about the ones in print

This time I wont even bother to talk about the crappy ones. There's just too many. First local, I guess, and here I have to talk about Capital - the radio station, 98.4FM. Some time back [think I was still in fourth back then] they used to run a couple of ads in the Going Out Guide where it was just a blank page with a huge speaker in the middle in isometric projection [dont ask!] then the lowest corner of the speaker had started like melting and was forming itself into a round drop ready to fall off. Then at the bottom of the page it was just written "Capital FM. Sound solution" I swear that ad just jazzed me, so much so that a friend and I had it blown up [Going Out is smaller than the small exercise books people use in primary school] and we stuck it on our wall. Plus the Capital logo of a smiling sun with sky skrapers in the foreground, depicting Nairobi as the city in the sun [when they started they were an only-Nai station] is the best logo I can think of.

KCB have also once had another one in the papers that impressed me. It was first of all a whole page on its own. At the center of the page they'd written: "Want to deal with people who know business? Commercial is our middle name" Literally. Get it? Kenya Commercial Bank? I totally hope that whoever came up with that one was elevated to head of PR for that bank. Also the current ones being run by ABC bank, modelled along the same lines. First there's a picture of a timeline then they say "ABC = Age Breeds Confidence" then explanations about how old hence good they've become, or a pic of many 40-bob coins piled up on top of one another with the text "ABC = Asset Based Capacity" then they talk about how extensive their assets hence capabilities are. Really nice. Simple, everyday language put together in a striking and relevant pose. Nothing can beat that in advertising.

There's that ad for Nestle where a chick appears twice, enjoying a hot chocolate, then they say double the pleasure or something like that. It's currently running. Ok, this one has nothing striking about it, only mentioned it to say I think she's really fly.

OK, international, finally. [I read Fortune, Time and Car so that's how I see these things. OK, maybe FHM as well, but only sometimes]. Citibank. I dont even know why they advertise seeing as they've been the largest bank in the world for like forever with a trillion dollar asset base, but they do. And when they do it's just class. Their ads are usually just on a white page. One has a picture of the Everest in the middle, then beside it they've written "Where would you like it moved?" Just that. Another one has a pyramid, then beside it says "Let's say you wanted twelve more of these." At the bottom the page in both those ads they explain how nothing is impossible with them as your bankers. Those ads are off the chain!

Then there's Infiniti. If you dont [like me] like cars you probably dont know them. They are to Nissan what Lexus are to Toyota [It's a $40,000 luxury car made by a company traditionally associated with cheap cars]. We dont have Infinitis here but they directly compete Beamers, so now you have an idea. I saw one of their ads, for the 2005 G35 [that's their entry level sports sedan. Be clear{been watching FunkMasterFlex :)}, being entry level doesnt mean it's cheap. For Infiniti entry level means $35,000 - Again I guess the figure has to be put in perspective: A Merc, C200 Kompressor is $36,000 and the Lexus IS300 $33,000 in the same market] where the page was just black. The G35 was at the center on a round black pedestal, its color gunmetallic black hence shiny at all the curves-and those are many-so it can be seen despite everything else being black. Then the text at the bottom of the page: "If you're not generic and ordinary, you stand out, no matter how similar your surroundings." Simply elegant.
END

the nicer side of the divide

So now over this Easter that dint happen, I decided to study ads again, this time looking for the good ones. Two went straight to the heart. First is the KCB ad for S&L, where they say "want to live in a thriving community," [and show a hive of bees] "or somewhere a little less crowded?" [show a hermit crab living alone] "Want to move away from nosy neighbors" [show three humming birds squeezing in one nest] etc. That is just the most creative ad I have ever seen. I never tire of watching it! And the best part is: It's by Kenyans. That's the reason I dont buy any of that "Our industry is still young and growing..." mumbo jumbo they hide behind whenever they make substandard stuff [surprisingly very often!].

The other one are actually many different ads, but all for UUnet. Eg. two guys talking in a restaurant then it suddenly becomes full and they cant hear each other, then the commentator says "Want to communicate in an environment with less interference? Come to UUnet" or something to that effect. Or the one where the other guy suddenly starts breaking up and rewinding and fading away, then they [UUnet] ask about reliability. Or the one where a guy goes into another's office and clears away with everything while the owner is busy looking for docs everywhere else, then UUnet ask about security. Those people are just good. Again, a Kenyan company did those ads. As in, the advertiser doesnt have to say a lot, the ad speaks for itself. For me that is just the hallmark of advertising that hits home.

