Telecel Bon Voyage

To make ends meet, Kizito and I created ads for Telecel, a telecommunications company. At that time, in the mid 1990's, Telecel ran a monopoly in the capital, and did not really need to advertise. But Jim Galan, the American director, had a soft spot for our conservation projects and orphaned bonobos. He paid for a dozen one page cartoons and then hired us to manage the postings in the local newspapers.

This four color ad fit in with the "social marketing" that we used for our copy. Each told a good story, gave some interesting lesson (here, it was geography), and advanced our overall goal of creating interest in reading.

In Bon Voyage, TELECEL, a jumbo jet is deplaning passengers. The first pane announces, "A tropical morning....the arrival from Europe." Then we see a man, dressed in a puffy jacket with a Topeka Zoo and happy face patches, waving good-by to the air hostesses, "See you next time, my dears!"

In the crush of passengers, he exclaims, "AWESOME! HO! My brother is here!"

The two meet, the loud bother greeting the conservatively dressed brother with, "What's up, Bro?"

They hug, and the brother asks, "How was the trip?" "FANTASTIC!" (The man likes to talk in capital letters.)

The next scene is a depiction of the crazy hubbub at the Kinshasa airport, where the two brothers are seen as tiny figures in the background, laughing.

In the third row, left pane, the two are waiting for their baggage. The loud brother throws out his arms, "I was in London, Madrid, Athens, New Delhi, Paris, Brussels...!!"

He continues, admonishing his stay at home brother, "...you need to get out and breathe the air of progress in exotic places, isn't that so, brother!?! His brother raises one eyebrow and responds softly, "Maybe..."

While the loud brother is laughing in an uproar, we notice the other brother's hand holding a cellular telephone that suddenly begins ringing, "Lo lo lo lo! Lo lo lo lo!"

A finger punches a button, while the loud brother, tears still in his eye from laughing, shows surprise on his face.

The quiet brother answers the phone, saying, "Hello... Los Angeles?... O.K.! I'll call Singapore immediately to confirm... Good bye!"

The loud brother, eyes wider, listens to this conversation. Then, with a broad wink, the quiet brother says, "You see, brother... I travel too, with TELECEL!"