My Life as Onga Ambassador - 2008-09-15

Kate Henshaw needs no winding introduction. Arguably one of Nigeria’s finest and most admired on-screen personalities, the Cross River State born Nollywood icon, who cuts a pic ture as modern equivalent of Legendary Helen of Troy, radiates an aura that endears her to millions of the viewing public, especially youths, across various sexes, races and ideological leanings. Best Actress for the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) 2008, Henshaw was recently chosen and signed-on as Face of Onga, the seasoning brand from Promasidor Nigeria Limited, a leading Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) company.

Since the signing-on ceremony, Henshaw has been attending all the marketing promotions of the Onga brand, including campus cooking competitions and activations at NYSC orientation camps across Nigeria. In this exclusive interview with M2, she reveals how her experience as Onga Ambassador has been deeply exciting and worthwhile, alluding to the new dimensions of fame which the Onga platform enables. According to her, the invitation to become Face of Onga inspired in her, a robust sense of joy and elation in view of the lofty pedigree of Promasidor as a company and the distinction of Onga as a brand.

On the gains of her intimate association with the Onga brand, the unassuming actress said, “Well, apart from my face being known all over, when I go to the campuses, I see the young ones, the students coming out to appreciate me and actually, I have seen guys coming out to identify with me. At some of the universities that I have been to, the men were the ones that won the competitions.” According to Henshaw, her role as Face of Onga grandly complements her other roles as wife, mother, actress and social advocate, hence the fulfillment she feels.

The choice of Henshaw, according to a statement earlier released by Promasidor, was informed by the need to direct Onga towards the youth segment of the Nigerian market, a segment that, it believes will look up to the actress as an achiever and a model of excellence.

“We are moving Onga towards a new direction of appeal to the younger generation users of the brand. This is the singular reason that informed the search for a humble, experienced jewel of beauty; a lady who is exposed, sociable and worthy in character to champion the new direction for Onga, amongst a population of 140 million people,” reads the statement, signed by Keith Richards, the company's managing director.

In this interview, the highly gifted actress draws attention to the various distinguishing attractions of the Onga brand, while shedding light on the terms of the endorsement, the declining culinary culture among Nigerians, Onga's on-going sensitisation campaign, and broader issues like the condition of food supply in the country among others. Bright Nwogwugwu provides excerpts.

There is hardly any greater way of endorsing a brand than accepting to play an ambassadorial role for it. What are those factors that attracted you into assuming this role for the Onga brand?

Well, I am passionate about cooking, although I hardly have the time. But when I am on holiday with my husband and my daughter, my husband and I take  turn to cook. So of course, it came to me as something I like doing and I am passionate about it and would like to encourage the youths who are the target to be part of it, to take up that role as well, in their respective capacities.

Specifically, I have known about Promasidor, formerly Wonder Foods, for a long time. I have known them with Cowbell, with Top tea and other great brands. When Onga came on the scene, I was particularly captivated by the advertisement that accompanied it. The advert of the cartoon lady appealed to me in a special way, and I was like “Oh! That is interesting, just as interesting as the Cowbell advertisement which also deployed the animation technique.” I decided to give Onga a try and it proved to be the best.

So, what is your assessment of the seasoning market in Nigeria?

There are so many seasoning brands out there, but like I said before, Onga is simply special and simply the best; otherwise I would not associate with it as intimately as I am doing. The packaging of Onga is attractive. Again, it is already there in its ground form, so you do not need to squeeze it between your fingers. All you need to do is to tear a corner of it and just use it. I mean, that is interesting. For me, I think that is convenient. It takes out a whole lot of work from you and then you have it in the chicken, in the classic, in the stew, and in the pastes. So, it is basically all the ingredients that we need in Africa, especially in Nigeria where we use a lot of chicken, a lot of meat, a lot of vegetables and all that. Onga covers a wide variety of foods that we, as Africans, eat. I am happy to be part of the whole campaign.

Apart from the cutting-edge communication techniques used in driving the Onga brand, as well as the various flavours it has, what other features do you think set Onga ahead of the competition?

