Nigerian adverts have always been strange. I always assumed that the advertising industry would catch up to modern-day standards eventually as our movie industry did. But if these ads I saw yesterday are any indication, I was terribly wrong.
1) Amstel Malta’s “We Got Balls” ad
Amstel Malta ran an ad campaign to celebrate the Super Falcons involvement in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Hilariously tagged “We Got Balls“, the campaign began with a television ad that truly felt like a Malaria-induced fever dream.
It begins with four Nigerian celebrities; Dakore Egbuson-Akande, Tonto Dike, Linda Ejiofor–Suleiman, and Tiwa Savage, hanging out and having a few laughs at what looks like an empty hotel bar. They are wildly overdressed for the occasion but we’ll get to that later. A mysterious figure hidden in the shadows slides a can of Amstel Malta down the bar to the ladies. The person is revealed to be Big Brother Naija star and fake eyelash enthusiast, Cee C, smiling awkwardly.
How long had she been there? No one knows.
The other girls beckon Cee C to join them, and she does. A few moments later, five members of the Super Falcons team literally appear out of thin air, dressed in evening dresses and high-heeled shoes that they’re clearly uncomfortable in. Both groups stare at each other awkwardly for a few seconds before one of the football players snaps her fingers, magically changing her team’s dresses into their Nigerian football jerseys and boots. What follows is a series of reaction shots you just have to see to believe.
Tonto Dike — A WOMAN WHOSE JOB IT IS TO ACT — reacts to the footballers’ clothes changing before their eyes.
Cee C doing the best she can to enthusiastically invite the footballers over to join them.
The footballers rejoice (at varying energy levels) about finally getting a seat at the table.
Cee C gives one of the footballers the saddest high five you’ve ever seen.
Just when you think the ad is about to end, Nollywood actor, Enyinna Nwigwe, shows up in a leather jacket and beret combo.
The girls look at him like:
And he responds by doing this:
Which makes the girls go:
Then the ad ends.
What even was the point of this? If the ad was to celebrate the footballers, why are the showbiz celebrities in it? What was the significance of Eyinna Nwigwe making an appearance? You can tell that Amstel was going for a feminist thing here but succeeded in passing no message at all.
2) Gulder “Own Your Journey” ad
This campaign was an attempt by Gulder to “encourage people to own their journey to success and be the best version of themselves as they journey through life.”
The ad starts with a guy who’s trying to start a furniture business and goes to talk to his uncle about his plans. When he’s finished, his uncle basically tells him this:
Our protagonist isn’t discouraged, though, and orders two bottles of Gulder while telling his uncle not to worry. We skip to our main man meeting a friend at a bar in “the big city.” He tells his friend about his business plans and the friend basically tells him this:
Our protagonist seems pretty confident about his chances, telling his friend to sit back and watch. He then orders two bottles of Gulder on his friend’s tab because he’s broke as hell.
We skip again to our main man and his single employee in the space that they hope will become their furniture warehouse. The employee expresses concern that getting customers in the area they’re in could prove difficult, but our protagonist dismisses his employee’s fears with a wave of the hand and two cans of Gulder.
If you’re sensing a pattern in this story, you’re not alone.
Fast-forward a few years into the future, and our protagonist’s furniture business is successful. While at an event, he’s asked what he would say to all the haters who said his business wouldn’t make it. If you’ve been paying attention, you can probably guess what he responds with:
All I got from this ad is that the main guy has a drinking problem and that his family and friends are terrible people.
3) Pure Bliss
This ad just shows random people in different locations throwing computer-generated packets of Pure Bliss biscuits to each other and going crazy after taking one bite.
There’s this girl who is chilling in her garden and absolutely loses her shit after eating Pure Bliss.
This woman who is at work and suddenly can’t fight the Pure Bliss feeling.
This student leaving a lecture theatre, who no one bats an eye at as he’s doing his Elvis Presley dance.
This couple stranded in the middle of nowhere.
This housewife doing laundry.
And finally, this group of friends I think were Netflix and chilling.
All I got from this is that Pure Bliss is crack.
