The burial last Friday of Homa Bay Senator
Otieno Kajwang was a fascinating exercise. It wasn’t so much about the sheer
crush of humanity that had been evident since the public lying-in-state at
Uhuru Park, and through to Kisumu. It wasn’t even the wilting heat in Mbita or
the sad sideshow of the politician’s second family. It wasn’t even particularly
about the political nature of the speeches – this was to be expected at the
send-off for a man who made his reputation at public rallies. No, the
fascination was with the choice of language that the different speakers chose
to communicate in as they, in turn, paid their respects to the departed man,
fired up the crowd, and scored political points.
Many of the earlier speakers spoke in
Dholuo, seeking to connect with a crowd that was, after all, deep in Sen.
Kajwang’s ‘shags’. As the speakers began becoming more national in nature, and
as their seniority increased, so did the English and Kiswahili quotient of
their scripts, although all of them still felt it necessary to throw in the one
or two Dholuo phrases in their vocabulary. Raila Odinga’s speech was the most
interesting. He began in English, before switching to rapid-fire Dholuo,
inflected with idioms and folksy pithiness.
The issue here is not so much about
linguistics or the political utility of language. Where last week’s ceremony
intersects with the pages of the Business Daily is the way in which the mode of
engagement shifts when one is trying to reach an audience. The speakers in
Mbita were communicating largely with a local crowd (with a few national
dignitaries thrown in). Dholuo would have been adequate on most occasions, with
perhaps a sop to Kiswahili for the few who needed to follow the conversation
otherwise. The key here, though, was that the crowd was not just the one from
close by. The ceremony was televised nationwide, and thus the dynamic changed
instantly. The speakers were not just reaching with their words from the podium
to the audience in proximity of the loudspeakers – they were also reaching
across the ether to millions (they hoped) watching keenly.
It’s a dynamic that companies in
multi-cultural societies such as ours have to navigate on a daily basis. They
have customers who, presumably, have a working knowledge of our two official
languages – English and Kiswahili – and so one would assume that it would be
rather straightforward to communicate with these customers. For a long time, it
was. Simply throw together an advert in English for the upper segment of your
clientele, and in Kiswahili for everyone else. If you happened to have
operations in the smaller towns and cities, you would adapt your communication
to reflect the dominant language in the area.
Now, it is not so simple. The assumption
that English is for the sophisticates, Kiswahili for the masses, and ‘mother
tongue’ for the unreconstructed natives, has been turned on its head, at least
when it comes to customer communications. Now, the most sophisticated (and
formerly staid) banks are offering high-end accounts in Sheng. Youthful lingo
seems to be the default among advertisers, along with made-up words that are meant
to communicate an urban vigour that is supposed to refresh brands.
The trick is to balance this against the
very real danger of alienating existing clientele. Not everyone responds well
to being spoken to (if only in an advert) in Sheng, much the same way that the
educated villager feels condescended to when not spoken to in English.
There was a second lesson in the languages
at the funeral. In the same way the speakers had to communicate with the local
crowd, while acknowledging that there was a vast audience watching elsewhere,
companies are realising that they cannot restrict their intended target
audiences. It is not just about precocious children staying up past their
bedtime and catching adverts not meant for their young ears. It is in the fact
that there is no truly local audience any more. Even the smallest magazine,
intended for a geographically distinct audience, finds its way into the hands
of readers all over the world, who consume its content along with the adverts
therein.
A few months ago, I had a conversation with
the global head of consumer goods firm Unilever. His company manufactures a
line of cosmetics under the brand ‘Dove Men’, which, as the name implies, is
targeted at the demographic I belong to. It has never been advertised on Kenyan
media, but I have encountered it endlessly in the British car magazines I
subscribe to, and in the international rugby matches I watch on television.
Paul Polman’s problem is what to do with customers such as me, whose appetites
have been whetted by the internationalisation of media consumption habits, but
who may not be served by the existing marketing and distribution
infrastructure. Does Unilever look aside as these products are brought in on
the grey market? Does the company invest in a sophisticated, expensive
distribution network to reach customers who may only number in the hundreds?
Difficult questions these, but questions which all companies must start to
grapple with.
Raila Odinga seemed surefooted as he
flitted from one language, and one set of idioms, to another. Pity he isn’t a
Marketing Director in an FMCG company.
Also published in the Business Daily on 2 December 2014, at http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Opinion-and-Analysis/-Key-lessons-in-Kajwang-s-burial-ceremony-speeches/-/539548/2541192/-/pprfpbz/-/index.html
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