Marketing at Its Best

Every night at 6:30, some guy walks in front of our building whistling the mCel jingle. It is like clockwork, and supremely annoying.

I must admit, however, that the mCel marketing team has put together an exceedingly effective campaign. That whistle gets stuck in your head and never leaves, providing the perfect auditory accompaniment to the increasingly common sight here in Mozambique of houses and shops painted bright canary yellow and spotted with green smiley faces. They will paint your exterior walls for free if you are willing to accept the mCel corporate logo as your new decorating scheme. From the rapidly changing palette of the country's streets, this seems to be one popular deal.

This evening, to my total horror, Ricardo whistled back, thus starting a call-and-response session in which the guy on the street would whistle the first half of the jingle and wait for the mystery whistler on the third floor to complete the musical phrase. After a couple of rounds, I shot Rico a look that instantly got the point across. I wonder, had I not been at home to discourage him, how long the interaction would have lasted. It was the whistling equivalent of that classic "pigs in the haystack" knocking pattern. You know, dum-da-da-dum-dum....dum-dum!

I can only imagine the night whistler's disappointment when Rico leaves for Rio on Monday and he loses his mCel jingle partner. For all of my talents, I am completely unable to whistle.