My Aha Moment from
Staying at Home aka
#Staycation
Lockdown has gained new meaning
during these Covid-19 days, on the 60th
day in Kenya the staying at home has
led to many new discoveries at the home
front. Recently we wanted to listen to
radio from a mobile phone with a friend
but we didn’t have earphones or an aerial,
after several days of exploration we found
a solution in the form of my Golf shoes
laces tip which worked perfectly as an
aerial. That aha moment felt like the one
where Isaac Newton saw an apple fall
from the tree which lead to his invention
of gravity.
I also learnt that going on holiday at
home or within your locality is termed as
staycation which gives a new dimension
to domestic tourism. Some organizations
like Twitter have actually declared that
their employees can now work from home
forever. Covid-19 is now the new normal
and World Health Organization tells us
to get used to dealing with it. What is
your stay at home Aha moment?
Addiction to Fictitious TV
Calamities Is Useful for
Survival in Real Difficult
Times
The discoveries continued as I was
thinking about what this column
should focus on this time. As I was
going through my photo album I came
across my photos taken during a visit to
Universal Pictures studio in Hollywood. I
TALKING POINT
Hollywood Helped USA
Through The Great
Depression So Should It
For Corona Pandemic
remembered the gifted tour guide telling
us a story about how Hollywood played
a vital role in inspiring America out of
the Great Depression during the early
1930s. This also made perfect sense of
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta’s offer
to the creative industry with a kitty of
Ksh 100 million to develop inspiring and
empowering content during this difficult
season.
This led me to explore further about the
role of Hollywood in such difficult times.
I discovered a university professor who
realized that his family was addicted to
watching movies about calamities. The
don figured that as the family watched
some series about calamities their
commentaries indicated a huge demand
to see more severe calamities over time.
Once at the university the don asked the
colleagues about this tendency and what
it means. The findings are documented
in the book titled White Noise which
talks of how media creates entertainment
from news, even negative ones. This has
resulted in the high demand for action in
calamities with the human mind having
low ability to differentiate fictional from
real calamities. The author noted this as
the family passed through a gas explosion
accident site where they used positive
language to describe what they saw using
words such as amazing or fantastic with
little mention of the victims or damage.
The bright side of the addiction is that
people develop deep skin to face real
calamities due to the experience from
simulation of similar fictitious events on
movies and TV shows. Movie makers
usually imagine of all possible calamities
which give their audience a sneak preview
By Boniface Ngahu
of what it would look like in reality. Movies
have been screened about jets hitting high
rise buildings in a similar fashion to the
911 terror attack and infectious pandemics
like Covid-19 long before they happened.
The White Noise author views this as
mental preparation for the worst that
can happen meaning that those who have
watched such content have better coping
ability to weather the storm when similar
things happen in reality than those who
have never watched fictional calamities on
screen.
The other thing is that in this age of
super-connectedness calamities have
high capability to grab the attention of a
generation with a little supply of it. The
Corona pandemic has been a wakeup call
for us to smell the coffee in the form of
what we have been missing by being
distracted by the many screens dominating
our lives. That moment of JOMO (the Joy
of Missing Out) is here with us.
Role of Hollywood in
Helping America out of The
Great Depression - Giving
Them What They Wanted
The story telling tour guide at Hollywood
explained how the creative juices were
running on a high drive during the great
depression, this gave the public what they
wanted to see. Hollywood was working
hard in order to deliver great content to
entertain as well as help their audience
imagine of a better future. As the saying
goes, the future belongs to those who
believe in the power of their dreams and
movie content is such a great source of
dreams. I usually continue dreaming
in my sleep acting leading roles in the
movies I have been watching. Hollywood
came through psychologically providing
reassurance to a demoralized nation with
over fifty million Americans attending
movies in theatres each week during the
economic depression season.
The public needed hope which the
movies provided; it was also a great
time for industry innovation with sound
improvement being the major focus. The
public wanted to laugh in which case the
theatres offered free or extra comedies
for every ticket bought. The audience
also needed to see evidence that wealth
still existed, Hollywood responded by
showing a lot of movies mocking the rich
making people both laugh and realize that
riches still existed. The movie industry
was among the first to recover from the
depression due the focus on applying more
imagination than money during a scarcity
season. In one of the popular movie
scenes, the hottest man in Hollywood
was featured topless inspiring confidence
among all and hope on others.
Marketing Lessons: Time to
Put Your Best Foot Forward
Looking at what Hollywood did during
the great depression offers lessons for
marketing and life during calamities.
One is that the movie makers focused on
the product innovation especially sound
since the only real competition then
During difficult times brands should
endeavor to deliver heroic moments of
truth to their support base in whatever
small ways that they can.
was from radio. This is a good time for
innovation as most competitors may not
be working hard. In terms of promotion
and marketing the movie theaters were
very generous with freebies and relevant
content that responded to the needs of the
people. Market research is still important
in understanding how consumers respond
to the emerging priorities among the
audience.
Record has it that during that time
many careers were made and broken at
Hollywood; this means that the talent
side of business should not be abandoned
during crisis. Leadership research suggests
that people prefer to vote for a charismatic
leader during crisis and a functional one
during ordinary times. Charismatic
leaders tend to command attention from
their followers creating a great sense of
loyalty and awesomeness. Brands need to
demonstrate such qualities during these
hard times showing great concern for
people and developing closer bonds with
them through statesmanship, kindness
and some sort of ‘magic’.
The Israelites chose Samson a village
hero the strongest man at that time when
they were hopeless; South African had
Mandela after apartheid while Americans
chose Trump to make America Great
again. Similarly during difficult times
brands should endeavor to deliver heroic
moments of truth to their support base in
whatever small ways that they can.
Advertising also need to be entertaining
and reassuring post Covid-19, they need
to make people smile while implying a
return to the good old days. It is time for
those creative juices to flow at the end or
slowing of the crisis giving everyone a new
fighting chance. As the common saying
goes, don’t just sit there, do something.
Boniface Ngahu is a seasoned
marketing research expert and
runs the Talking Point column in
Marketing Africa magazine. He
is the Marketing Director of SBO
Research. You can commune with
him on this or related matters via
email at: BNgahu@sboresearch.
co.ke, or follow him on Twitter @
bngahu
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