As a young woman living in Harare, I must confess that I have a thing called town-anxiety, which I loosely define as the anxiety of having to venture into the CBD of Harare. I’m talking downtown Harare, complete with the noise, haywire traffic and (wait for it) street harassment.
Yes, I said it, harassment. Now, most young women know all about receiving unwanted attention from the opposite sex but that isn’t the harassment we’ll be discussing today. I believe the women of Harare are now being attacked by a different sort of harassment – hairdresser harassment.
There’s a common joke that it’s difficult to walk around downtown Harare because whichever street you’re walking down there’s a hairdresser standing there, offering her services:
Now, you might say these women are looking for a way to make a living, which I won’t dispute but it also strikes me as strange that I always feel upset or offended whenever one of these ladies approaches me and it recently clicked that it’s because their copy is bad. Yes, I’m about to go all Marketing 101 with this.
Why is it bad copy?
The hairdresser’s entire pitch is, “toruka here, asikana?” Three simple words, yet I, and most women of my acquaintance, am annoyed by it. Why? Because advertising is essentially psychological and let’s face it, in coded girl speak, asking a person to fix their hair implies that it looks awful to begin with. Remember when you were a catty teenager and you bought someone toothpaste/mint flavoured gum as a subtle/not subtle way of telling them their breath stinks?
This is how hairdresser copy currently works, the minute they say, “toruka here?” or “tostyler musoro?” or “toita manails?” they are inadvertently offending their customers and offended people hardly ever part with their money.
A better way of doing it
Remember, the number one rule of advertising: copy is psychological. I just made this rule up. You want to get on your customer’s good side before asking for their money.
Case Study: Alcohol Ads
I’ve always loved beer commercials, even though I don’t actually drink beer. This is because beer companies know how to make ads that sell. Alcohol adverts tend to have engaging hooks and stories that leave viewers feeling good.
Think about it – when you’re watching TV and an advert is aired, your hand goes straight to the remote, but when the ad is thought provoking you watch it right to the end.
Alcohol adverts are good at pushing their brands. For instance, SAB Miller produces Black Label and Castle Lager but they have completely different marketing strategies. I’ve watched Carling Black Label’s “Champion Men Deserve Champion Beer” advert many times and with each airing I’ve thought, “if I were a rugby playing, testosterone filled jock, I would probably drink that!”
I even remember twenty year old ad campaign for Castle Lager during the COSAFA CUP of Nations (Castle Lager was one of the major sponsors), back in the 90’s. They pushed the customer appreciation angle really well — it’s you who makes Castle great! Twenty odd years after viewing this advert, I still remember the tagline and the product being sold.
Back to the Hairdressers of Harare
Before I list every beer commercial I’ve ever seen, let’s link the case study back to the main story – advertising that seems like harassment. It’s pretty clear that when adverts are geared to a specific market and made to make people feel good and not crusty, the results can be amazing.
Perhaps, the solution to this problem would be hosting workshops with hairdressers to brainstorm marketing strategies for instance, instead of asking the unspecific, “Shall I plait your hair?” a more specific, feel good strategy would be to say, “a slay queen like you deserves a good Brazilian weave!” or “we braid Afro styles for woke queens!” but then again, this is Harare, we’ll probably be enduring hairdresser harassment until the end of time.
tariro ndoro 