Shine With Correct And Alluring Ad Displays

How do you make your business name known among people? How to add beauty to the advertising display of products among customers. Everyone competes in markets. But there are many places where we can’t be satisfied because words like "ad" are misspelled and no attention has been given to design and art. Even the Federal Capital City of Kathmandu looks haphazard by this standard. Is it a problem? The question needs to be seen in terms of curiosities. The lapses in writing the names of shops, businesses, firms, factories, and industries and the grammatical errors in both Nepali and English for the display of advertising materials are rampant in Kathmandu. What it all demands is: Something needs to be done urgently to correct these lapses. But for it, we must put ourselves into learning mode. After all, what harm is there in learning for good? Developing nations can learn from developed nations, and developed nations, too, should not feel ashamed to learn from the experiences of developing nations. Meanwhile, this scribe, who has a fresh experience of visits to places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Hayward, and San Jose in the US, wants to note some observatory facts about advertisement themes and their public displays in these places. These facts can broadly be categorised into three standards: grammatical correctness, artistic construction in ad themes, and the alluring use of light in them.

Grammar: Grammar for names of shops or business firms means the practice of correct writing of names. It is, in fact, very important. If we see the above-mentioned Californian cities with this standard, they look qualitatively standard. It is certainly a matter of praise. Maybe businessmen are very particular about this aspect.

Art themes: How essential are they? Alluring art is a picture of the heart, which gives a longer age to the materials. We can present the names of McDonald’s, Amazon, Ford, Audi, and Toyota as examples of quality brand names and designs. But these and similar companies are multi-national companies that can hire the best designers and afford the resources to do so. Their company names and logos shine in cities, and consumers know them very well. The case with smaller business entities is different. No doubt, they can’t do it like multinationals. But there in the US, if we talk about Californian cities (even Hayward city is a model), the public display of names and advertising materials is not only grammatically well-spelled; they are alluring, too. This means each business entity, no matter how big or small it is, has tried to do something artistic to be correct and attractive before displaying the name and advertisement to the public.

Light: The night is the time to lift cities with the glow of light, and by this standard, Californian cities entice travellers. Many of the hotels in Las Vegas have chosen golden light, and they all offer fantastic views in the evenings and nights. The light is the means to embellish the look of their names and advertisements for their products and businesses in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, too. It seems that light has played an instrumental role in making the look of the cities artistic and smart through the medium of advertisements in this state, which has earned fame globally for filmmaking. Now, let’s come to the core point after a few words concerning the three main observatory facts about the American way of advertising for sales and promotions of products. This core point is related to Kathmandu, which is the Federal Capital City of Nepal.

Kathmandu is a city of arts, languages, traditions, and cultures. It is not a new thing. Since very long ago, from the times of the Lichchhavi and Malla dynasties, the nation, especially Kathmandu Valley, has done only one thing passionately for future generations, and that is the promotion of languages and arts. 

So, Kathmandu can’t offer itself to allow shopkeepers, business houses, industries, factories, or any other public or private entities to hang or erect painted or printed names or advertising materials in public places incorrectly or unattractively. This is unsuitable for Kathmandu’s pride.

But we need to check it properly. And Kathmandu is internally capable of doing it. There are many talented advertisement designers, artists, linguists, and scholars in the city. They are doing their best in their respective fields, too. If so, how can incorrect displays of advertising materials go unchecked? We can’t blame anyone for it on a personal level. Some ambiguity among scholars and critics about grammar rules in the Nepali language has also aggravated the problem in recent times. There are independent institutions like the Nepal Academy and Universities and prudent language scholars who can work together to clear this ambiguity so that the incorrect writings of display ad materials will be discouraged in the days to come.

Kathmandu has tremendous potential to tap at a professional level for checking the aberrations in advertising materials in the city. But this can be done only with broader cooperation. No doubt, the Kathmandu Metropolis has a lead role to play in it, but cooperation needs to be offered from the ministries like education, home, and other scholarly bodies of the nation like the Nepal Academy, Tribhuvan University, and other universities in the country.

   (Kafle is a former Deputy Executive Editor of this daily.)