The Kenya Power and Lighting Company will be having a very
interesting year. The electricity distributor, which will have to contend with
peak demand in June during football’s World Cup, had a dress rehearsal last
Monday morning when thousands of Kenyans woke up in the dead of night to watch
the Academy Award telecast from Los Angeles in the United States. And when our
very own Lupita Nyong’o won the coveted Oscar statuette just after 6 in the
morning, the power company must have breathed a sigh of relief, as all those
television sets got switched off.
But this column is not about the power monopoly (that one
deserves a rant all its own). And, surprise, it’s not even about the lovely
Lupita, whose 2013/14 is an annus
mirabilis that’s so remarkable that the term ‘fairy tale’ somehow seems
inadequate to describe it. No, this one is about some of the little things that
may have passed you by during the Oscars telecast, but which are quite
interesting from a business point of view.
Interrupted Speeches
and the Illusion of Spontaneity
The first is to do with the telecast itself. Because this
particular one was hosted by such a bubbly, down-to-earth personality as the
comedian Ellen DeGeneres, it would be easy to assume that she was winging it –
making it up as she went along. But most of the telecast is rehearsed to death.
Even the winners with tear-jerking speeches that thank everyone from their
director to their nursery school teacher have a strict time limit to deliver
their maudlin monologues. According to my colleague Larry Madowo (who keeps a
close eye on these things), each recipient has a maximum of forty-five seconds
before the microphone goes dead and the camera cuts away to a shot of the
crowd.
It is not for nothing that the event is so closely choreographed.
The awards ceremony is primarily a television event, and everything is geared
towards creating the illusion of seamlessness, and also predictability which
will increase the price of advertising during the telecast.
There are lessons to learn from this, of course. Lupita’s
father (who will henceforth always be known as the less-famous Nyong’o) had
come to Hollywood straight from the chaotic ODM polls at Kasarani. There was a
little-noticed occurrence there. Right in the middle of giving his speech (what
he had hoped to be his final one as Secretary General), Prof. Nyong’o was
interrupted and upstaged by the arrival of Raila Odinga, the party’s leader. It
seemed less of a triumphant entry than a clumsy, uncoordinated piece of
scheduling that was witnessed live on TV, and which contributed to the
impression of an institution unable to manage itself. It is not for nothing
that American political conventions are such spectacles of synchronisation (to
the level that they’re now mostly bland and colourless). They ensure that no
one goes off script (literally – speeches are scrutinised to the last dot on
the ‘i’ and timed to the last second), because, when they experiment with
spontaneity as with the Republican convention in 2012, they get ambushed and embarrassed
by stunts that cost the party crucial votes.
Samsung and the
‘Selfie’ that broke the Internet
Admit it and be honest. Were you one of the people who
retweeted that photograph that managed to crash Twitter (the one in which
Lupita and her brother played a central part)? Again, it may have seemed a
harmless prank, but it was part of a carefully thought-through product
placement effort by electronics manufacturer Samsung. The Wall Street Journal
reported last week about how Samsung had worked closely with the events
organiser and Ms. DeGeneres to ensure that their products got ample airtime
during the broadcast. According to the Journal, ‘Ms. DeGeneres, in the days
leading up to the broadcast, decided she wanted to take "selfies"
during the show and ABC suggested she use a Samsung since it was a sponsor,
another person familiar with the matter said.
During rehearsals Samsung executives trained Ms. DeGeneres
on how to use the Samsung Galaxy, two people familiar with the matter said.’
The photo, which was taken by the actor Bradley Cooper (and who copyright
experts say owns the rights to the image) has now been retweeted more than 3
million times. While you cannot see the phone in the picture, the ample screen
time it saw during the live broadcast (and the endless repeats on pay TV) means
that Samsung has more than recouped its investment in the event. Serendipity
also plays a part, though – the Daily Nation reported last week that the brand
of lip balm Lupita uses had sold out after it featured in the Oscars.
Of course, these are not the only lessons to take away from
the weekend. One of the crucial ones, actually, is how Americans have the
remarkable ability to weave glamour around events, to the extent that entire
businesses and careers are built around them. There are other award shows, but
the Academy Awards have managed to retain their glitz and glamour through
careful stewardship. Its curators have ensured the event’s pre-eminence, and
even developed a symbiotic relationship with would-be competitors (the Golden
Globes, which Lupita missed out on, are seen as a good weather vane for the
Oscars themselves, and have thus thrived).
All in all, it was Lupita Nyong’o’s night, but also one that
showed the big power of a little, golden statue.
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