Connie got it wrong on Komuntale

I always enjoy Connie’s Tiffs but I totally disagree with what she had to say last week about Komuntale’s billboard. Yes, royalty is supposed to be about being regal and elegant, but I don’t think this means being so far removed from the people who regard you as such, that you cannot endorse a product they use.

In fact I commend the company behind the billboard for using Princess Komuntale. She represents everything the people who use the petroleum jelly aim to achieve – radiant skin and beauty. The billboard also caught the attention of people who didn’t know the product and I’m sure some have picked it up out of curiosity, and that is good business.

Whether the princess herself uses the product should not be the point. The point is that on that billboard, she seems to say, “It’s okay to use this product,” a message we need to hear when it comes to products made in Uganda.

What Connie forgot is that Komuntale is a Ugandan princess. She is therefore supposed to relate with the women and girls in Uganda, whatever class they belong to. By appearing on a billboard of a product many women and girls can afford to buy, the princess does just that. It does not “cheapen” the princess nor diminish her “fresh, youthful, young face” to endorse a beauty product that is designed for the ordinary Ugandan woman. After all, ordinary does not mean unclassy. Rather, it makes her more endearing to us, considering some people think she is too westernised, because of her accent and marrying a non-Ugandan.

Now, at least, there is something Ugandan to associate her with, besides being the princess of Tooro. We can go to the shop and ask for that petroleum jelly on those billboards with Princess Komuntale on it.

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