Advertising in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe companies are sometimes very very good at advertising. Sadly the delivery far from always live up to the promises in the ads.

A favorite for a long time is mobile network provider Econet "Inspired by the best", "internet where you are" etc. This plastered just about everywhere from a provider that delivers such poor service, especially on the "3G" side, that an anti-Econet Facebook page actually exists. For years the most common phrase in any cellphone conversation in Zimbabwe sounds something like "Hello? Hello! Can you hear me, yes I can hear you. Hello!" - and so on.

For some weeks now a rather aggressiv campaign stated "wear something red Friday ?? September" (I have forgot the actual date). Full page ads in the daily newspapers etc and believe it or not - the police "got suspicious" and were "out in full force" on said Friday. All the campaign promised was that you could be given some sort of prize if you were spotted by them wearing something red that day.

This turned out to be a campaign for a new mobile internet 3G service that also should deliver cellphone services in, for now, Harare area. BUT the company, Africom, could show no products during the launch, their website is down and during the recent ICT Africa show all their stall had was - leaflets and a guy talking about how good the still invisible products were...

Reality check, someone?

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