Happy New Year, nerds and cool kids alike! Si you know, Brand Bistro is a chill spot for all psyches! So, 2025, by the way, stood out as one of the most lit years in Kenyan marketing. I’m talking about ad campaigns that made consumers fall in love with brands. At the tail end of the year, we got the honour to walk behind the scenes of something special.
After knocking on HOP’s door for a minute, ISA finally got to go on a date with the smoothest creative in town. There’s this guy by the name Viyerra Waigarra, dang, si dude can write! If you frequent the corporate streets of KE LinkedIn or have been in the Ad industry for a minute, you definitely dig his vibe.
On September 5th, Pwani Oils launched Sawa Body Lotion. It could have been just another brand extension that fell under the radar, but they had a baddie for a marketing manager. Caroline Ntinyari, ex Diageo & Unilver, briefed HOP because you know, game knows game!
Forward to Oct 2025, I think I was listening to the radio or something. An ad comes on, and man, I’ve honestly never heard a Kenyan jingle that good! “Sawa smooth, sawa fresh, niko sete, niko fine, niko best!”Ad felt like it was part of the music playlist for the radio show. Such a vibe, it was so in sync with the moment, it didn’t sound like a commercial.
At a time when the conversation was around contextual advertising, this one definitely put Kenya on the map. Finally got to talk to the brains behind the magic and got an in-depth BTS of the Sawa Lotion Ad Campaign. This is what Viyerra, HOP founder, had to say to I.S.A.
VEE (HOP): The brief was simple on paper but heavy in reality. Pwani Life wanted to relaunch SAWA Lotion, but they were stepping into a beauty category oversaturated with whitening, clinical claims, and copy-paste fragrance stories.
SAWA needed cultural relevance, emotional resonance, and a fresh identity that could speak to a generation redefining beauty on their own terms. We won that brief because we came in with four cultural truths about young Kenyans: they follow rituals, not routines.
Skincare is now lifestyle content, not a chore. Male grooming is rising, but the way brands talk about it feels cold and clinical. And Gen Z demands authenticity, natural beauty, and sensory experiences—not airbrushed perfection. That insight led us to reframe the entire brand. We said: SAWA isn’t lotion. SAWA is a daily hydration ritual.
VEE (HOP): Man, the campaign didn’t begin with a script. It began with behaviour.
Kenya’s 20-35 demographic doesn’t attend product launches,they experience them, capture them, and share them. Their mornings are soundtracked by Afro-lofi, movement, hustle, creativity. We recognized that to win their attention, SAWA needed to feel like an extension of that rhythm, not a disruption of it.
So we took a strategic leap: make the ad feel like a mood you’d save, not a message you’d skip.
That meant leaning into Nairobi morning rituals—dance culture, skating, street sports, POV filming styles native to TikTok. And critically, we worked with Dillie to create a sonic bed designed as a playlist vibe, not just a brand mnemonic. That jingle wasn’t supposed to sound like an ad. It was supposed to sound like the next song you’d add to your morning playlist.
The outcome was a campaign that didn’t interrupt culture—it blended with it.
VEE (HOP): At HOP, we believe collaboration is built into the DNA. We curate a taskforce where insight, creativity, and production all move in the same rhythm.
Phillip Ranja handled content direction, Matt Gathui the static key visuals, I led creative and copy, Doreen Mwithi produced, Enos Olik directed that kinetic visual storytelling. Then Dillie built the Afro-lofi sonic identity, Patrick St. P Mbaru captured Nairobi’s real sound textures, Brian Babu styled, Ace of Face and Makeup by Bilha gave us that natural aesthetic, Samuel Owino Bodo found real Nairobi locations, Dale Kotengo built the physical SAWA world, and Robert Safari edited the final rhythmic cut.
We follow the HOP 6-step methodology
Investigate, Strategy, Creative, Immersion, Engagement, Evaluation. From cultural immersion to repositioning skincare as ritual, to world-building, testing authenticity, rolling out across all channels, and real-time optimization.
But here’s a memorable moment. During filming, local skaters saw what we were doing and just joined in. Unscripted. Raw. Real Nairobi energy. Enos rolled with it. We kept it in the final cut and that moment became a fan-favourite online. When culture recognizes itself in your work, it completes the story for you.
VEE (HOP): The greatest challenge? Balancing premium polish with authenticity. Too glossy and it feels foreign. Too raw and you lose that aspirational value.
What I’m most proud of? The community response. Kenyan youth didn’t just watch the content—they completed it. They created thousands of ritual videos. They made #OwnYourRitual their own. That’s when you know you’ve tapped into culture.
And what surprised me? The strong male engagement. We moved away from whitening and vanity narratives, and guys showed up in ways we didn’t expect. That validated everything we believed about the shift happening in grooming culture.
VEE (HOP): At House of Panache, we’re built on a simple belief: Emotion sells. Culture sticks. Insight leads.
We don’t start with the product. We start with the human truth. What are people feeling? What are they living? What are they longing for? Then we find the brand’s role in that story.
Now, in terms of measurement—the numbers tell the full story:
Awareness & Engagement:
Brand & Behaviour Impact:
Commercial Impact:
PR Impact:
The SAWA relaunch didn’t just meet KPIs, it exceeded them across all fronts and repositioned SAWA as a modern, inclusive, culturally resonant lifestyle brand. That’s the House of Panache difference. We don’t just make ads. We make movements.
KEV (ISA): Damn, that’s what’s up!
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