Non-greeting cards and Ads
By Paul Ugoagwu
Thursday, May 10, 2007

This piece should really have come at the beginning of the year. But thinking about it again, perhaps the correct time to write it is when it can be put to good use by those who it will concern. And that is if they don’t take offense!

When we were growing up, greeting cards were something to look forward to. Companies outshone themselves by the quality of the cards they gave out at Christmas. From the nineties, almost every organization I knew gave out cards especially at Easter and New Year. One of my bosses in the office joked about how he would sift through piles and piles of cards received from family friends and companies to determine which ones would make the line of fame where the most distinguished would be hung. If your card didn’t measure up, it was dropped in the dust bin. Senders were also carefully documented for future references. Cards were that competitive!

There were cards you kept till the following year for their sheer beauty. One UNESCO Christmas card came to memory here. I remember making a little frame of it and keeping it on my radio for a long while. Cards are supposed to be simple stuff. It should clearly be a well wish thing, adding colour and goodwill to your life.
In a similar mold is the congratulatory ad.

We are in the season for it! Did you notice that media houses are now making another tidy fortune from this? First it was political campaigns and just when we all thought the Christmas was over, these fresh manna poured in from heaven! Today alone (at the time of writing this piece), I counted over 30 in different newspapers. They were all congratulating President-elect and governors-elect. Like cards, these ads vary in beauty and sophistication. You could tell that some of them were carefully worded and designed by experienced agencies. But by far the majority was done in business centres in the cities where several computer literate ladies are fiddling with the mouse.

Just like the cards, I am sure some people are busy taking note of the ads. Someone out there is also noting those who are not in the band wagon. My advice to those seeking for any future political relevance is to quickly borrow money and get to a business centre fast before May 29. I know some people are actually waiting for that day to see if there would be a new twist to the election drama before investing in a congratulatory ad. But why not take a risk now? Certainly there would be a different grading for those who are bold enough to do it now than those who are waiting for the breeze to blow over it.

In truth what I expected from political loyalists is a series of ads saying they are solidly behind those who lost, come rain or shine. I had noticed many political and ethnic groups rallying round some candidates before the election. Shouldn’t they just place ads suggesting they still believed in their various candidates even if just to humour us?

Let’s return to cards. If you asked me, Christmas cards have lost their charm. If I had any doubt, the last Yuletide settled it for me. And I just thank God that text messages have come to our rescue. All I needed to do was write out a nice message and forward to as many people as were deserving of them. That option was cheaper as well. With some of us credited with so many free SMS from the GSM operators, Christmas message was almost for nothing. It also ensured that NIPOST lost that share of business. Pity.

I keep digressing! Yes, we were talking about greeting cards. Okay, we all complained when all the cards started looking like they were designed by one artist. I knew many of us wondered if three wise men were the only symbol of Christmas. By the way, did you know that the Bible never mentioned three wise men? It was Christmas cards that made us think that way. Or maybe it was because the Bible says the wise men brought three gifts. Now if you didn’t see wise men on your cards, expect to see Joseph and Mary and the boy child all with halos on their heads. When we didn’t die of boredom, other designs came up sporting starry nights and shepherds. This went on for years especially with churches getting involved. You know churches are conservative and would try to use the opportunity to teach about the birth of Christ.

Suddenly the branding bug came on. With it came a generation of the most crappy cards ever. Cards lost their innocence and became another marketing channel. Cards became very dry indeed. Interestingly, most of the cards I received last year were still in my car till last month when I did a general clean up. It was that bad! It is shocking that most of the poor cards were actually coming from advertising agencies. For goodness sake, what is in a card? Is it not a simple greeting to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year?

Or Season’s Greetings (if you don’t have time for pleasantries)? Companies today have turned common greeting cards into corporate ads. Instead of greeting people and wishing them a great season, we are now doing full blown corporate advertising! The cards are verbose, contrived, forcefully-yoked, and lacking in warmth. The cards are bigger, more in your face, very irreverent, lacking in emotion, over-branded and contain no significant message. The greeting part of it is now confined to a last line. The rest is product or corporate advertisement. Someone asked me last year if I saw one agency’s Christmas ad (she was referring to their greeting card!). It was actually a Christmas campaign eulogizing them and them alone with little space devoted to saying to Nigerian’s what they were meant to say: a simple season’s greetings!

The congratulatory ads are also guilty. You wonder what the objective is at times when the congratulator has a bigger presence than the person being congratulated. I laughed at the sight of one poster before the election. Someone was trying to sponsor a poster for a wannabe senator. The wannabe senator’s picture looked like a passport photograph while the sponsor looked like a head of state! I ask myself, would the senator-to-be be grateful?

If the objective is to congratulate someone for an election victory, what and who should be prominent in the ad? Should the sponsor be so engrossed with making the recipient of the ad know who’s behind it and thus do a self serving ad which would do no one any good? I imagine inviting someone to give a toast at my wedding. Now if this bloke spends 70 per cent of his allotted time talking about how good he is at the job, is he delivering on the objectives?

Last December, a friend of mine sent a pack of Christmas cards from his base in London which he wanted me to distribute to his friends and relations. I was struck by the simplicity of the designs. You could not be in doubt about the spirit of the season – nice, cute, beautiful cards you would be proud of any day. Our cards used to be like that! I am looking forward to the days when cards would be de-commercialized. I look forward to when cards would cease to be part of a company’s press advertisement campaign. I look forward to when the message would be clear and straightforward. For me, the best place to start this reform is with the advertising agency. If agencies could just do it by example, by doing simple unassuming Christmas cards (which their clients would get eventually), then we can expect the clients to take the cue.

But trust me, the same thing would happen this December. Companies would turn to leaflets and posters to convince customers that they are thinking of them at Christmas. Question is, who is fooled?