Familiar Names In Unfamiliar Places

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29128, 13 February 1960, Page 7

Familiar Names In Unfamiliar Places

[By

ROBERT NACHA

in the "Scotsman"]

(Reprinted by Arrangement)

Advertising may be big business. It may be a method of making one buy goods whether we will or no. But to me, when abroad, it has meant closer ties with England. It does not matter where you are—in the United States or Australia, Africa or China—somewhere, somehow, there will appear before your eyes a sign which will transport you home. You can pick up the “New York Times” at Idlewild airport, open it at random, and you are sure to see an advertisement from a home manufacturer. In this case, it was whisky. Turn the pages idly and probably another whisky advertisement will catch the eye. Then a well-known brand of tie, possibly the make you are wearing. Nostalgic In Paris, I was amazed at the , number of British goods adver- ( tised and sold in the shops as . French. But the trade name was j there to satisfy the senses that , you were not seeing things. One feels an immediate nostalgia. The cliche “the world is a J small place” is real enough, even j if viewing it only from the point , of view of advertisements seen in j a Papuan paper, on a hoarding ( in Leopoldville, or in neon lights | in Dakar. ( True, most advertisers now work ( on an international scale, have | branches everywhere—or nearly ( everywhere. But how can they account for this? ( In Eastern Nigeria, I had ] motored along dusty tracks, been ( punted in a relay of canoes, up- , stream, for hours, and trekked for the best part of a day to visit , a native village a few miles from , the banks of the Sombreiro river. ( I was tired, hungry and thirsty. The day had been hot, damp and oppressive, as only Nigerian days . can be in the middle of the rainy season. My Government interpreter was solicitous and encouraging. “Sir,” he said, “this village has not seen a white man for more than 50 years. I know they will welcome you and will celebrate your arrival with drinks and songs and dancing.” Very heartening. But I had no real desire to drink palm wine with the chiefs. A nice, cool lager beer would have been nearer the mark. i The canoe drew in to the muddy , banks of the Sombreiro. A straggly line of mud and wattle , huts strayed nearer the river than , they should have done. Five ' local dignitaries and their attend- 1 ants stood, regal and silent, at what purported to be a landing . stage. We exchanged greetings. It could have been an everyday . occurrence. Only the cheering of the children and the village women and girls chattering excitedly in the background showed my arrival for what it was—an ( almost unique occasion. Incongruous I I was bidden to the Native Court—nearly always a ceremonial centre. On the way, through 1 the undergrowth, we passed a : typical native bar. It was getting 1 dark now, but in the flickering lights of bush lamps a most in- : congruous sight met my eyes. 1 Hanging prominently on a stick, by a row of two hard, mud 1 benches, was the red and white sign known the world over. 1 “Drink Coca-Cola” it said garishly. 1 I stopped the procession and • asked the owner of the bar, point- : ing at the same time to the sign. ! whether he stocked this famous 1 drink. “Yessah, plenty.” What he ! finally brought forth was not 1 Coca-Cola, though the product ; was equally surprising in a village which reputedly had not seen < a white man for 50 years. It was a litre-bottle of Tennant’s stout. Perhaps the red trade-mark “T” 1 on a white background had con- ' fused him with the Coca-Cola red and white. It was hard to say, ' but no Coke had he. Only Tennant’s and the mystery of the 1 sign remained. 1 One encounters trade signs in 1 most mysterious places. “Persil s washes whiter” screams a plaque on a dry red river bed ! miles from anywhere. But this i time, in the village not far away, 1 you will get your washing pow- 1 der, albeit damp. Such is the power of adver- : tising. Famous Make Throughout West Africa and French Equatorial Africa, even in Liberia and Portuguese Bissao, one particular brand of bicycle is

The Africans will do everything in their power to get one, but will rarely pay the price. There is hardly a village which has not got its own open-air bicycle shop and repair man. And many a shady trick is perpetrated on the unwary who has saved up for months, even years—has even cheated and robbed to get the price of this famous make. The famous trade-mark is merely taken off an old and discarded bicycle, refurbished, and soldered on the front of a new cheap bicycle which has probably come from Germany. The proud, but unsuspecting new owner of the famous British bicycle walks away, happy with his purchase. It will be years, if ever, before he finds out he has been tricked. All bicycles are wrapped out there. Thin coils of brown paper cover the frames all round. And the African never takes the wrapping off if he can help it. It keeps the paintwork fresh and new. In Bissao, Portuguese West Africa, only one brand of soap did I see advertised—again a wellknown British one. In one of the villages deep inland from Dakar, I met again a famous sign—that of the flying horse of Mobiloil—but not a drop of petrol could, be had. The man had never heard of petrol. His friend suggested he had stolen the sign from the Gambia, a neighbouring territory! But forgetting the strident blare of TV jingles, the nonsense rhymes and blatant demands of one product over another and the incessant demand on your pocket —whatever the advertisements—when you see them in a foreign land, however far away, they bring you closer to home.