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The majority of
the clients also know very little about the art of advertising and
its requirements in terms of professional skill. Identifying your
audience or preferred timing of broadcast, as well as the use of
selected language and presentation, is an important aspect of the
business. The quality of the commercials suffers much otherwise.
We hear or read
or even watch on TV stereotypes and clichés. Some of the mediocre
businessmen seem to be bent only on the collection of the harvest
rather than caring for the removal of the weeds or insects that have
negative impacts on the production.
Take the dental
services or the condom social marketing radio advertisements for
instance. The announcers are supposed to use soft voices reminiscent
of CNN articulating the messages like a whisper into the ears of the
listeners. Our amateur advertisers tend to wrap and roll words using
deafening noises and blaring music that force listeners to switch
off their receivers or tune in to another frequency. Do these people
think that the louder they shout the better they sell?
Some of the TV
commercials are even worse. Most private institutes of higher
learning for instance cry out loud to the point of boredom about
their recognized licenses by the concerned ministry to give
computer-aided lessons. I have no intention to belittle the vitality
of these common subjects but wonder why they opt to hammer on
educating students the same types of subjects as though the country
had no need for skilled manpower in other fields as well.
In many
countries of the world one way of attracting clients or promoting
sales is to publicize prices of goods and services. This is not
common in this country for reasons beyond my comprehension.
Another point
to be mentioned is the pestering nature of many irrelevant or vague
advertisements, which we are often subjected to. There were times
when Ethiopia in general and Addis Abeba in particular were noted
for having the least number of dentists or even toothpastes in drug
stores. There was virtue and glory for anyone having a beautiful and
healthy set of teeth.
Those days are
gone. The culprit responsible for decaying our teeth seems to be the
surge of the bad habit of chewing chat among the old and new
generation in the society. Hence the boring frequency of dental ads.
The best way of
advertising a company, according to many experts, is to sponsor a
football match like the European Championship or the Spanish League.
This is the prime time or accessing the optimum audience.
Enterprising businesses are advised to contract airtime on a package
basis and lease out the minutes in between half times and preludes.
Free trade is
characterized by well-designed commercials meant for the right
audience to be made public at the right time using the right
language as well as the right media. |