Basically, Onga is Number One in terms of taste. Moreover, just with a tiny quantity, (I can say so, because I use it a lot in my house), you are able to spice up your meals sufficiently. The aroma is also remarkably great, and it makes the cooking experience generally worthwhile. This, together with the all-encompassing variety of flavours and the convenience associated with using the seasoning, sets it ahead as the market leader.

It does appear that Onga, in the main, tends to promote African dishes. What is your fascination with African cuisine?

Of course, African dishes are very healthy. They have the entire nutrients that make for healthy living. You have vegetables in the dishes, you have oil, you have saturated fat. You cook them with all your meat, you get your protein from your fish, and then, of course, you have your carbohydrates with your eba, your semo and others. We have balanced diet here in Africa. We are balanced; all you need to do is to eat a little quantity so that you do not get fat because it is when you over eat that you have an obese problem. If you eat just the soup, without even eating eba, everything is there.

Now, you know great brands do not sign on ambassadors that have nothing to do with the brands' value propositions. So, what would you say is your selling point which made you eligible to be chosen as the Face of Onga?

What they said to me was that they had looked round and they discovered that I was somebody that a lot of people will want to identify with in the society and this has been evident in the campuses that I have gone to for their cooking competitions. The turn-out, as well as the passion that is brought to the events is usually amazing. Initially in Zaria, not many people turned up for the competition, but then the news came up that Kate Henshaw was there and then they came rushing and I interacted with them, I danced.

They want interaction. They already knew about the seasoning, but needed an additional boost which my presence was there to offer. A lady actually came up to me just about a month ago at a shopping mall and said “look, I am using Onga just because of you, I am going to try it” and to me that was really nice. That shows how powerful it is to have a face, a brand face, a good face and not just anybody, attached to your product. That way, you get more exposure even if you have before. Some people will say “we did not even know about this,” then they will say “let us go and get this thing and try it.” And by that way, a lot of people will actually buy it and before you know it, everybody is using it.

There seems to be something about your person that makes a lot of people admire you. What are those principles you apply in building your brand as a person?

For me, I just stand out naturally. One thing I have realised is that it is good to be nice to everybody. I am not saying one should go out of the bounds of decency and civility all in a bid to make people comfortable with you. So it just pays to be nice to everyone, to be easy going and to be approachable. I am sure if I have one kind of face that is not approachable, that lady would not have walked up to me to tell me what she actually felt about what I am doing. So, you have to be approachable and have a very cheery outlook. I think this is how I have been for a long time.

What is your core promise to the Onga brand?

My promise to the Onga brand is that I will promote it to the best of my ability. Wherever I am promoting Onga, it will be to the best of my ability. Through the platform that Onga provides, I will encourage people, especially youths, to come back to their roots, to cook. People are very busy today; they hardly have time to cook, prefering to buy from the restaurant. Of course, cooking is done in restaurants too, but there is nothing like making your own meal, buying your ingredients from the market, cutting your own leaves, using your seasoning (Onga, preferably) and the meat you purchased yourself, and at the end of the day the whole family sits down and eats.

With that, you can actually promote family value and enhance emotional bonding. My mother raised me up in the kitchen. I have to be in the kitchen. She would beat me if I was not in the kitchen, she would say to me, “you are a woman, your brothers are men, you have to know how to cook.” So I love being in the kitchen; I love my kitchen to be nice and clean. If you come to my house, you will see that it is nice, clean and everything is there. It promotes family values at the end of the day because the family sits together and enjoys a meal cooked by the mum or maybe the dad. He can cook with the children; it is a very nice bonding experience for the family, so everything works out well.

So, what were the considerations made during the signing of the contract with Onga, I mean the terms of the contract duration, role specifications and all that?

The duration is two years and I will be available for 20 events for the period, where Onga is being promoted, including the cooking competitions at the campuses, NYSC camps and all such places. I have gone to the NYSC camp at Iyana-Ipaja; I have been to Kaduna, I have been to Zaria, I will go to Calabar very soon. I have also been to UNILAG. In most of these places, there are cooking competitions which Onga is sponsoring and as the face of the brand, I have to be there to interact with the people and have a nice time with them.

Do we expect to see your face in all of Onga's communication materials soon?

Actually, there was an add-on. It includes Ghana now. For any commercial bearing my face, I am entitled to some more incentives. This has been sorted out already. So the agreement is effective only within Nigeria and Ghana for now.

