African Advertising

The average home in Uganda does NOT have a television. Most People can not afford magazines. All forms of public transport are always blaring the multiple radio stations, but the quality is so poor, I often wonder who can understand. Now, newspapers are quite prevalent, but it doesn’t arrive to your home. You must buy it from the many vendors that work the traffic lines in downtown Kampala, therefore many Ugandans never see a paper. Therefore industries and businesses that are looking to market their product or service to the average African must find creative ways to get their message out to the consumer. In Uganda, they paint Buildings. For example, this picture is of a storefront is painted with the colors and logo of Uganda Telecom (UTL), which is my personal cell phone provider here in Uganda. However, this is not an actual UTL store, nor does it even sell UTL products or airtime. It is in fact, simply put, a building being used as a permanent billboard. These “building billboards” include advertisements of different cell phone services, as well as products ranging from Coca Cola to Feminine Products (no ladies, I’m not joking – these building often include visuals). These painted buildings are more common than gas stations and McDonald’s put together in the States. If a building is painted in Uganda, it is an advertisement; not many can afford to paint a building otherwise. These buildings are worth noting because this marketing scheme is now permanent make up of the visual fabric - that is Uganda. But, it can be frustrating when you first arrive because one may keep pulling over to these painted building marked all over with a certain company’s logo and not find the product or service you are looking for! In fact, often the actual businesses are so poorly marked that you can drive right by for a month and not realize it was there!