This is one of the biggest incidences of cross purposing that has ever come upon the Kenyan public via corporate multinational advertising.
Ezekiel Mutua got wind of a three second kissing scene in a recent Coke TV commercial like a hound set on a scent trail in the old country woods of England. The short PG13 scene was since deleted from the ad, and further to that, the KFCB banned the screening of “immoral” advertisements within the watershed hours of 5.00 am and 10 am.
This hubbub over the kissing scene was an extremely minute part of a larger, global campaign “Taste the Feeling”. which saw the hoisting of billboards all over the world that bore the images of ridiculously gorgeous models in their early twenties.
“Have you seen the pictures of naked women all over Nairobi? I don’t know, I was going home one day and saw a bunch of naked Wazungus on the Coca-Cola billboards on the way home. They are so sexy! What’s going on?” Benjamin Mwangi, a 29 year old IT Manager in Nairobi fronted this question to us in mid-March. And we were genuinely curious.
The Kenyan public is accustomed to very wholesome, pretty Coke-advertisements. All targeted to the African context and which sometimes have familiar faces selling product. One can say that their neighbour Njoki was on a Coca Cola billboard, because they are a very pretty girl and now they have a cool Kshs 500,000 to continue their university education with.
These set of models were not neighbourly or familiar. They were in-your-face, Victoria’s Secret Model on a Times Square video screen type beautiful. And naked.
“The photography features human moments that blur the boundaries between who people are and what they love to do, in all the creative, Coca-Cola plays a lead role in the scene; enhancing the color, texture and emotion of the images. Every interaction is unique and made more special through the enjoyment of a Coca-Cola, any Coca-Cola. The images show a diverse cross-section of people from around the world enjoying “their” Coca-Cola in simple, everyday moments.” said James Sommerville, VP of global design at the launch of the campaign.
Woah there nelly. Coke thinks that white blonde skinny women are a diverse cross-section of people from around the world. Granted, the ads were representative of different races from around the world, but this section of people was hardly “diverse”.
The young adult, or the group of people that are now referred to as “millennials” have way too much information at their fingertips. With all this at hand, they are more likely to go for a kale juice at Absolute Juice or glass of water with their meal at Java than ask for a Coke. Myriad videos that depict Coke as a cleaning agent have made sure of this. At least that’s the thought process of millennials in Western countries, and more often that of the affluent in Kenya.
So what better way to hit this group of “defiers” than creating a campaign around youth, exuberance and beauty. A campaign based on being “in the moment”?
Coca Cola Kenya launched the campaign by hosting a lavish party at Vipingo Ridge and inviting young, beautiful opinion makers down all expenses paid. Sound familiar?
The likes of Nick Mutuma, Patricia Kihoro, Joy Kendi and Anita Nderu tasted the Coke feeling and most likely had to tell all their friends about his new, refreshing way to experience Coke (as beautiful people).
While Coke wanted to target a younger crowd with their new global campaign, Ezekiel Mutua and a huge section of the Kenyan public got caught in the moral conundrum of a young couple in love making out in a library.
Quite interesting.
