That commando energy drink Ad!

Almost every serious organisation is now grounded into digital marketing. Many organisations are now on the lookout for what is trending and leverage such issues with messages about their organisations. It’s an easy way to get people talking about an organisation or a product. As people are engaged in conversations and social media posts about a trending topic, they most likely engage with a brand that has also jumped on the bandwagon of what is trending. This is good for the visibility of the brand.

 

However, because of the fact that trending topics online have a short lifespan to trend, it becomes more difficulty for brands to choose which topics to go with. A trending story can change overnight and having invested time and resources, it can become frustrating when a trending topic suddenly changes, and all the time and effort yields no visibility and becomes a waste of time. As a result of this, most organisations tend to relax rules on digital marketing to try and get enough and creative messages quick enough.

 

This relaxation of rules and approval processes for online messages in most organisations, has led to another problem.  It’s very hard to regulate the messages for online and digital marketing. This is precisely where the Commando advert that made rounds recently, squarely falls in. There is more social media content going up every time, most of which has poor or no approval process. Focus is now more on just getting content out. The 80/20 Rule for social media, once the golden rule of effective social media marketing, which states that 80% of social media posts should inform, educate, and entertain the audience, while only 20% should directly promote the business does not apply anymore for most cases. 

 

Make no mistake on the importance of digital and social media marketing and its importance. The growth of the use of social media has made it such an important medium and a brand needs to maximise its visibility through this medium thus promoting the business tends to take precedent over informing, educating and entertaining.  It’s very hard to regulate the messages for online and social media digital marketing. Granted, there is an exponential growth in social media and related online marketing needing for more messages to be churned out quick enough, basics still need to be followed. The owners of the Commando Energy drink product and brand, for instance, should have done some due diligence and followed basic ethics.

 

The Commando energy drink advert was wrong on many fronts. First of all, they used the concept of a recent video that went viral, of a man called George who was filmed disciplining his children for failing exams. George is seen in the video slapping his elder son while his wife films the incident while begging for the man to stop ‘slapping’ the boy. I have recently done a piece on this in which I argued that George Bester was within his right to discipline his children. It didn’t look anything like child abuse but just a parent using the rod to avoid spoiling the child. However, the vast majority and social media comments proclaimed this as child abuse.

This was the concept the Commando energy drink advert decided to use. It is very important that brands respect the ‘court of public opinion’ and never go against that in their social media and digital marketing efforts.

 

Well, the Commando energy drink advert starts with a lady who announces herself as a single mother as she is scolding her sons for the ‘crime’ of failing an examination. She later warns them that failure to pass would mean Uncle George would be called in to make things right. At this point one of the boys, the older one, is seen visualising what would be, uncle George slapping him hard. With this warning, the boy is seen taking Commando energy drink and then engage in serious study. That is a poor way of motivating young ones. Not by instilling fear in them.

 

Of great concern though is the fact that ethically this is not correct for a brand to advertise an energy drink specifically to children. Legally and to some extent scientifically there is nothing wrong with it. This advert, however, is clearly targeted at children, school going children. The advert can easily be misconstrued to mean if you drink Commando energy drink one gets good grades in school. Energy drinks do contain high levels of caffeine and sugar as ingredients. It is common knowledge that there are long term health effects of perpetual consumption of high levels of caffeine and sugar. The combination of high levels of caffeine and sugar help fuel obesity, and sleep problems especially in young people.

 

In fact, energy drink adverts should be regulated in much the same way alcohol sales and advertising are regulated. Public health experts need to guide us on this soon enough and we could have regulations in place in no time. Of course, the argument against regulation on advertising, sale and consumption of energy drinks has always been that many fizzy drinks including colas have just as much sugar as the energy drinks. But the fact remains, two wrongs don’t make a right. If the regulation will have to touch the fizzy drinks, even better. We should value health more than we value profit. Other countries are discussing the possibility of regulation of energy drinks. That Commando energy drink advert maybe a stark reminder that Zambia too should look at possibilities of regulation. With regulation we will see less adverts targeted at children like the commando energy drink advert.

 

While some people may have found the Commando energy drink advert highly creative, I found it injurious on the personality of Mr George Bester. It is very distasteful for a brand to ignore all this and in an effort to capitalise on social media buzz run the risk of personal attacks on George. Highly trending topics are not the magic portion to boost social media presence for a brand overnight. Social media takes time. For most it takes a lot of brainstorming, testing, and consistent posting to create successful platforms. As a result of this, it becomes risky to always just jump on the bandwagon. As a general rule, it’s not worth it investing time and resources into all newest trends until it is clear its more than just a passing whim. Instead it’s better to develop long term strategies to define goals and build a brand in order to guarantee stronger social media results.

 

The International Code of Advertising states; “advertising should be legal, decent, honest, and truthful, prepared with a sense of social responsibility to the consumer and society and with proper respect for the rules of fair competition.” Commando energy drink manufacturers and suppliers should heed this – prepare their adverts with a sense of social responsibility to the consumer and society. Since I haven’t seen the Commando energy drink advert on the mainstream media, I will take it that it was just the works of a trigger-happy social media buzz excited employee.

Otherwise I hope they have learned never to spew such ‘fufu veve, in the weldi mbobo’, to the public again. Whatever that means, its just trending.