A new feature film focusing on the urban youth and their psyche has been released, giving both marketers and sociologists an insight into the young minds of today and also a glimpse of how much has changed since the 60’s.
The documentary, titled Urban Kool, gives firsthand experience of Nairobi urban youth lifestyle through interviews and narrations of youths of yester-years.
The one hour feature highlights the fashion, music and entertainment tastes of the different generations, cementing the old adage, ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same’. In all the aspects measured – fashion, clubbing, music, movies and TV programmes – every generation set a new standard by slightly changing the previous generation tastes.
The only defining distinction of generation Y (those born between 1980 – 1995) is the huge uptake of technology. The documentary is essentially an introduction to a relatively new marketing concept in the country known as ‘Branded entertainment’.
“We wanted to tell marketers that if you want to communicate to the youth, the old traditional way will not work and how best to do that than a feature film,” says Kiama Muriithi, Director and Executive Producer at Media Bases Productions, creators of Urban Kool.
The random panel of generation Y’ers selected for the interview attest to Kiama’s assertion.
The film underscores how marketers can align their brand communication with urban-cool concepts like entertainment to attract and retain the youth market for brand-building. As the crusaders of the concept, Media Base production has fused entertainment and information to pass on their message.
The feature resonates to both the older folks and the much younger generation, as each era learns from the other. The interviewees reminiscing on their heydays include actor Peter Mureithi, radio personality, Edward Kwach, Fred Machokaa, DJ Adrian among others.
“Commercial breaks and conventional advertisements are no longer working. Marketers now have to engage the youth at their level and at what they are doing,” says Kiama.
Branded marketing has been effective in the West as exemplified by the phenomenal sale of the new Mini Cooper, which was used in the hit movie ‘Italian Job’.
“The same applies to the Motorola phone being used in the TV series, 24 or musicians wearing certain clothing brands in music videos,” adds Bonie Mwangi, Creative Director.
However, according to Kiama, brand placement in entertainment content should be subtle and natural.
“The brand should be part of the content and not an interruption of normal entertainment,” explains Kiama. “The product is active and not passive. You can see the product in action, and this is what makes consumers interested.”
The feature, which took nine months to shoot, was not without its challenges.
“It was a bit difficult shooting the feature especially considering we had to use our own funds,” says Kiama.
Furthermore, getting archival footage of some of the places that are mentioned was near impossible.
“We could not even get a photo of club Bubbles or Boomering, which were a big hit in the 70’s,” adds the Executive Producer.
Getting the interviewees was also a hurdle since most of them have busy schedules. In addition, there were issues of getting quality and post-production.
In spite of the challenges, Kiama and his team have produced an entertaining as well as informative documentary, without compromising on quality.
The feature film will be officially launched early next year but one can get a copy at Media Base Productions office, Tel No 0720-634908
Watch a trailer of the video here
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