ADVERTISING: A Bongo for the Congo

In the Belgian Congo last week, the most popular record was a song called Klim Abikisi Mwana. In their beehive huts, natives played it on their ancient, hand-cranked phonographs, clapping their hands gleefully to its calypso-like rhythm. Although the average Bantu laborer makes only about 50¢ a day, the record was so popular that some 15,000 had already been sold at $1.10 each.

Nobody was happier at the song’s success than George M. McCoy, executive vice president of Borden Food Products Co., makers of Klim, a powdered whole milk. On a visit to Leopoldville two years ago, McCoy noticed that, after the bicycle, the phonograph was the natives’ dearest possession. He got the owner of a local record company to help him write some lyrics in Lingala, the vernacular understood up & down the Congo River, set them to a jungle rhythm and had records made. The song:

The child is going to die

Because its mother’s breast has given out.

Mama, O Mama, the child cries!

Mama, O Mama, the child cries!

If you want your child to get well,

Give it Klim milk.

Natives are not only buying Klim milk for their children, but many have started drinking it themselves. Result: sales are up about 85% in the Congo.