It was a rapturous moment at a classy event which had brought an A-class audience together from an entire industry under one roof to a venue that is reputed for being a rendezvous for world-class meeting of minds on an evening which had been both cool and calm. The award ceremony was coming as an icing on the cake to a national summit which preceded it. Several individuals, brands and corporate entities had been recognized, appreciated and celebrated for their outstanding performances in or contributions to a primus inter pares industry in the past year or decade or an entire lifetime as the case might be.
Then came the moment which, as it turned out, everybody, without prior consultation, had been waiting for: the moment to confer on Ted Mukoro the Advertising Icon of the Decade award by MARKETING EDGE magazine. All the guests whose number had long outstripped the projections of the organizers rose up in unison without any prompting. The ovation that greeted the announcement was deafening and the presentation was so ecstatic.
Perhaps no better person than Sir Steve Omojafor, OON could have handled the historic moment. For one, he is a professional protégé of Mukoro, popularly and amiably called Uncle Ted, and had both worked and related with him for over 40 years. Thus, Sir Steve, the septuagenarian veteran in the Nigerian integrated marketing communications industry could not but go down memory lane at such an opportune moment. And he did so in a manner that moved the audience almost to Cloud Seven!
Uncle Ted is many things rolled up in one – a teacher, an internationally acclaimed, multi award winning sound, stage and screen artist; a playwright, a patriot and a true leader. Most important to us in the integrated marketing communications community, he is both a titanic icon and an iconic titan.
Born in Warri, Delta State, in 1928, Ted Mukoro was a pioneer staff of the first television station in Africa, the WNTV/WNBS, having joined the station just a year after it was launched; he was part of the longest running serial on Nigerian television, The Village Headmaster, and even wrote the script for the first two episodes. His foray into advertising availed the industry the highly impactful services and gargantuan contributions of a creative genius.
Mukoro of the STAR Shine Shine Bobo and GUINNESS STOUT Black Thing Gooood o (rendered in native Calabar accent) fame among many others has inspired and nurtured the careers of a vast majority of Nigeria’s leading advertising gurus. His career spans almost five decades with a huge body of work that remains a benchmark for industry and for country.
Instructively, of the myriad of brands that he was privileged to handle, STAR and Guinness Stout obviously hold a special attraction to Uncle Ted. And, while relieving some of his memorable experiences in the world of advertising, particularly copy writing, in an interview with a medium, he recalled the “Enjoy the brighter life…STAR” commercial which he went to record in London with relish. The copy, he reminisced came with “a fantastic fantasy of imagination” whereby a STAR beer drinker watching his television, drinking his STAR beer, and enjoying the commercial saying in a soliloquy, “good for you dear” and suddenly thrusting his hand bearing the glass cup filled with STAR beer forward ostensibly to toast with the vocalist (in the commercial), and suddenly his hand burst through the screen of the TV and he clinks glasses with the vocalist”!
According to him, when the commercial was played to the Felix Ohiwerei-led team at Nigerian Breweries, he (Ohiwerei) exultantly declared, “This is everything we want to say about STAR beer!”
Unknown to many of his admirers across the globe, Uncle Ted had, earlier in life, dreamt to become a catholic priest and he actually enrolled in a seminary! By some twist in fate which might have been providential, the road to the catholic priesthood was shut against him and the road to STARdom in integrated marketing communications generally, and advertising, in particular, was opened also providentially to Ted.
Uncle Ted was one of the first 10 people to appear on television in Nigeria – WNTV/WNBS; he was the first Village Headmaster (1968-1972) in the very popular series now rested; he was an ace broadcaster, an advertising guru and an immensely talented actor. He joined Lintas on March 6, 1964, retired as creative director of Lintas, was once creative director at Insight and later chairman of Lintas.
Altogether, he had a distinguished career in Broadcasting, Advertising, Theatre and Film; he featured in such films as Dinner with the Devil, Mutual Inheritance, amongst many others, and worked on OMO, a detergent; Guinness Stout and STAR lager beer, Gulder Vono, Vitafoam, amongst a myriad of other brands. He was the originator and creator of several brands’ great ad copies.
Sitting down with Uncle Ted on any issue relating to his profession or the industry ended up like a tutorial class under a talented professor. The educational immersion was both impacting and inspiring. For instance, in explaining a point during an interview, he had this to say, “The heart of the creative industry is, of course, the language of communication, the very means of persuading of the target consumer. English, the principal language is, unlike in Britain, USA, etc where it is the mother tongue, needed the support of Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba, etc to be truly idiomatic and therefore more penetrative, more convincing and more persuasive communication… So the function of creating a truly successful and persuasive communication in Nigeria has been a totally different kind of experience”.
Arguably, had he been allowed to tread the path to catholic priesthood, he could perhaps have risen to such a lofty and revered height of a Cardinal. But then, it is both soothing and satisfying that in his eventual career, our one and only Uncle Ted rose to become a professional pontiff of some sorts.
- This article first published in the MARKETING EDGE is here reproduced as a tribute to the advertising legend, Ted Mukoro, who transited on Wednesday, March 7, at 90.
