The first time the Guinness ‘Udeme’ TV spot was shown to the Marketing Team in Lagos, not many of the lads were sold on it. It didn’t look like a great ad. It had no drama. It was too poetic, not ‘aspirational,‘ and it was apparently shot for the whole of the African market, not for Nigeria, the biggest Guinness Foreign Extra Stout market on the continent and where we needed help.
I once witnessed some interesting PR event in Auckland in 2009. I was visiting the office of the top games and software magazines. In the lobby of the company stood two men dressed in white quarantine suits and masks. They carried between them some sinister-looking canister. The canister had a name emblazoned on it, the supposed name of the deadly substance within. The two quarantine expert were waiting to see the editor of the magazine.
So, Manchester United fired Louis Van Gaal, and if we are to believe widespread reports in the media, is set to appoint Jose Mourinho into the Old Trafford dugout.
Louis Van Gaal had it coming though. His stats were damning. 1.29 goals per match (the worst since 1989/90) and a 2015/16 goal-tally of 49 (United’s worst in the Premier League era). These speak volumes for a coach whose team averaged more possession (58.47 per cent) than any other team in the league. United also finished the season on 66 points (their second worst point tally in the Premier League era). He was only usurped to the title of the worst point tally by – guess who – Messers David Moyes/Ryan Giggs, in the 2013/14 season.
So the country woke up one morning and Tee Billz, the husband of Tiwa Savage, was going to end it all and jump off a bridge. Now, what could possibly drive the hitherto gleeful husband of our very own Beyonce to self-slaughter? Well, for one, it turns out that the mother of Tiwa goes about on a broomstick. And two, Tiwa Savage had apparently enjoyed other mattresses, especially ones belonging to Don Jazzy, Dr Sid and Tu Face Idibia.
In all of the land of Vuka, there was no better bespoke tailor than Mr Thimble. He catered only to men and his apparels flattered the appearance of all, tall or stout, portly or willowy. The rich and greying, the nouveau riche and debonair, all journey from as far as the Far Kingdom to Vuka to be measured and fitted in Mr Thimble’s exceptional tailoring. At the annual Vuka Governor’s Ball, it was not uncommon to find the majority of the guests accoutred in the fine raiments of Mr Thimble.
There are those who will swear that the greatest human invention is writing.
Nonsense.
It is tobacco.
Or so I believed when I used to smoke.
Still bewildering, the Olajumoke Orisaguna make-over. Some girl walks into a photo shoot with loads of bread and she becomes the toast, jam and bacon of everyone. She bombed a photo and no one deemed it necessary to haul her into jail. She bombed something, people! Bombed, devastated, torpedoed, wrecked; cannonaded. Tinie Tempah could have been killed by the aftershock and TY Bello could have been ruined. But what do you have, Olajumoke stars on CNN and in the Huffington Post. So what exactly do you have to do these days to be called a terrorist?
A photobomb is still a bomb. Period.
Now, before pitchforks are brandished and the furnace stoked, pray, give a brother his ‘any last words?’
Let’s be clear. I’m Nigerian. My father met my mother in Ilaro, Ogun State. They fell in love. I happened. Of course, if I’d had a say in where I was to be born, I’d have picked a Hawaiian beach sipping a cold Shirley Temple staring into a beautiful sunset while they cut the umbilical cord. But they didn’t consult me. As parents are wont to do. So I happened in Lagos.
As far as problems-solutions matrices go, I believe that every problem has one solution to neutralise it. A notable anti-problem. Have a vampire and werewolf infestation? Get Van Helsing. Need to live forever? Sip from the Fountain of Youth. Tom slipping into a sedentary existence? Get Jerry.
A roach. A boot. Problem solved.
I’ve had a dream where, in the C-suite, all the important Cs were seated together at one end of a long shiny table, and the CMO, with his pink pocket square, was seated alone at the other end of the table. The CMO smiled uneasily at the other Cs. The smile was not returned. The CEO then brought out a voodoo doll and placed it on the table. The doll had on a pink pocket square too. The COO brought out a set of knives and handed a knife each to the other Cs. The Executive Vice President for Sales asked for and got three knives. The door lock clicks in place. The blinds come down. The CFO smiles balefully at the CMO. The CMO gulps. I wake up.
