I wish more advertising was like this

I’ve always believed in the power of advertising, not just to sell stuff, but to transcend the narrow boundaries of commercial speech, to express joyful creativity or capture a particularly telling insight — and sometimes both.

This is especially true in South Africa. Think back to the 1990s, when the little white mouse used the BMW steering wheel as an exercise wheel to the strains of the Blue Danube, when Vodacom’s Yebo Gogo campaign articulated the shift in power between black and white in a way that made the transition just a little more human, just a little easier to laugh about.

There was the Boet and Swaer series for Castrol. The Nando’s ads (remember the Tailgunner ad, which was one of the first to address the changes in the way South Africans viewed the gay community? How they ripped into politicians?* Or mocked South African mores?) Castle Lager’s Homecoming, so popular among black viewers, and, later, its paeans to rainbowism which, even if you thought — with the exception of this one — that they were a bit twee, helped define an age where anything did seem possible.

Since then, what we understand by advertising has changed quite radically. The 30 second TV spot for washing powder might still be annoyingly ubiquitous, but it’s rather quaint now. Thanks to the new possibilities of content distribution offered by the internet, there’s a new kind of communication taking root out there. Something that is perhaps less polished, but more authentic, and more engaging.

Maybe I don’t get out enough — OK, I know I don’t get out enough — but I gasped with joy when I first saw the Samsung LED extreme shepherding viral video: such a crazy idea, so difficult to execute, so beautifully done. You can’t help but smile at the idea of sheep-pong, executed with real sheep, and sheepdogs. (For another idea so ridiculous it’s charming, have a look at what this agency was able to do with microwave ovens and holiday greetings.)

I was going to say that the extreme sheep LED video is the kind of madness that creative agencies — and sometimes their clients — do better than anyone else, but evidence suggests that the Baa-Studs who developed and executed the idea really are a group of Welsh shepherds. In which case, yet more evidence that, thanks to YouTube, everybody really can become a broadcaster: you just have to produce content that people want to watch. (And be a dab hand with PR: the link to the LED video was widely distributed to blogs and the media, which is why it has been viewed over three million times within two weeks of being uploaded.)

Then there’s this glorious homemade contraption and video developed as an entry into a competition to smash a Cadbury Creme Egg. It took six months, 200 takes and three days to set up and film this — and he didn’t even win! Interesting to note that this is a New Zealand competition; as we know, the best ideas don’t necessarily come out of the bigger economies.*

Concepts like these challenge the traditional notion of advertising as a piece of communication conceptualised, executed and broadcast by an advertiser and an agency. The Baa-Studs acknowledge Samsung LED technology at the end of the video, but it’s wry and self-conscious — “oh go on” — a nod to the cognitive dissonance between the rough and ready creative brio of the extreme shepherds themselves, and the slick indifference of corporate culture. In that respect, the Cadbury’s Creme Egg works better in the more traditional advertising sense, since the brand is such an integral part of the execution.

Both of these videos exemplify a certain kind of creativity, going to an enormous amount of trouble to create something that will give pleasure to others, just because you can. I wish more advertising was like this.

* It was good to see Nando’s return to form recently with this ad with Evita Bezuidenhout.
** Or at least, were bigger, until Uncle Gordon turned the UK into a basket case.