By Nathan Nathaniel Ekpo
When it comes to packaging great content, storytelling is all the rage. Stories have the power to move people to action, provided they are good, engaging and most of all, authentic.
Authenticity and emotion are vital touchpoints for creating an engaging story. All of us are moved by emotion so, “make me care” is an essential commandment for building a great story.
In Nigeria, we have seen a whole lot of adverts, especially on television, with some compelling potential audience to try out the new product. But the question here is, do these advertisements really interest the consumers? This question is needed because a good advert is supposed to tell the right story not depicting something else in visuals while leaving the consumers thinking and asking questions.
We all understand how telecommunication companies in Nigeria strive to stay afloat in business while they continue to compete with each other and as such, they continue to roll out millions of naira to shoot various advertisements just to sell their products but sometimes, they get it wrong like the Airtel Nigeria Know Your Size advertisement which has some celebrities in it.
The 2021 Airtel advert Know Your Size is meant to encourage its consumers to go for a data plan within their reach to avoid being stranded. Yes, everyone loves data because it keeps us online knowing that the world is a Global Village, but how has this particular advertisement convinced the customers?
The Know Your Size advert begins with viewers seeing some people at the gym, then Nollywood actors, Dele Odule and Lateef Adedimeji, walking in to make use of the equipment. Then they both approached the treadmill to make use of it with Dele Odule, making mistakes on his and after the whole gym drama, Dele settled down to consume few wraps of Eba and Egusi soup, with the voiceover educating the viewers to go for whatever data plan that suits them.
Know Your Size, is a good headline for an advert, but the delivery in my view didn’t conform with the dramas that played out at the gym because one’s understanding about the gym is to shed weight and not a place for food as depicted in the advert. Also, the story is about data plans, so the gym does not tell us what to do with data or how to use data neither does the iron at the gym make use of data.
I believe that the copywriters behind the Airtel Know Your Size advertisement campaign can do better on their scripts for better and smarter understanding than what we are currently seeing.