Then there's Fair and Lovely. The one about their 10/- sachets [BTW I noticed that all of a sudden every company was introducing sachets costing between 1 and 15 shillings. My God! Are we really that poor?] So anyways, this lady cant make a sale, then she tries the new Fair and Lovely. The next day [mind you they say the sachet takes four weeks to work its magic :) ] when she comes to work she's glowing. Her colleague [the guy] looks at her first time like "Oh, its just her" and then looks again, stunned. There's something different about her! There's nothing really striking about this ad, but the look on his face right at that time - wide-eyed, astonished - that look is just priceless! I think he really nailed it. And, of course, he's Kenyan.

On the international scene, Oh! Here there are so many class ads. But the one company I have got to mention has to be Closeup [Ok, the company is actually Unilever, but they are a divisionalised bureaucracy - many unrelated products - so there is nothing on the market actually called Unilever]. First that Ultrawhitening ad for back in the day where a guy smiles, chick gets dazzled by his white teeth and knocks her head on a wall, then the sequel where she's now wised up so when he smiles she puts on sunglasses but blows fresh breath his way and he's so captivated he doesnt see the hydrant right in front of him. Needless to say there's a situation. So shiny white teeth and fresh breath, enuff said. Whoever heard of ads with sequels. Those two just rocked, they were so thorough, in the sequel she even had BandAid where she'd knocked herself in the first one. Then there's the recent one for RedHot where a tooth is taking good care of itself. Cracked me up.

Nokia ads arent that bad as well. They're usually pretty deep. It took me a while to realize that the matchstick that lights up in a dark room towards the end of the 6111 ad actually means the 6111's camera has a flash. Neat.

When we return, it's gonna be ads on radio, then ads in print. One is all sound and the other is all visual, so at least in those ones there's less room to mess up as compared to TV which is audiovisual.
END

the easter that was

So last weekend was a long one, Easter Sunday and Good Friday when we celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection not necessarily in that order. Naturally, since I work in a factory, we were expected to go to work because "essential production operations dont stop over holidays" [Memo from the Head of Human Resources]. Now for the permanent employees this usually has monetary implications - if they work over holidays they are paid double the rate, but for us casuals, it's biz as usual. So we staged a ka-small revolution and got sent off. At the time I was thinking that I was gonna be busy, hmmmm, si was I in for a rude shock!

The beginning of my woes was five days before actually, my grandmother falling sick - she developed an eye infection and became allergic to light. Then the doctor gave her medication that you apply every five hours, not morning and evening or after every meal like we are used to, every five hours. So she had come to stay over.

Then there was supposed to be a trip to Mombasa by my dad's workplace for which my mum was being smuggled in. So they were to meet in Eldoret [where he works] and head from there, and I was gonna drive her over then [hopefully] remain with the car and a full tank - all alone. So freedom and mobility . Si I set up plans to go to a certain campsite with some buddes for Eldie. Everything is going according to schedule.

Then comes Thursday. The trip to Mombasa gets cancelled. So Im stuck in Mumias with both parents. But luckily, they decide since they have time on their hands to go shaggs and plant maize, this being the planting season and all. Strike one. They decide to carry the mboch with them. Strike two. On such trips [the ones where the intent is not leisure] it has become a foregone conclusion that I am not expected to attend. So Im remaining at home alone, not Eld as Id have liked but still alone. Strike three. Boy was I wrong!

So anyways, the long and short of it is that, since my paroz were now going shaggs they went with the cars so I was left bila, my ailing grandmother was left in my care because "no one is going to have time there to medicate her", my friends went and had fun anyway, I dint get to eat a lot of junk [usually associated with me being alone hence the cook] since I was cooking for me and her [she's diabetic], I couldnt leave the house to go anywhere in case an emergency arose with her health [aside from the above two conditions she's also asthmatic] so I was holed up in the house all easter watching the clock for the next five hour block, bored and now my salary is going to come short of expectations coz of the two days we refused to go work [Fri and Mon] - us casuals are daily rated. The things we sacrifice in the name of love... If only I had had a good excuse like Im needed at work all weekend, things would have been so much better. But I've learnt that the water-pot usually breaks just when you are at the doorstep. Now Im living every day as it comes.
END

machine heaven, for a while

Today I am working on a machine and a half. It's a Dell no less, those Optiplex GX520's - absolutely top of the range: 3.0GHz with hyperthreading, 512MB RAM, a 224MB graphics card[!] and optical mouse. I tell you this machine moves. It responds even before you give the commands! Ok Im just kidding about that one, but it's every gamer's dream machine and mine too. Too bad it's at the office [you didnt think I meant we'd bought one, did you? Those things cost like a gazillion shillings - ok, 80K but that's still too high for a comp. I dont see us buying one any time soon. At home I have to make do with a clone. A nice one, but still a clone] Oh, did I forget to say the machine is silent? You absolutely cant hear a thing spin in there, I mean the talkback on cellphones is louder than this machine is! Clones of course sound like small tractors when they're running so maybe it's the stark difference between the two that's clouding my judgement. :) Anyways, those people who say nothing's perfect, they havent seen this machine.

