Advertising a competition for Creatives to help Artcaffe Coffee and Bakery “Jazz up their coffee cups” and at the same time “Win Big” has turned sour after ‘big’ turned out to be 365 cups of coffee with a dash of exposure.
Dubbed #ARTofthecity, Artcaffe offered a platform where creatives would ‘use their imagination and skills to create something beautiful | funky | inspiring | stylish | stunning | striking capturing or illustrating what Nairobi means to them’.
The creatives would then share the original design or artwork and three winners would be chosen, a very feasible idea. However, the prizes for the three most creative would be exhibition space in one of their restaurants for 2 months OR an internship with the Artcaffe Design Team for 2 months and free coffee for a year! a total of 365 coffees redeemed at 1 a day.
First runners up and second runners up would get free coffee for 6 months a total of 183 coffees redeemed at 1 a day and coffee for 3 months, a total of 91 coffees redeemed at 1 a day respectively.
US private equity firm Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) acquired The ArtCaffé Group which first opened its doors in Kenya at the Westgate Mall in June 2008 for Sh3.5 billion and despite the Coronavirus pandemic, it is one of the few firms that continue to grow and expand with just recently opening its third Artcaffe restaurant in Nairobi’s city centre.
The coffee chain also set up a new concept under its umbrella dubbed ArtBakery, with several outlets already operational including one at Westgate Mall and the other on Limuru Road.
This is not a startup, this is a full-blown revenue-generating mammoth firm trying to exploit creatives, the firm already has more than 30 branches across the city and the competition has been described as a degrading initiative meant to mock the efforts of Kenyan creatives
Questioned about the idea by hundreds of Kenyans, Artcaffe responded saying “The whole purpose of this competition and the aim behind it is to give artists and designers in Nairobi exposure and opportunity by using our platforms to reach a wide audience with their skill and craft – through either exhibition space in our branches, an internship with our design team, and also with their name and artwork displayed on our takeaway coffee cups over the Holiday Season. This is not degrading to artists – we aim for this to be uplifting to artists of our city.”
What are your thoughts?
