Komuntale
“Treat your skin like royalty”, goes the caption on that local beauty product billboard featuring Princess Ruth Komuntale.
Man, each time my eyes get a glimpse of this billboard, I feel countless sharp knives piercing hard, through every part of my body.
Has it come to this now? Okay, let me be as honest as I can be here. The first time I saw the princess on the front pages of a glossy, local magazine, I thought it was okay. I mean she looked regal and quite comfortable in her own shoes, if you get what I am saying. Then, when it was alleged that a certain media house had been asked to pay money for the couple’s first wedding pictures (at the time of her wedding), I also found that okay. Well, international celebrities can live off everything as long as they have earned it.
From their lifestyle, baby photos, work, wedding details name it. So why can’t our so called celebrities do the same here, especially when the media houses are selling off them?
But then this billboard stunt of her endorsing a local beauty product totally has my eyebrows raised high up in the air. Well, I know that a number of girls and women could be keen on knowing the secret behind the princess’ beautiful skin right? But was this the best way to reveal the “secret”? In all truth and honesty, is this the perfect description of “how she treats her skin like royalty”? Even if the aim is to carry the message across, we need to get a bit frank with our own selves so that we paint a picture closest to home right?
For starters royalty to me comes off as regal bound, classy, elegant name it. Not an impromptu move from class A to Z for example!
Then, for a product whose existence, costing, target audience and appeal has been made clear from the word go, the location of the big and small billboard presences’ do not come as a surprise, I guess. So my shock kicks in further for every second that I see this royal presence in dingy areas, endorsing the said product, which to me; comes off as the most cheapening stunt by far.
A princess does not just go from glory to endorsing anything that comes her way at leisure. I would like to keep on believing that somewhere, somehow, there is a ka clause in the prior signed deal that says, “a percentage of all the sales made will go to a charity of her choice” because then I might relate to this entire disaster.
Otherwise I still do not get it. It is very disturbing when a fresh, youthful, young face of royalty at that, is placed against a product that one is almost certain might never feature anywhere in her handbag let alone on her dressing table. And even if the motive for this was to show how modest she can be, it could have been done in a number of other ways as opposed to this billboard which communicates a million languages in one.
Now isn’t this the point where we all agree and face the fact that some things can never add up? Yes, like oil and water? If we set goals and build up to a certain standard or lifestyle, then we had better make sure that we maintain it in that level. Not meander through valleys and mountains.
In this case, this is the least that I expected from this ever well depicted royal/regal story. If you asked me, this was one undoubtedly weird move that successfully managed to make us all go “what”!!!
