Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
A classy and moving way to remember Burry
A TRIBUTE video to the late Burry Stander is attracting attention on YouTube. It is emotional and haunting because it features the tune of Shosholoza played on the bike Burry would have ridden had he taken part in this year’s Absa Cape Epic extreme mountain bike race.
The idea came from staffers at Jupiter Drawing Room Joburg, who wanted to honour Burry and to focus the attention of people on road safety, specifically the safety of cyclists.
The pro bono work is a reminder of how good our ad business and its associated industries are.
The video honours Stander without being crassly commercial. And without being preachy. Less is more in terms both of respect and getting the message across.
Well done to all involved. Orchids all round to Robroy (sound design), Sonovision (filming) and Left (the editing). Use our i-lincc app to watch the video. The code is sstarorchid13.
I’ve always been a fan of clever writing in Afrikaans. It’s such an expressive language and I think it is a pity many English-speaking South Africans don’t appreciate the language of their country. In marketing terms, too, Afrikaans speakers represent a huge audience.
In the latest edition of The Media magazine, my old colleague Chris Moerdyk (a “soutie”, despite his Afrikaans-sounding name – he says he is Dutch) has penned a hilarious column, in Afrikaans, about the language. He assured me dit was sy eie werk, so vir Chris, ’n ander Orchid.
I normally join in the applause when South African agencies do well in international competitions, because it shows that we stand back for no one when it comes to marketing creativity.
This week, in Cannes, a number of our agencies did well – better than in past years – although the biggest accolades were won by McCann in Melbourne for its “Dumb Ways to Die” campaign (see the story on this page).
This year, Net# work BBDO again won a Cannes award – this time a coveted Gold Lion – for a radio ad for Mercedes- Benz approved used cars.
It’s long and cleverly written. It explains about a medical condition that makes the afflicted person’s sweat smell like “haddock mornay”, old socks or even poo.
The ad goes on that one such sufferer combats the problem by sewing 80s-style shoulder pads into the armpits of his shirts (getting gross, but it also gets your attention).
Then, the ad goes on to explain that because of an unexpected heat wave, the man’s car seat upholstery absorbed gallons of his “poisonous perspiration”.
Now, his car – a Mercedes – is for sale at a ridiculously low price. Do you smell something fishy (ho ho)?
Then the punchline: don’t trust a used Merc unless it has been certified.
All well and good and some clever writing – no doubt that won over the Cannes judges.
But never having been one to follow the herd, here’s my dissenting voice, awarding it an Onion.
Did it occur to nobody in this whole process that at least someone listening to the commercial might wonder why a heatwave caused the man to sweat so heavily in the Merc? Ah... Mercs must have pathetic aircons. That’s at least one interpretation.
If an ad is open to misinterpretation or has to be explained (and no doubt someone from the agency or client will try to point out that I don’t understand), then it is not good advertising – whether it wins a Lion at Cannes or not.
Sometimes, I fear people who make ads for cars don’t really understand the products they are selling. Another case in point is a BMW billboard at OR Tambo. Ad guru Andy Rice gave this his “Zero” on the Ad Feature on 702 this week.
The ad was for BMW’s 3 GT, which features a hatchback design. Andy’s point was that the unique selling point of the car – its shape – didn’t come across, because the photograph was taken from the front – where it looks like any other 3-Series.
What, oh what, has become of logic, I wonder.