[Orchids & Onions] Yes, I can feel this penguin ad

Using a cute cat or dog or child could end up diverting attention away from your brand... and that's what you're there for - selling widgets.

Penguins are cute animals - slightly clownish in their black-and-white tuxedos, feathered, although flightless - but they can also be dangerous, in a brand sense. Doubt that? OK - quick quiz.

About a dozen years or so ago, there was a great, animated ad which featured cute (and slightly larcenous) penguins breaking into a fish factory to steal the fish... the fish were that good.

Which brand was that for? Quick, first answer now. If you answered I & J, don't feel bad. As many as 70 percent of people who remember the ad say that - as did a similar percentage of people at the time it aired.

The reality was that the cute penguins had been intended to punt Sea Harvest, I & J's mortal marketing rival. The ad was a classic "how not to do it" because it ended up plugging the opposition.

So, when I was alerted to the latest Discovery Life TV ad featuring penguins, I was curious to see the result. The idea of the ad is to punt a healthy lifestyle, so we see the penguin community moving away from bad things like overeating towards exercise and better health. This all takes place against a thumping Michael Jackson classic, Can You Feel It? - long a favourite of the leotard-wearing and gym-going masses.

It's cute and it makes the point about healthy living in a non-threatening way, because there are no human actors involved.

So, Orchids to Discovery, ad agency +27 and animation experts Black Ginger.

Who doesn't love penguins? © Andrii Iurlov – 123RF.com

A colleague of mine couldn't believe the rudeness and idiocy of MTN's customer service this week. I suppose it's not all that surprising, given that the people who are striking at the cellular provider think nothing of burning tyres and obstructing traffic to make their "peaceful protest". If that's how you act in public, how do you treat customers? (As an aside: I drove past the site of the protest on a Friday afternoon... interesting to see the strikers' cars - BMW, Mini-Cooper, Merc. Tough times for you, indeed.)

My colleague received an acknowledgement on an account payment on Tuesday but then the following day received a threatening message about non-payment.

Please don't tell me that the system takes a while to reflect payments - you are a technology company, for goodness sake. And when it comes to your customers, surely you should have a system in place which records a payment (even one which doesn't clear) and grants a few extra days.

To be labelled a defaulter is enough to get someone to close their account and go elsewhere. Because customer service is the cheapest form of marketing and because yours is so bad, MTN, you get an Onion.

One of the things that is annoying South Africans at the moment is the fact that those who rule over us seem to think we're stupid.

Example: the firepool. Example: a $10 million donation to football development for the "African diaspora". Example: we have a wonderful e-toll "new dispensation" (terms and conditions apply).

To add insult to the multiple injuries suffered by taxpayers, Sanral is now flighting what is possibly one of the worst local TV ads at the moment.

We hear the story of a young woman - told in an unbelievably wooden voice (can't you afford proper actors, Mr Alli?) - who says she broke down on the highway at night. An unknown car drew up behind her and she was starting to panic when, suddenly, up comes "Given", who is the knight on a white bakkie, to save her.

The bakkie is emblazoned with Sanral branding... and she thanks the organisation for saving her life.

Apart from the fact that this looks like a piece of constructed bollocks - if you have genuine rescue stories to tell, Sanral, why not do them, as Sars does? The way it is delivered reminds one of a Grade 7 pupil being asked to read her essay about what she did in the holidays.

Mind you, maybe the voice-over artist is just embarrassed. I would be if I had to read that nonsense.

But, it is in the punchline - where Sanral thanks all the e-toll payers for doing the right thing (and saving lives, would you believe it?) - that the absurdity dwells. You could have provided the wonderful roads and the wonderful roadside assistance services, just as easily, in fact better, through a fuel levy, which is more efficient and would see no money leaving the country, as happens with the e-toll collection system.

For joining a long queue of government people who insult our intelligence, Sanral, you get a large Onion. And you can stick that in your New Dispensation.

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