The ad lied (2)
By Paul Ugoagwu
Thursday, October 26, 2006

Let’s be honest, there is hardly any piece of advertisement that is not exaggerated to an extent. No man trying to sell a product or service says it exactly as it is. Even preachers do it. Some people got converted to their faith because someone says the day you become a believer all your problems are solved! When you are fully in the faith, you then realize that you need to work out your salvation with fear and trembling!

In those days when I used to patronize the Okirika market at Yaba for second hand clothes, the clothes looked a lot nicer where they were displayed on the walls at the railway crossing. The Igbo guys have perfected the art of using mercury light to make the shirts and trousers really appealing. The moment you pay and walk to the sunlight reality hits you. No matter how much it was embellished, Okirika is okirika.

What happens in advertising is similar. You present the most attractive side of your brand. You are silent on the negative. It is still the truth but probably not the whole truth. Take pharmaceuticals for example. All the advertisements on cold remedies will tell you how fast cold and catarrh disappear just after one dose. So you see such outdoor advertisement showing a man and his family, all smiling happily as if they won a lottery. But no one will remind you that most flu tablets send you to sleep or render you inactive for the better part of the day. In the days before WHO recommended the Artemisinin Combination Therapy (ACT), it was chloroquine which held sway. Whereas it was a nationwide truth that most people react to chloroquine, I never saw an ad or listened to a radio commercial which admitted that such a side effect existed. All the malaria drugs promised a near miraculous healing after three days.

Have you noticed that almost all private schools have the word international attached to them? This includes that nursery primary school beside your house which cannot even boast of a school bus. If the proprietor (most times proprietress) has one rickety PC in his office, part of his outdoor advertisement would feature full computer facilities. If they have one graduate teacher (probably someone with a pass), the copy would add: experienced graduate teachers. Interesting!

The same story is true of most FMCGs (Fast Moving Consumer Goods). A friend of mine bought a shaving stick after seeing a highly persuasive commercial about this brand he bought. In the ad, he saw a handsome man smiling as he shaved. His chin came out smooth like that of a new born baby. His whole face radiated with beauty. Now my friend never used a shaving stick. He was more of a powder man. But the ad was very compelling. Moreover he wanted the kind of chin and face he was promised in the ad. Against his better judgment, he went for stick. He actually told me he tried to smile like the man in the television commercial, hoping he would get the same result. The first thing he noticed was that shaving and smiling didn’t go together. Nobody smiles while shaving. You keep a straight face so that you come out of the exercise without casualty. But that’s even a minor point. My friend’s chin it seemed was not made for a shaving stick. The bumps that appeared on his face the next day were like beans. Unfortunately the great television ad he liked didn’t warn him of bumps.

Let me ask you, since you started using advertised toothpastes (at least since you were an adult) have your teeth been made whiter? For where! Mine have maintained their nice yellow colour since I was 30 years old. Well, you probably have a different experience and maybe I have a peculiar problem. Don’t be deceived. Fresh breath, yes. Sparkling white teeth? Turenci!

But did it mean that toothpastes don’t make teeth whiter like their advertisements claim? They sure do! I believe (I am not certain as I am not a dentist) that at the formative years your body (including your teeth) has a good chance of responding to many things. If you start early, toothpastes can help your teeth a great deal. Again, if your teeth get coloured by reason of certain food or oil, toothpaste would certainly make them whiter. But what the ads won’t tell you is that some teeth (like mine and yours) are beyond salvage. Unless we use sand paper (which I won’t advise you should try) we would have to keep believing that some day manufacturers would do a brand of toothpaste that would work for us. I doubt if that would happen in our lifetime.

Before you start thinking that all we advertising practitioners are not born again, I need to quickly remind you that the best advertisements are the ones which dramatize the truth about a brand. And most Nigerian ads actually do that. Without a definite truth to hang on to, advertising claims would never be believable, the brand itself would never fly. Take GSM ads for instance. Many ads were done to herald the coming of a particular network to key cities. The specific mention of certain cities is enough to make people rush for the network. All advertising need do is dramatize the truth with creative headlines like greeting the people of such cities in their native languages and using models attired in their traditional wears.

The more truth the copywriter has at his disposal the more the likelihood that he would write a compelling advertisement. Bank advertising has always been based on facts and figures. I recall a series of ads done by SO&U a long time ago for a particular bank (the name skips me now). One of the headlines says, we can rely on our track record, but we won’t. The body copy went on to furnish the readers with undisputable facts about the bank’s achievements and awards. Such ads would never have worked without the claims being true.

Western Union Money Transfer (handled by STB McCann) is currently campaigning the truth about its spread: Over 1000 locations nationwide. That too is a provable fact and advertising has done well by making that the pillar of the campaign. There was a time Peak Milk was advertising 28 vitamins and mineral. Certainly such an ad would not escape NAFDAC’s hammer if the claim were false. Again, WAMCO must have done their homework very well. If there were another brand in the market with say 28 and half vitamins and minerals, Peak would not flaunt their own 28. Now think of how much equity that single important claim has added to Peak Milk brand.

When writing a brief, the client service man is diligently searching for truths about the client’s brand, truths he can present to the creative department, truths that would give birth to great campaigns. When we say a brief is bad, what we are saying in real terms is that the brief has no leg to stand on. There is no supporting evidence or fact to add credibility to the claims made by the client. Even consumers are looking for tangible truths about a brand. That is why bargain advertisements are always successful. Honda is currently saying buy two Honda Accord, get a Honda City absolutely free. I haven’t checked their books at Honda Place but I can imagine that the public response has been very encouraging.

I won’t deceive you though. Some advertisements deliberately set out to gain consumers’ patronage through a carefully orchestrated deception. That is where the regulatory authorities come in. NAFDAC (in spite of the justified complaints from advertising practitioners) are up to the task here. APCON is also onto the deceivers.

But the greatest evils are beyond the legal reach of these advertising policemen. At street corners, at bus stops, hawkers are busy convincing unsuspecting publics of concoctions that can enlarge organs, make women pregnant and, or, increase libidinal energies. Here then is my conclusion and advice to creative people: In the latter days, deceivers shall wax worse and worse. But ye decent copywriters, flee these things. Follow after truth, ethics and professionalism.