The Town Crier,The High Priest

The Town Crier:

Kere OO,Kere OO,Kere OO, I greet you all, people of our land. And I also bring you greetings from the King and his Chiefs

There has been a deliberation over the happenings in our land, and the king has instructed that no person should be seen around Igbo nla from 9 pm, to dawn, whoever is seen around there, would be responsible for whatever happens to him/her.

The King has spoken OOO, I’m just his mouth piece.

Mo wi re OOOO,

The typical town Crier makes no error in passing across the verdict of the king, he was never aware of the need for the message after all, he is never concerned about the desire of the people, all he has is a brief-“Go tell the people what we have decided over the matter”, and that’s the limit of his job”. No empathy for his listeners, and he’s never worried about perception, after all he was never part of the solution and though he is supposed to be an audience of his own message, he prides himself as a messenger that spills rhetoric and style, yet he’s still a messenger.

His primary job is to communicate, and what does he communicate? Benefits, but benefit does not excite his audience, the people wants a deeper connection, something that connects to their humanity.

The High Priest:

O King live forever, our town will see good days ahead; the future of our people is a big concern, we need to do something about it.

The high priest, the futurologist, you call him your creative consultant, the mediator between the consumer and the manufacturer. He sees beyond creating messages to helping to re-invent companies and their brands. He earns the respect of his clients, he seats with the Chiefs in counsel, he is the spiritual link of his people, at the centre of his audience is the intense longing to be closer to God, and he identifies with that, and creates brand with such point of view, he looks into the future of the consumers, collaborate with the palace to create value and increase bottom line.

After all the voice of the gods is the voice of men.

We played the role of the town crier for too long, the future has no hope for such practice.

The entire Advertising industry was created to persuade predetermined groups of consumers by using controlled communications to push an image, or a personality associated with product- (The future of competition) C.K,Prahalad ( Professor of Business Admin. University of Michigan, Business School.)

Blog Expert Hugh Macleod, makes this clear,” The future of Advertising is Clients increasingly asking their agencies to help re-invent not just their brands, but their actual companies, and the future is agencies being unable to deliver on this”

There’s need for us to hear the voices of the people, after all they play gods to our Business, and also collaborate with the palace. Our work will from today depend on this model, call it Co-creation, next marketing practice, whatever the nomenclature,

“The Days of Town Crier might just be over with”….”did I just say that?!!