Quite recently, Anbessa bus has taken a different direction and implemented new ways of boosting its income. It has apparently made an advertising board of itself and opened its famous yellow and red painted body for any interested party to post their messages and reach an audience of enormous size. From imported noodles to an album by a local superstar, from contraceptive pills to condoms, are being advertised on Anbessa buses. The move, which has somehow arrived hand-in-hand with the glittering and comparatively incredibly big Bishoftu buses, seems to be a wise one as Anbessa is always said to be struggling when it comes to earnings. But not everyone is jovial about it. Even if coming up with any creative or derivative idea to support itself cannot and should not be a point of criticism per se, it is possible as well as important to raise concerns on how it is being done.
It was first pointed out to me by a friend who had encountered a practical inconvenience; the combination of the red and yellow, which is loud enough to grasp attention from afar and is part of the sublime consciousness of the inhabitants of Addis Ababa (thanks to more than half a century of adaptation), is giving way to relatively obscure and unfamiliarly mixed colors. This, my friend claimed, is causing difficulty for passengers in spotting it. Add a comment