Good advertising - we've been having it!

About two years ago, I read an article about a Swedish promotion agency saying that South African adverts are among the best in the world. I sometimes get upset when I walk down Parliament Street and see the foreigners (Western foreigners, that is!) busy shooting a commercial or part of a movie on Church Square. Most recently, they changed Church Square and Spin Street to resemble a New York street scene. Even the traffic lights (called “robots” here), putting yellow covers onto them, as they do in the US. Some cars were parked in the street had American license plates.

Now I understand that making a film, TV program or commercial here in South Africa costs much less than doing so in most other Western countries. But the point for today is about the creativity of our advertising people.

Bloggers on Facebook created a very popular group to celebrate the brilliance of the Coca-Cola “Brrrrrrr” advert, featuring a guy who poses as a mayor or president, a parrot, a skater, a model and an elephant, and of course, the Indian guy who can’t (yet) go “Brrrrrrrr”!

But right now, Vodacom has taken my vote for their “We’ve been having it!” advert. I totally adore that president guy who explains that all this new technology, they’ve been having it all along. (Makes me think of Ol’ Bob up north!)

Let’s not forget about the white nerd and the black professor in the Vodacom “Yebo Gogo” adverts (played by Michael de Pinna and Bankole Omotoso, respectively), and their highly successful “George” series of adverts. Oh, I just love George!

“Blue-teeth”, “M3P”, “Britney Houston”, the brick phone, “infection on the rise” are just some examples of how these smart guys at advertising companies can go if they put their minds to it. I was also very amused to hear that the ad for the Toyota Prius was made right here in good old Mzansi!

Yes, I realise that some of our ads on TV just plain suck, but still, I think the majority of ads are actually very good. Indeed better than what I normally see them look like in the UK, for instance.

If I than have to sit through five minutes of advertising while watching programs on TV, at least I can enjoy it.