other advert was a TVC for condoms by Population Services Kenya that aired on local stations . This raised outcry because it had ventured onto a platform that was considered taboo in the conservative society that is the Kenyan nation due to the controversial nature of the topic it covered .
In the ad , two middle-aged ladies were shown discussing their sexual lives . The ladies were married with children and it emerges that one of them has a boyfriend with whom she is having extra marital sex . It emerges in the discussion that they are having marital difficulties thus leading her to seek satisfaction beyond her marital bed . The point of the advert emerges when the friend cautions her to always use condoms whenever she sleeps with her boyfriend ostensibly for the sake of protecting the future of those she
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