Bare minimum
It’s customary for radio stations, TV stations and print media to avail their platforms for competitions of some sort sponsored by big brands. There were quite a number of competitions across these mediums celebrating Valentine’s Day. Nothing wrong with that right? I mean award your listeners, your viewers and your readers while securing the bottom line. Nothing wrong with that. You’re killing two birds with one stone.
Until you look a little deeper into these competitions. Until you compare and contrast what these big brands are putting down as prizes compared to other media industries in Southern Africa, one case in point is a comparison to the South African media industry. When you do look a little deeper...you’d see that these big multinational brands (and the agencies that represent them) take Namibians for a po*s! and the Namibian media industry enables these multinational brands.
You’d see a multinational brand... that operates in both Namibia and South Africa, would have a competition in Namibia with specifications like: “Buy a six-pack of xxx, like the Facebook fan page, tag a 100 people to like the page and stand a chance to win N$10 airtime.”
In South Africa...the same multinational brand would run a competition with specifications in the nature of “Buy a six-pack of xxx and stand a chance to win R100 000.”
South Africans stand a chance to win R100 000 while Namibians must be humble and appreciate that ka N$10 airtime? Yes, we’ve had huge competitions in Namibia...but again, look a little deeper and you’d see that these huge competitions were anchored by Namibian brands and not multinational big brands. Take five minutes of your precious time and scrutinise all these multinational big brands operating in both countries. You will notice that they do the bare minimum for Namibians and quadruple their efforts in the South African market.
Namibians have to settle for x with bullsh*t rewards while South Africans just need to say “peh” and boom... you are rich from a competition! The only way we will be on par with the South African media industry is if we...the Namibian media industry start standing up to these bullies like multinational brands. Why are we...the Namibian media industry ok with these brands taking our people for po*s? I’m blaming the Namibian media industry because it’s on our platforms... radio, TV and print that these brands push these g*tvat competitions. Or maybe we should also look at these advertising agencies that represent these multinationals in Namibia?
This notion of “Namibia is a peaceful country” is negatively impacting the broader society. Because of this notion... multinational big brands (and the agencies that represent them) feel it is ok to make Namibians go through an obstacle course designed by Stone Cold Steve Austin, hustle for new followers the Jehovah’s Witness style and find Kandara’s killers to win a N$10 airtime? Julle vat g*t and you...the agencies that represent these brands know it!