Cast in the act

Cast in the act

singh&sons's first TV commercial for Kia Motors South Africa depicts a series of actresses, of varying skills, 'casting' for a Picanto ad. The aspirant stars underestimate the capabilities of the feature-packed Picanto and are consequently corrected and chastised by the casting director. The ad ends by revealing the part-winning actress on the set of the 'real' Picanto commercial.

"We wanted to make a commercial about the car itself, not about the target market, not about the emotions of owning a vehicle but about the car," says the creative team of Roger Paulse and PJ Kensley. The commercial was produced by Kirsten Clarence and directed by Peter Pohorsky of Plank Films.

The family member that lives in the garage

Click here to view the ad (3MB)

In contrast, with 2006 being a record-breaking year for car sales at Volkswagen and throughout South Africa, November seemed the perfect time to cement the emotional attachment to the Volkswagen brand, according to Ogilvy Cape Town. The newly released Volkswagen corporate television ad reaffirms all the brand values of honesty, charm, integrity and most of all, people-centric humanness.

In the ad we see an old blind man being helped, by a young Volkswagen driver through a long and eventful journey, to find his son - a celebration of Volkswagen drivers and their value sets.

The concept was developed by Mark Fisher, Michael Lees-Rolfe and Jake Bester. Production for TV was done by Iris Vinnicombe, the production house Velocity and the director Greg Gray.

Blood on the poles

The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) has been painting Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth red with its latest series of Street Pole Ads by The Hardy Boys, in order to increase the number of blood donors ahead of the festive season. This year's campaign consists of three consecutive street pole ads with the wording written inside the design of a blood bag, where the pole, wrapped in red, and board resembling a blood bag and its tubing.

SANBS was to have the advertisements displayed from 15 November - 15 December 2006 only, but Street Pole Ads has extended this period free of charge to January 1 as part of its social responsibility programme, thereby adding 50% value to SANBS.

"We have had a positive response from donors and non-donors, saying that they've noticed our adverts ahead of the festive season. People have also been calling our toll free number to find out where they can donate," says Gail Nothard, marketing manager of SANBS.

The importance of potstill

Conceptualised by Morrisjones, and launched on TV and in print in October 2006, the KWV International TV commercial shows various people within KWV 10 Year Old's target market, as well as sophisticated brandy occasions. Most are enjoying KWV 10 Year Old Brandy and all are discussing what 100% potstill means. They don't really have a clue. The commercial ends with a Frenchman claiming to know the meaning but not sharing it with his audience. This leaves the question in the audience's mind - what is potstill?

In layman's terms, Potstill refers to the purest brandy, that is double-distilled in a copper potstill or alembic, according to the traditional French method. Why is this important? Because many South African consumers have remarked in qualitative research undertaken by KWV that "The purer the brandy the better it treats you."

To coincide with the commercial, KWV is also taking the brand directly to consumers and educating them about potstill in both the on and off premise sectors in South Africa.

Being FireWise

"Don't start fires you can't stop! Be FireWise" is the slogan for a hard-hitting national wildfire awareness campaign made public recently, aimed at reducing the human, economic and environmental damage caused when people start wild fires which burn out of control. Key partners driving the initial FireWise campaign roll-out include the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, CapeNature and Working on Fire, with creative design and production by advertising agency, The Jupiter Drawing Room Cape Town.

Using hard-hitting statistics and some humour to alert members of the public about the really serious problem of igniting fires which turn into runaway veld and forest fires, the FireWise campaign aims to make people think before they light a fire or leave one unattended.

Comprising radio spots, billboards, posters and newspaper and magazine advertisements in most official languages, the campaign will focus initially on the Western Cape where the fire season has already begun. A national roll out of the campaign will take place early next year.

Smart chicken - or is that chicken that smarts?

Sauce manufacturer Nando's recent collaboration with mobile marketing medium Smart Cart has resulted in the marketing of Nando's grocery range through shopping trolley branding at Shoprite, Checkers, Checkers Hyper and shopping centres across the country.

Says John Paidoussi of Nando's Grocery division, "The utilisation of the Smart Cart initiative has proven to be highly successful as an advertising medium for the Nando's Grocery range in store. It allows for the shopper to engage with the brand in an unconventional way by means of an innovative marketing solution. We at Nando's love to push the boundaries and the Smart cart initiative has allowed us to do so whilst the shopper is shopping in store."