WPP's Embarrassing Mugabe Advert

The WPP advertising group was caught out last week, when it was found to be producing adverts for Mugabe, like this one:


WPP have now announced that they will sell the Zimbabwean advertising agency which was behind these adverts. It is good news that WPP is severing its links with the Zimbabwean regime, but I wonder if there is another reason why they don't want to be involved with this agency any more. The thing is, this advert is not just embarrassing because it was prepared for the Zimbabwean regime, it is embarrassing because it is crap.

Before you can do anything in advertising, you need to be able to write good English, if you write sentences like this one, your adverts are not going to be any good because people are going to find them difficult to read or they will just laugh if they understand English grammar themselves so it's best not to write things like, "The unfair treatment which will never again be seen on our land, which our people were subjected to by the colonial settlers."

People also find it distracting if you change fonts and colours all the time. It's best not to write things like, "I know you Believe, and I Believe that ALL GOOD THINGS ARE POSSIBLE."

Did someone at WPP decide they wouldn't be losing much by letting this agency go?