Why the focus on campuses for the on-going Onga campaign?

There is were the youths are concentrated. These are the people that when they graduate, they are going to be working, not having enough time to cook. So, we are encouraging them (particularly, the ladies) to start cooking now, so that they will cultivate the habit of making their own food and living out their essence as true Africans instead of adopting the borrowed culture of depending on restaurants out there for every meal. From the campuses, they will go into the world to get married, to have children and to build their families; hence our focus on campuses.

Onga is increasingly carving a niche for itself as a decidedly responsible corporate entity and one would want to know if you personally have a community development programme.

I do not want to take up a personal project because there are so many projects and charities out there. They are already doing a lot of things. I have decided to lend my support to the Project Alert. It is a charity for abused women and children. Their advocacy against sexual abuses and other abuses is really worth identifying with. So, I work with them. I visit them anytime they are doing something, be it a programme or a seminar. I would like to be there, be part of it, to talk to people. It has been on my website, it has been on Facebook. I have done a lot of things. For instance, the auction of my clothes that was done at the City People party that was organised for me, half of the money is going to Project Alert and the other half of the money is going to Rose of Sharon.

How did you react to the proposal from Promasidor requesting you to be the brand face of Onga?

I accepted it with gladness. Promasidor is a good company and Onga is a good product. Promasidor had actually sponsored a couple of programmes that I anchored for Virgin Organization, one of which was Opa William's “Two Can Play.” That was many years ago, with Cowbell. So I already knew so much about the company and I dealt with one or two people there like the marketing executives. Of course, it is a good thing to associate with Promasidor.

What are the gains of this association?

(Laughs) Well, apart from my face being known all over, when I go to the campuses, I see the young ones, the students coming out to appreciate me, and actually I have seen guys coming out to identify with me. At some of the universities that I have been to, the men were the ones that won the competition.

Yes! There was a guy I saw, he pounded yam and made his Egusi soup, and when he brought it to the table, we the judges were scrambling to finish it. This further shows that it is not only the woman that should be in the kitchen to cook. A man can cook for a family. There is nothing wrong with that. So it is really interesting.

As the Face of Onga, what is your position on the situation of things in Nigeria and other issues like the seeming food crisis?

From my experience, the prices of food have gone up and that is because we have abandoned our agriculture. That is a big mistake because even if you do not have clothes in your wardrobe, you should be able to have food to keep you alive.

So, if we had put more efforts by supplying the farmers with fertilizers and subsidise everything they need for highly mechanised farming, we will be exporting a lot, not buying. We have a lot of imported things here and it is not supposed to be so. We can make our own cheese. Try the North. They make cheese there. They have the cows, they have everything, and we just do not value what we have here. We have so much arable land, but we are not effectively using it. We would rather choose to build a shopping complex on it. So that is the problem, and we have to address it headlong.

Let’s know more about you.

Well I am God fearing, easy going and down to earth. I like to have fun and I do not know what I can say, I am just very easy going.  I am a wife, a mother, a sister. I am a wife to my husband, a mother to my daughter, I am a daughter to my mother, and I am a sister to my siblings.

How did you come into acting?

I got into acting just by chance. The late J. T. Tom West was the one that introduced me into the whole acting experience. For me, it was just a trial, just an experience, just something I wanted to try my hands on. And at the end of the day, I found out that it was the main thing I was doing, apart from compering events. I also act on stage and all of that.

What about your educational qualification?

I majored in Medical Microbiology, from the School of Medical Laboratory Sciences (LUTH), Idiaraba. Secondary school was Federal Government Girls School, Calabar, and primary school was St Mary's Private School, Ajele. That is about it. For NYSC, I was in Bauchi for a few months before they transferred me to Lagos where I served at the Nigerian Bottling Company, Lateef Jakande Road, Ikeja. So, I have done my service to the nation. I have completed everything.

How do you cope with your busy schedule as actress, as the Face of Onga, and the rest?

Everything works around. All the roles I play come together. It is also important to point out that everything is planning, and you have to plan everything. For instance, I have a programme  schedule from the brand manager of Onga and we work around it. If I have anything to do, it is either they shift theirs or I shift mine. We have an understanding.