I should probably also note that Im on stolen time and it's is in my boss' boss' boss' [you know tall organisation structures, this company has a tall organisation structure - coz believe it or not he also has bosses, like four!] office so if I get caught in here heads are gonna roll. Well, mine mostly. So maybe in the interests of self preservation I should just head back to those dilapidated IBM NetVistas people my level are given [BTW Im just here on a temporary basis, this is not like what I do for a living or anything. When I finally launch myself into the job market I want to hit the ground running]. After turning it on I usually go make phone calls coz people have actually grown old in the past waiting for those machines to boot. If you notice the words coming slower, or not at all, from this point on it'll be coz of the change of machines :(
E..N....D

road trip, or something like it

So jana my mum and I both abandoned work in favor of a road trip that's been long overdue [had a DL for like two years now, and nothing all that time]. Ok, maybe it wasnt so much a road trip as a trip to shaggz, but still, it involved driving long distances and stopping at shopping centers to buy stuff. [again I overstate - we stopped at just one after which it started raining and biz people closed for the day]. So si we fika Kitale. From then on the road to our shaggz is usually a rough road, the kind people sometimes call mud roads. Now this one was a mud road today. Proper, coz of the rain. There was drama! Si the car skidded. It danced. From this side of the road to the other [it's front-wheel]. Battling with mud. Not knowing which water puddles are actually deeper than they look. For a stretch of like 20 minutes. It was a harrowing experience, even for me. Or as I like to put them, experiences that separate the boys from the men :) And that's not all. Coz we were in the middle of a work week, we had to go back home that same day. Couldnt sleep over. We had left home at 2PM and it's a two and a half-hour drive one way. So you can just guess, on our way back it was muddy and deserted and dark. We actually got stuck once, and revved about for like 10 mins I thot we were never gonna get out of there. But being the driver I am [do I say] I skillfully manuevered us out, applying techniques well honed over the times [playing Need for Speed, Gran Turismo and Colin McRae. Ha ha. See? My addiction to games finally paid off!] So anyway, the trip. After that fiasco we actually had to stop at a river [remember we're at shaggz] to clean the car because when a white car becomes twelve shades of brown, people in town just dont understand where we're coming from. That took another twenty minutes.

So now, the moment we hit tarmack it was no-holds-barred. My mum figured none of us [meaning me] had been driving long enough to be able to drive at night. So it's 6.30, we are 30KM past Webuye headed to Mumias. At least one and a half hours, the journey should take. Was I allowed to speed! Now that's just how I like it. Overtaking 18-wheelers back-to-back[the road from Webuye to Bungoma is the one they call the Great North Road, evenings is when trailers to and from Mombasa abound on it aplenty], gliding down valleys, I even tried to race a Range[!] but I have since learned to pick my battles - ours was a Corolla so do I really need to say how that went...

All in all it was a nice way to spend an afternoon that would otherwise have been spent working. Enjoyed meself thoroughly. Plus I got to prove a friend of mine's theory of relativity of speed between VX's, Ranges and other cars: No matter how fast or slow you're moving, when those two cars overtake you it'll be as though you were stationary.
END

sales, marketing and bad advertisements

I watch TV a lot, so I have seen a great many ads come and go, I have marvelled at some, changed channels at some and written hate mail about yet others. One thing I have noticed is that unlike everything else in the world, adverts do not get better with time. One would think that with improvements in level of technology at their disposal, companies would at least create decent ads, so that they too evolve alongside everything else. But no. Those Harpic™ people just had to go and make that thingie about some housewives being interviewed and their toilets getting transformed, and then the ads always end with some cheesy punchline like "Oh my God I cant believe it looks so clean." Puh'leeeese!! I have never understood why that ad was run to begin with, but even pros make mistakes so maybe we can let that pass, but by Jove! It's been running for two years! And to make matters worse, it's an ad for toilet stuff that runs round about supper time [OK, that one I blame the networks for]

