I can only imagine the conversation that must have been going on in the marketing department of Coca Cola Offices in Upper Hill Nairobi concerning one big billboard and the race of the Santa Claus who would be on it. The Bill board in question is at the time of writing this on the railway over-pass on Uhuru Highway between the Lusaka Road Round about and the Haile Selassie Round about.
There is no Black Santa.
Turns out the guys for a racially relevant Santa won! On the big bill board Coca Cola boasts of an odd Black Santa Claus with their iconic bottle. The culture behind Christmas is decidedly foreign. The historical background of the holiday itself is found to originate from pagan practices, most of which had very little holy rituals in them. In short this whole christmas business is an imported cultural product, manufactured in Europe in the confines of religion and recently re-processed in America for the purposes of Capitalism. Hence Black Friday and ravenous shoppers ad infinitum.
Today Africa is importing culture via all the screens that are available in your house. Your mobile phone, your laptop and your television. This creates a huge mine field for advertising executives. Beiersdorf AG the company that brings you Nivea deliberately inserts black models in its advertisements shown on Kenyan TV. The oddity of selling lotion to black african women using white girls weighs hard on the company’s ad campaigns and just like that dark models are brought in.
The elephant in the marketing room is that Africa’s culture is not evident. It remains too weak to point out. Off course there is the Maasai culture with their beads and colourful attire but try selling lotion using Maasai women and see how your campaign appeals to the college going teens who spend their hours on Facebook endlessly chattering about how some guy gives too much tongue in their first kiss! You can see what I mean.
Africa’s culture is there, but too faint to appear on the radar of any ad executive. I suspect no one in those ad houses has the nuts to market to Africa. A casual look at media boardrooms in Africa reveals aging Asians and Europeans with a sprinkle of Africa. In trying to demonstrate what I mean….Let us go back to the bill board in question. How about having a shot of lots of Nyama choma, a coke next to the grill and quaint meat roasting/ goat eating party in the background. Add in lots of dark brothers and sisters and you have a winner. Since I am on a roll let us attack the nivea ad… For this concept just copy paste what Kenya’s Unilever Brand Manager did. Sheila Mwanyigha, lots of skin, big billboard next to City Mortuary and the result is traffic jams as every guy behind the wheel ogled at the sexy sheila. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say Black Santas are scary, more scary than Black clowns. This is Africa, eish!
Our women are voluptuous. Sexy to us means black, thick and curvy. Christmas to us means Chapatis, Goats, chicken, cows…all roasted. Are these marketing minds african?
