By Kate Henshaw
For decades, advertisements have always been a way for individuals, corporate organisations to sell their ideas and products to the general public. The way an advert is packaged goes a long way and has an effect on the consumer. It will determine whether the product will be purchased or not.

Word of mouth is also a means of advertisement, and one of the effective marketing tools. When someone buys a product and uses it and it satisfies the consumer,he or she will tell  friends,family members,others apparently marketing the product,and this is word mouth in action. There are various claims by the company about the efficacy of their product and the use of recognisable faces certainly sways most people to buy a product even though they might not have heard about it before.

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I will now put up two sets of advertisements claiming different things about a particular brand, two different products but from the same brand. The first one goes like this: “SAMSUNG- MISS IT, MISS OUT OFFER.  LA32D400. ENJOY OUR SURGESAFE RANGE OF PRODUCTS WITH BUILT IN STABILIZERS THIS FESTIVE SEASON”.

At the top right hand corner of the advert was the map of Africa in a box and written in it was, BUILT FOR AFRICA. Before this festive advert for the Samsung Television, my television and radio had been inundated with adverts for this particular brand of TV with a popular footballer as the face of the product. My sister wanted a brand new TV to replace the old one. We debated on which brand to buy and settled for a Samsung TV. That was the beginning of my nightmare.

I walked into the Palms Shopping mall on  September 2, 2011 and purchased one unit of the Samsung LCD32D400 television from Chigo Electronics, a distributor of the product. Chigo electronics is a subsidiary of Dajcom Ltd. I paid cash for the product and took it home, installed it and it was ok. Two weeks later, my sister told me that the TV would not come on any longer. I found that quite strange. I took it back to the place of purchase (Palms) and the first thing I was told was that I had to take it to the Samsung head office at Apapa which I of course refused.

responsibility

That was not where I had purchased it. It was not my responsibility to transport it to Apapa. After much talks , Chigo staff promised to take it there for me and find out what the problem was and they would give me a call when the TV came back. I left, thinking that it should not take long before I had the TV sorted and returned to me. Alas! I thought wrong.

A week later, I had not heard from them and I went back, they claimed not to have heard from the head office and asked for more time to follow up. I called up someone I knew who worked with Samsung but he was of no help to me. Having called the company for a couple of Weeks I was really angry with the service I was offered.

I was then given the number of the manager, one Mr Ibrahim after I had been again to the company threatening fire and brimstone. I called him and complained about the situation. He promised to sort it out in 48hrs. This turned out to be a delay tactics as at the expiration of the time, he then gave me the number of another manager who was the one who would approve the replacement. This proved abortive as the number I was given, was switched off!

I had no choice but to go to the police station nearest me to report the matter. At this instance, I will praise the speed with which the matter was resolved. Starting with the arrest of a staff of the company, Chigo, within two hours, a brand new TV was delivered to the station by Mr Kola Ogunnaike who apologised profusely for the delay and handling of the situation. Date of delivery was  December 8, 2011.Four months later. Did it have to get to that extent?

The second advert: Duracool- The only refrigerator designed to work when the power goes out. No power? No problem. The advert went on to state that it had a Built in stabilizer, energy saving LED, cool pack (to maintain temperature below 0 degrees for 3hrs when the power goes off). Durable, reliable and efficient.

 experience

Uche is a mutual friend and she is an interior decor expert, she deals in properties and so has experience in the purchase of household appliances. She heard of my experience and decided to give me a call. She was disappointed when she treated herself to the Duracool fridge. A week plus after purchase, the fridge did not cool any longer.

She went back to the place of purchase which was the Akin adesola branch in Victoria Island. A technician was sent with her to see what the problem was and he wanted to take away a part in the fridge to repair and come back to her home, she refused and detained him there, called in the police and with her connections, it did not take long before she got a replacement same day! Wish I had done that.

Where does one go in situations like this where the company is reluctant to exchange a brand new product? I have heard of the Consumer Protection Council but yet to see any effectiveness. Does anyone know where their office is located across the country, lagos in particular? Hmmm.