Contextual Marketing

I was a marketing major in under-grad.  Granted, I was originally pursuing a Business Management degree and found out that a Marketing degree only took 16 more credit hours so I tacked it on mainly for how it would look on my diploma to have double-majored in both Management and Marketing.  I must admit that I was both fascinated with and completely turned off of the worlds of marketing and advertising.  It only took Intro to Marketing to make me realize the big scheme to get people to buy more things they really don't need in the first place and I could never walk into any store after that without being paranoid that I was buying something only because ‘they’ had psychoanalyzed someone of my demographic to trick me into buying it.  After I graduated, I never pursued anything marketing-related but have always been aware of the marketing taking place all around me all day, every day.  

Even, if not especially, right here in Niger.

The other day I was out and about around Niamey going to all sorts of meetings and running errands.  Nothing too unusual until I noticed a camel on the corner of one of the major intersections not far from the office.  Again, not unusual as camels being led through the streets of Niamey is also a daily sight.  This camel, though, was draped in a huge orange cape with the very familiar cell phone company name 'Orange' written across both sides.  My eyes followed the rope to the person leading the camel and he too was fully decked out from top to bottom in a neon orange outfit with ‘Orange’ written all over it, complete with what looked like an orange jester hat.  Yep, one of those hats with points going every which direction and balls on the end.  Both he and the camel looked extremely bored despite the flurry of activity you find at any major intersection in Niamey.  I have often wondered at the marketing techniques used in West Africa, but this was a new one for me.  Most marketing tactics I’d seen to that point were ones that had been copied from western countries justified as techniques that people figured obviously worked having come from ‘those countries.’  In my limited studies, however, marketing is best when used contextually and targeted specifically toward the consumer who buys the item.  “Now this,” I thought, “is good marketing.”  It didn’t stop there, though, as I continued all over town and found it was a mass coverage of the city for one day.  Every intersection had at least one camel and many times four, with a bright orange camel and guide on each corner.

Way better marketing than even Camel’s cigarettes, which, if you think about it, are completely contextually inappropriate.  No one finds camels roaming the streets of an American city.  Another reason to enjoy living in Niamey.