Media must tap into celebrities’ discreet adverts
Who is sitting in the driving seat in influencing the content of media particularly in relation to highly consumable activities of social players, or call them celebrity news?
Over the past couple of weeks, the African American celebrity rapper and fashion icon, Kanye West, now known simply as Ye, has captured the media’s imagination by simply donning a hoodie bearing at the back the writings “White Lives Matter”. In fact, he has done much more than that.
For those who follow him his story is a bit complicated. He is rich, he is famous, and although he himself is black, he has a history of rubbing black people the wrong way. He has bipolar disorder. Not too long ago he said slavery was probably a choice black people made. Whenever he sits down for an interview, he is likely to say something offensive to the Jews.
Here at home, famous socialites famed for prominent backsides, for decades have nurtured and milked their looks for what the looks have to offer.
For example, in a recent incident, a socialite dished out the first shock, designed to capture the attention of the media which turned out to be a teaser that the famous posterior had somewhat disappeared under a medic’s scalpel.
It turned out that the claim was not true but a device to capture the attention of the press in readiness for a recording the socialite was preparing to release. It was all a choreographed strategy to promote a creative product. What the celebrities so skillfully did was to promote their brand, and their product, at hardly any cost to themselves. They commanded so much media attention and publicity that they would have otherwise paid for if they had taken the conventional way.
Kenyans are now probably accustomed to the antics of Eric Omondi. Certainly, a creative mind, for long a darling and role model for those who craved clean content. Then somewhere along the way something happened and Omondi has since then served his army of fans shock therapy of near-extreme content.
If he was not bathing in the open by the river naked in the company of children, he was cross-dressing with manufactured violence thrown in for good measure. The media have lapped it all. The common thread is that these creative minds have hogged up publicity without paying for it in the media.
If they wanted attention, then they got it, and all that for free. The social media platforms they run seem to have been mere bait and an entry point to the mainstream media.
As the mainstream media featured these antics, the social media ran alongside it keeping the flame alive for as long as possible.
It is a genius performance that upends the traditional way in which media has operated. The gatekeepers traditionally decided what goes into their pages and their airtime. If it was of a commercial nature, then the beneficiaries paid to advertise thus providing revenue for running the industry.
But now it seems these social scene players, who have become alternative actors, famous simply for being famous, have forced themselves on the gatekeepers and at no fee. If anything, it is they who are milking this free publicity for all its worth.
Ye, for example, is a multi-billion-dollar money-minting machine whose body has been a billboard for Adidas and Nike. Any publicity translates into millions of dollars in promoting his clothing lines.
Vera Sidika’s new song gets a boost from possible increased views and potential reviews just like the value of Omondi’s appearance in public climbs a notch higher with more zeroes at the end of his appearance fee as his name is mentioned. But what does the media get in return?
It is a challenge for the business side of the media to figure out ways that such discreet commercial promotions by these media survey consumers can translate into funds for the media to support public good journalism.
—The writer is the dean, School of Communication, Daystar University
