Dear Nigerian Creatives, Easter is Coming

It’s that time of the year again when Creatives will gather in conference rooms to brainstorm for Easter Day ideas.

For those who work in agencies, they’ll be having 7 to 10 brainstorms, depending on the number of brands they manage. The client-side folks on the other hand are currently struggling to connect their brands to the Easter narrative even though no plug connects both.

And on Easter Day, you’ll see something like this:

Easter is arguably the most difficult holiday for Creatives. First, your brand might not have any element you can connect to the Easter narrative, you then struggle to connect what’s not there and fail at it.

And if your brand has elements you can connect to the Easter narrative, you’ve probably done it over and over again in different ways, and there’s nothing left to explore. Then, it’s a religious holiday that requires treading with care so you don’t fall into blasphemy.

Year after year, I’ve seen creativity for Easter ads dwindle. The most creative ideas we had years ago made a comeback and have been overflogged, just like the ‘it is finished’ idea food brands don’t want to let go of.

Easter creatives have become stressful in the last 2-3 years and brands have begun to churn out forced ideas consistently without care.

I keep asking, why the struggle? There’s no harm in doing a clean design that says Happy Easter.

Sterling was probably out of ideas in 2022 when they did this. For Peak, the struggle to use their product to depict Easter is how they ended up here.

It didn’t end well because ARCON came for both brands and they had to issue an apology to the Christian community.

Let’s review some Easter creatives we’ve seen in the last few years.

Financial Institutions

For the fintechs and banks, Easter idea is usually either a POS terminal or a receipt, with the words, ‘transaction successful’ or something related.

While it’s not a bad idea, as it was creative when the first brand did it, it has now been over-flogged. If there’s nothing new that can be done, let’s create something simple. It’s Easter after all and the day is not about your brand.

One financial institution that has however kept it fresh with its Easter designs is Interswitch and its babies (Quickteller, Verve and others).

They’ve explored the receipt idea and left it behind for new ideas. Can other financial institutions follow suit or again, just do something simple?

Stone rolled away

This is the most over-flogged Easter idea out of Nigeria. I know the stone was rolled away, but it’s not compulsory your design has that. You don’t have to force it. Some brands have rolled away the stone and killed it effortlessly, but some others ended up either being an epic fail or just plain boring.

Here’s one that came out well:

Bold played around with their logo. It was simple, no unnecessary drama. Easy on the eyes.

Then we have 9mobile.

Designs like this stress me out. You really don’t have to, because it’s not working.

For Checkers, the tomb has been checked. Why? Because they are Checkers Custard and their brand has to tie into Easter.

Then, there’s Peak Milk.

Peak Milk has given us some really good Easter designs, I’ll give it to them. For this ‘tomb rolled away’ design, it’s not bad, but the idea is not new.

MTN and Oando rolling the stone away.

The MTN design is not the best, it doesn’t look clean and easy on the eyes. For Oando, I have one question - is the stone the gift? Why the wrap around it?

Others

First Bank tried to use their ‘You First’ tagline here, and it’s nice. But everything else makes me cringe.

‘He put us first’ works perfectly, and all we needed on the left was Happy Easter, not that wordy copy. For Airtel, I have no words.

Sycamore and United Capital kept it simple. It screams Easter, but in a creative way, without the forced connection of brand elements.

Dear Nigerian creatives, Easter is in a few days. As you think of ideas and the creativity doesn’t seem to be working, save yourself the stress and your brand’s image from designs that will not end well. If it’s not working, it’s not you - it’s Easter. Let it be and get your designer to create a clean Happy Easter design.

If your Easter Day design has already been done and approved, it just might need a second look. Ask yourself, is it forced? Is this necessary? If it needs some tweaking or another brainstorm, it's a good time to do it.

Share this with a Creative and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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