Another one is that one for Ushindi™ where the kids go bathe with their clothes on, then the father comes home from work and does the same. Intended message: Ushindi™ washes clothes as well as bodies. But honestly, all at the same time?!?! It does look a lil bit out of this world, then of course there is the pertinent issue of how the clothes are expected to dry on peoples' bodies... [maybe Ushindi™ is absorbent too? :)]

Talk about metaphors being stretched too far, and immediately to mind comes Omo™. A mother and daughter are cooking then the girl puts too much rice bla bla ti bla bla ta... Intended lesson [they even state it]: A little goes a long way. But people who dint do Literature gitch that Omo™ is such a good additive to cook your rice with that it will multiply and overflow. And can we blame them really? There's a kitchen, there's rice overflowing after being cooked and it's an Omo™ ad so go figure

Then there's the Standard group. These people have a product they almost dont need to advertise[News and events], yet somehow they do. Now my only problem with their ads is the length[considering they own the network, maybe a three minute ad is short for them, even tho the rest are like 30seconds each] and the soundtrack. Wherever they get their tracks from, they need to fire those people, or at least reduce loudness to mask how blaring they usually are. Or they could talk to the EABL people.

Now, Im not in marketing, and some have said about me that I wouldnt be able to sell an umbrella to a person for half the price if it was raining, but I believe it doesnt take a rocket scientist to realize when an ad is whack, and most of our ads, truth be told they're just whack. They're supposed to arouse a passion in someone, to make someone wanna see more, to actually create sales where none existed [hence or otherwise increase market share and revenue- the raison d'etre for most marketing departments]. But frankly all they cause one to do is hate on the respective mother company. And then again, maybe it's just me.
END

the mets, and timely info

If you read a lot, then no Im not talking about cops. Im referring to the metereological department. You know, the ones that are supposed to be forecasting weather conditions. Now Ive always thought that a forecast was where you say something that'll happen before it happens, apparently I was wrong! These met people, hmmmm. As we all know it's been raining for like a whole month and some days now, or has it? Because yesterday on the news the mets had a very important announcement to make to the nation: the sesason has now been officially declared rainy. So all that rain we've been seeing, that cant have been rain coz the rain has just been given the government stamp to start falling :) Dont you just love our mets! But, in their defence, they may have found a failsafe method of weather forecasts - talk about events that have already occurred. That way you cant go wrong and everyone's happy, right?

So anyways, now that the rain has officially been declared rain [by the experts, I might add], I guess Im gonna start carrying an umbrella with me, in case it rains on me [like if hasnt been for the past few weeks!]
END

MONEY MONEY MONEY

Here's some nice links if you want to get rich without digging or otherwise farming. Figured you wont lose anything to try them out so go ahead

Earn $1000 per day!----

Click here to make money seated!


Earn $500+ everyday! Data workers needed!

why 24, I wonder

Ever since I got that new job, time management has been a downward spiral, and I keep sinking deeper and deeper every day. Isnt it wierd how when you have a whole day to spare with nothing to do you will actually spend it doing nothing coz nothing of interest will come up [am I saying too many "nothing"s? they really should invent a synonym for that word :)], and then when now you have like 20 minutes only to spare there will arise so many events that you wanted to attend but cant - coz between my boss, the Grim Reaper and CPA 23 hours are already accounted for - ? That's the spiral Im talking about. This company I work at is just out of this world: We report to work at seven. SEVEN! and work all the way till 5. It's a holiday camp for hourly rated employees, coz they work a whole of ten hours if they work over lunch hence higher salaries, but a nightmare for the rest. I remember the way I used to have issues waking up at six in high school [despite that then we'd been made to believe that exam success depended on it - the whole "early to bed and early to rise..." thing] and now it's all come back to haunt me, only in school we used to have holidays to look forward to, now there's no such thing. It's just work and work and work.

I have heard about places in the poles where there is sunshine almost all day, so Im sure there even though the earth still goes one complete cycle every 24 hours, the illusion is created of longer days than ours. I used to think that was hell on earth, but now, Id give my right arm to be in a place like that. But, since Im not, I find myself yet again having to give the movies a miss because an "emergency operation" [you'd think this was the CIA :)] has arisen at work and we are required there all Saturday and maybe even Sunday. Yes they're gonna pay us but doesnt Maslow, or Fayol or whoever - those Management theorists - say that past a certain point with people money stops being the only thing that matters? Now that was a bright person, methinks

END