The long and tumultuous case of DDB Lagos and the “Today is a Good Day” campaign will be difficult to summarize quickly, but here we go anyway…
Last summer, Nigerian company Oceanic Bank was in a bit of a bind when their CEO and other higher ups got sacked following some sort of Nigerian reform act. Needing to reinvent itself, the company when to DDB Lagos, who in turn created the “Today is a Good Day” effort (yep, you know we couldn’t help thinking of this). It didn’t really say much, but it apparently gave people to warm, soft optimism needed to put their trust back into the bank.
However, another company, telecommunications giant MTN Nigeria, is also using the “Today is a Good Day” tagline for its Africa United World Cup ads. DDB Lagos is currently MTN Nigeria’s exclusive creative agency, and is currently being accused of laziness and unethical practices by reps for Oceanic Bank.
MTN apparently doesn’t really care at all. Emilomon Aikhoje, DDB Lagos’s Communications Manager, defended the agency saying, “It is a fact in the advertising industry that global brands create worldwide campaigns, which are communicated and cascaded to local offices that are then tasked with adopting said campaigns to their individual markets. What happened in this case is certainly not a unique situation.”
What this comes down to is a little bank finding redemption in a few words and a large conglomerate feeling it can ethically make a local message global. After all, the campaigns had nothing to do with each other. In any case, South Africa didn’t exactly have an amazing World Cup showing, so no one’s having a very good day over there right about now, not including all of the drunk tourists.
Read a more thorough retelling here.
More: “Spec Adidas Ad Celebrates Africa’s First Time Hosting World Cup”