Winning over the fans

All three agencies were paid for their pitches yesterday, Thursday, 22 February 2007, sponsored by Coca Cola, as Design Indaba does not support free pitching. They had four weeks to come up with a brief. All three agencies agreed: that the events would also be packaged for other cities in the world; that the South African experience would be focused on as they believe that if they do a good job for South Africa, Africa will be the winner as well; and that they were creating an experience, not just a logo.

RSVP King James

Jenny Ehlers from King James was first up and their presentation centred on the delivery of fans to the Fan Fests: namely that our indigenous mini bus taxis and their drivers be used as ambassadors in a uniquely South African experience.

While Ehlers agreed that many probably think there is a special place in hell reserved for our mini-bus taxi drivers, she proposed to take that infamy and turn a negative into a positive. Well, it worked in Margate for Loeries, sort of.

From a website to allow international tourist bookings and a massive Government-sponsored upliftment scheme to incentivise taxi drivers to clean up their act and become hosts and ambassadors for the world cup, keeping tourists safe and transporting them to Fan Fests, the presentation also included a suggestion to ‘pimp’ the taxis, fitting them with TV screens and bar fridges…

“They are the pulse of our nation… agents for change. We propose that the taxis become the visual ambassadors for 2010.” The taxis could also be painted in the different colours of the different competing teams, with soccer ball motifs.

Enterprise IG

David Blythe from Enterprise IG next presented their ‘Fever Pitch’ concept in a long and detailed presentation with interesting graphics centering on using African imagery, such as fire and drums, to carry a theme through in the fan fests. Bringing in Coca-Cola, as a sponsor of the presentations yesterday, Enterprise came up with the concept of using special release Coke cans as the invite to the Fan Fests. “Fan Fest 2010 is for everyone. This is not an exclusive event,” Blythe emphasised. The invite could also be sent through other viral applications such as SMS, MMS, and so on, making “the fever airborne’, as well as other subversive and guerilla marketing tactics to make people feel they are naturally part of this event.

Enterprise IG chose ‘a ring of fire’ as symbols of the fever and the life and soul of the party, which unfortunately drew sniggers and ribald comments from the student audience, and the moment was lost, which was clearly not the impact that Enterprise IG were looking for - I think they expected awe.

The impressive audio visuals however demonstrated a kit that they conceptualised, with a fire drum – a symbol of explosive energy, the life and soul of party and the centre stage for which people could gather around. The drum concept was also carried through into a backpack that doubled as a chair, drum – obviously, food containers, mugs, face paint holders and so on. Their idea of large screens to display the game on, built into goal posts, drew claps.

Grid

Last up was Nathan Reddy, who presented Grid’s pitch, emphasising that the world cup would be nothing without the fan. Drawing on the fact that the billions of eyes that will watch the world cup in 2010 are all fans of the game and team supporters, they merged the colours of the flags from around the world of the teams which would take part and morphed them into a brilliant colour kaleidoscope with overtones of African design.

They then took this colourful design and used it on all the elements that international and local fans would be exposed to: from the centre aisle of the airplanes, to the airplane steps, moving walkways, baggage carousels, buses, buildings, highways, and through to the Fan Fests.

Grid then proposed that the Fan Fests focus on all aspects of fun, with an African flavour, including shopping, food, music and art… various countries national anthems performed with unconventional instruments; traditional clothing, like clogs, Africanised; Afros in different colours, becoming Afro-Korean for example; traditional food – boerewors on a French roll, ostrich burgers; Vuvuzela exhibits; giant puppets; giant soccer sandcastles, soccer ball domes for people to gather in; and animal masks for the crowds… and so on.

Reddy’s impactful and to-the-point presentation covering the essential elements of fan arrival at the airport, bus transport and the different elements that could be present during the fan fests to demonstrate and promote the different African and South African elements, while incorporating international symbols, seemed to have the vote of the audience who greeted Reddy’s presentation with applause. Or maybe it was just because we were late for lunch!