APEX "We Sell Fatcakes" advert

Just a few minutes from the bus rank, among the clusters of warehouses of Haile Selassie Road  that one wouldn’t care to look at while passing by, lies APEX. To be honest, I don’t believe many of us would be aware of the APEX building if it wasn’t for their attention grabbing idea. They painted a huge phrase on the AVIS building wall facing the main road saying “We sell Fatcakes”, and in small letters beneath it they squeeze in “Not really, but we move property so fast it feels like it”. Then beneath that they list the services that APEX offers, which include valuations, Sales, Lettings, Management, Development and Advisory services.

APEX is not new to the Botswana market. Infact they've been at it for close to 8 years. But they havent been "visible". And now they want that attention. They did what most companies ought to do when they enter new territory. They marked themselves present!! I believe in marketing the most important thing to do as a "new entrant" is to do aggressive marketing, where you demand the attention of your market. This campaign was a very good effort I must say. First of all we must understand what kind of company APEX is. They deal with Property, not Fatcakes.

“Then why would they write that, in huge letters for that matter?!” This is what a middle aged lady in a combi from Game City said to me when I tried to correct her. It all started when the combi passed this APEX building, it caught the eye of most of us and we all turned as the combi sped past. To my utter amazement, this lady at the backseat who we had all been listening to while she went on about the events of her day to her friends said “Gatwe magwinya a ha, a cheap mo go maswe”. Translated to English this becomes, “I hear the Fatcakes here are very cheap”.

You could hear sniffles of laughter throughout the entire combi. What followed that was what I would call, a revolutionary commosion. The whole combi started a heated conversation about it. Few supported the middle aged woman’s notion that APEX was a fatcake factory. “Why else would they write that?” they argued. They rest were confused as to how anyone in their right mind could miss the whole point of the advert. Obviously APEX was trying to grab the passer by’s attention by writing a phrase that even though untrue, would get the job done. Batswana love magwinya (Fatcakes), everybody knows that. So ideally we would glance in any direction that promises Fatcakes. Even those who are indifferent about Fatcakes will get curious and look. Once the attention is on the advert the reader may now proceed to read the rest of it and ultimately learn what the company is all about. That is the whole point of the advert.  

As for the combi debate, it did not get resolved. We all agreed to disagree. Which is a shame really, because one day that woman is going to walk into APEX, requesting to buy Fatcakes.