Glo’s Anthony Joshua TVC and the Big Idea
“Unless your advertising has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night, David Ogilvy.
When David Mackenzie Ogilvy, CBE, an advertising tycoon and founder of Ogilvy & Mather gave the world the above immortal wisdom, little did his global audience of that epoch know that this received wisdom would resonate through the ages yet unattained.
Today, and incidentally or coincidentally in our age and epoch, Globacom, Africa’s fastest growing telecommunications company has not only resurrected but has lived this altruism in its campaigns over time, and especially the Anthony Joshua TVC unveiled recently amidst pomp and pageantry. There is a sense in which it can be reasonably argued that Globacom’s idiosy is in perfect sync with David Ogilvy’s in view of the astuteness and relevance of the big idea in creating an advertising that sells and endures.
Big idea in marketing and advertising is a term used to symbolize the foundation for a major undertaking in areas like an attempt to communicate a brand, product, or concept to the general public by creating a strong message that pushes brand boundaries and resonates with the consumers. (Wikipedia).
Trained at the Gallup research organisation, Ogilvy popularly known as the Father of Advertising attributed the success of his campaigns to “meticulous research into consumer habits”. This no doubt helped the advertising wizard in getting the great ideas that nobody has ever had before in keeping his advertising evergreen. Indeed, a very perceptive industry watcher, who is quite familiar with the histrionics of the business of brand management and the management of brand business in Nigeria will attest to the fact that Glo has always gotten its creative bearing right from the day one it entered into the competitive Nigerian telecom market through meticulous research into consumer habits with a view to gaining access into their insights and hindsights. This in turn has helped the Glo brand’s advertising in creating the big idea as espoused by Ogilvy, the legendary advertising man.
Some quick takes will certainly confirm this assertion, especially for the uninitiated. The launch of Glo into the Nigerian telecom market 15years ago was not just a happenstance. Rather, it was an epochal brand initiative which involved a forensic research about what the average Nigerian phone users wanted. Way back in the years, the two major competitors in the telecom sector had a uniform billing system that gave no care nor concern for the economic wellbeing of their impoverished subscribers. Having done its homework very well before the launch, and also poised to give the best value for money, so that its customers can come in large numbers and remain with the network, the Glo brand introduced per-second billing platform.
With this, it rolled out world class services covering thousands of cities, towns and villages just within a few months of operations. This opened up the telecom category to every citizen irrespective of ethnic nationality, creed or income-enabling them to be the one with the rest of the world.
Not the one to rest on its oars, Glo launched a unique campaign on data services with the big idea of Glo Data is Oxygen TVC. It is not in doubt that the choice of oxygen is sine quan non as this is one of life’s most essential ingredient. Without it, life is impossible. Therefore, by saying Data is life, the TVC highlights the importance of Glo data to life and how it offers solutions to life’s challenges. This portrays Glo as emphatic to the needs of subscribers by providing cutting-edge solutions to whatever problems they are grappling with.
Still operating on its tradition and culture of the big idea in its creative advertising, Glo launched the Superior Network TVC. This TVC chronicles the various milestones of the brand since inception, emphasizing the company’s unique propositions. It starts with the power of a seed morphing into 190 million connections in various cities of the world. On the whole, it emphasizes Glo’s resolve to make telephony available, affordable and accessible into a world class manner. The commercial celebrates customer empowerment as underpinning everything it does. It concluded with an undisputable claim that Glo is the superior network.
And Now!
The Anthony Joshua TVC Big Idea…
The big idea in the new Anthony Joshua TVC is the fire of patriotism and nationalism it has ignited amongst Nigerians across the world. Since the unveiling of this campaign February this year, its message and essence have reverberated across the land as well as resonated very perfectly with the nation and its citizenry that were still aghast with the discordant tunes playing out of the piano of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC the electoral umpire that mid-wifed the just concluded general elections.
Coming on the eve of the 2019 general elections which raised the nation’s political body temperature beyond normal, and in the process pushed the country to the fringe of precipice, the launch of Anthony Joshua became a much welcome relief.
The aftermath of the TVC has captured reactions of Nigerians to the inspirational message contained in the commercial. The TVC begins with a University of Lagos female student watching the Anthony Joshua commercial. A teenage boy is seen also watching the TVC in his father’s sitting room. The TVC morphs to fishermen throwing their net for a haul in Lagos. The commercial morphs to a not-too prosperous tailor in Aba tapping inspiration from Anthony Joshua’s message. Next is a group of female basketballers tapping inspiration from Joshua’s message in Port Harcourt where some lady basketballers were jointly watching Joshua’s message on an ipad on the court and this is closely followed by a classroom setting in Sokoto where students gathered to watch Joshua’s message on a laptop. A young boxer also took tutorials from the world champion and he later won his bout while a lady executive in Abuja was also shown watching the message on her phone.
These cities underscore the nationwide coverage of the Glo 4G which is Number 1 in the country in view of its spread and coverage like the Heavyweight Champion, Anthony Joshua.
The TVC
The World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua gave a ringing announcement of his status as a Nigerian with the Globacom TVC.
The bricklayer turned World Heavyweight Champion in the TVC revealed the parallels between him and Glo. Some of these include (a) the never-say-die, unlimited, can-do spirit of Globacom which undergirds and constitutes the philosophy of the telecommunications giant is shared by the Champ who says in the TVC “You need strength?” and then answers, “Yeah, that comes from the hard knocks that life throws at us. And we are Nigerians, we know all about that”.
He went on to compare life challenges with boxing, saying ” You don’t stay down, you’ve got to fight. You have to dig deep to be a world champion”.
Trumping his Nigerianess Joshua announces “there is always been a big piece of my heart as a Nigerian and I do believe that it is that piece that sets me apart. It always says to me, ‘never give up, dream big! We come from a nation of warriors and that is why I believe in Glo.We have that same tenacity, that Nigerian fighting spirit that makes us game changers! We are relentless. We don’t just face our challenges, we step into the ring to win again and again and again. If you believe in yourself, there is no limit to what you can achieve. Yeah, I used to be a bricklayer in England but now I am heavyweight champion of the world!
Always in your corner pay-off line is a boxing metaphor which symbolizes the succor boxers get from their corners where their trainers will dry their sweat with towels and offer them tips to defeat their opponents. Glo 4G also solves all data related communication challenges by allowing subscribers to breathe easy with data widely regarded as oxygen.
Having started this campaign review with David Ogilvy, it will be apposite to end the story with the famous quotes of the Father of Advertising as relate to the consistency and accuracy of the Glo brand in defining its brand vision, mission, essence and promise over the years.
“What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it”.
Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of the immortals”.
With the above quotes, one can say without any equivocation that Glo is on the right path in entrenching itself as an immortal brand. It must nonetheless be added that cultivating a Big Idea should be the primary pre-occupation of agencies and client companies. For the creative agencies, in uncovering an insight, birthing a “Big Idea and expressing this in a series of executions as a campaign has become more important than ever before.
For Glo, this has become a culture and a creed, even though unwritten!
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