16779: Don’t Sugar-Coat Campaign Critique.

 

This Nigerian mental health awareness campaign—launched on World Suicide Prevention Day—takes a mindful and compassionate approach. But mistakenly using en dashes versus hyphens in the headlines is, well, depressing.

 

16624: The Pledge For Progress vs Performative PR.

 

This Independence Day campaign from The Hook Creative Agency in Nigeria is explained as follows:

 

The Nigerian pledge is often overlooked and read mindlessly in Nigeria.

 

For Independence Day, we encouraged Nigerians to “re-pledge” and make new commitments to Nigeria because change starts with us.

 

To make a sloppy segue, imagine if Adland would re-pledge—and really act on—its commitments to diversity. After all, a pledge is a commitment to action, which comes with responsibility and accountability.

 

16585: Pizza IWD Campaign Is Cheesy.

Pizza Jungle in Nigeria celebrated International Women’s Day by declaring:

 

Her Dreams Are Wild

 

Her Goals Are Real

 

Her Voice Is Powerful

 

Her Imagination Is Limitless

 

Okay, but Her Campaign Is Lame.

16401: You Don’t Know Jack—Daniel’s, That Is.

This Jack Daniel’s concept from Ideas Origin Media in Nigeria is explained as follows:

 

As Nigeria prepared to commemorate Independence Day, it became imperative for us to not only enhance the brand’s equity but also establish a distinctive presence, digitally.

 

To achieve this, we cleverly employed the concept of “spirit” as a triple entendre, symbolizing the audacious spirit of our brand, the indomitable spirit of Naija, and the drink’s positioning in the industry.

 

Okay, but see if your perceptions change after reading about the brand’s history.

16275: Pouring Water On Explicit Song Lyrics…?

This Nirvana Water campaign from Nigeria puts a spin on the product’s purity position, as explained via the following:

 

Children and the Nirvana Water brand share something in common: purity. However, exposure to explicit and vulgar lyrics in popular songs can taint the nature of children and lead to aggression, risky sexual behavior, and other anti-social behaviors. To address this, Nirvana Water created an awareness campaign to serve as a clarion call to all adult members of society to help preserve the innocence of children by stopping their exposure to these vulgar lyrics before it is too late.

 

As a social experiment launched on Children’s Day, [a] film featured seven kids who were asked to interpret lyrics from popular songs. Their inability to capture the negative undertones and vulgar meanings of these lyrics underscored their innocence/purity and the need for society to stop the exposure before they know.

15982: Nigerian Advertising Awards Show Presents DE&Ideas…

 

X3M Ideas hyped The Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria’s annual LAIF awards with a campaign described as follows:

 

Creativity is as broad as it is diverse and this definitely means creativity is not the exclusive preserve of the people working in the creative departments, no matter how much we try to pretend.

 

This year’s LAIF award is focused on diverse and inclusive creativity, welcoming people from all walks of life.

 

To this end, our campaign sought to showcase everyday creativity in the Nigerian context and how it relates back to the award categories of LAIF, thus driving home the point that All Ideas Are Welcome.

 

In Adland, all ideas are welcome. All people—not so much.

 

15821: Bugged By World Malaria Day.

It stings a bit that World Malaria Day probably receives more advertising than Black History Month.

15820: Workers And Cheap Labor.

 

For Workers’ Day, it looks like the unsung heroes were saluted by an unpaid—and untalented—illustrator…

15816: Who’s The Boss, Baby?

 

Um, it looks like she’s the worker who handled the Photoshop compositing for this advertisement too.

15800: Bank Makes Bad Investment For Earth Day.

This Earth Day advertisement from Nigeria is among the worst on Earth.

15763: Gender Equality Intersectionality…?

 

This International Women’s Day campaign from Nigeria is clever. But would Black women really have a significantly greater advantage in the workforce if they were Black men? Um, not necessarily in Adland. The concept might have been even more impactful if the Black women were Photoshopped with the features of White men…

15569: Waxing Poetic For Nigeria Independence Day.

 

The explanation for this Nigerian campaign reads as follows:

 

Loving Nigeria is a hard, thankless job. To celebrate our 61st Independence Day, we urged Nigerians to try to spread some goodness. Else our sacrifices and those of our founding fathers might be in vain.

 

15431: An Overthinking Mental Health Brainteaser.

A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste meets Just Do It…?

 

15372: Campaign For Headache Medicine Is A Head-Scratcher.

 

This Nigerian campaign for Algafen underscores that pharmaceutical advertising sucks worldwide.

 

15370: Will Work For Cheaper Food…

 

For this Nigerian advertising campaign addressing gender pay gaps, the agency credits list male and female teammates. It would be interesting to learn if a gender pay gap exists between the creative coworkers.

15357: Truth In Advertising About Lies In Social Media…?

 

This campaign from Nigeria about spreading fake news feels like fake ads…