M&C Saatchi Abel CT takes Santa 'jolling' in a fun and festive Jozi

The silly season is almost upon us, and consumers are no doubt bracing themselves for the usual onslaught of jingly, festive season advertising. And faced with the prospect of traipsing around jam-packed shopping malls for gifts, it is no wonder that silly season is turning into cynics season...

With its funny and refreshing new TVC for the e-commerce company takealot.com, advertising agency M&C Saatchi Abel CT is turning this sentiment around. By cleverly demonstrating not only the many benefits of shopping online, but also the great deals on offer, the proudly South African TVC brings back the overarching sense of goodwill and good humour that used to characterise Festive Season activities.

Gordon Ray, founding partner and executive creative director at M&C Saatchi Abel CT, explains: “As the Festive Season approaches, our brief was to show South Africans that rather than running around from shop to shop exhausting themselves, they could get all their Christmas shopping done on takealot.com – and spend the season enjoying themselves.”

In addition, the campaign needed to demonstrate just how comprehensive the takealot.com product range really is.

According to Ray, takealot.com has millions of products on offer, with multiple departments, and an efficient delivery system.

“With SA being slower on the uptake of e-tail than other developing countries, we had to overcome any pre-existing barriers that exist in people’s minds. For example, shoppers who don’t have a credit card, or aren’t comfortable sharing billing details online – can use other payment options available. The e-tailer will also come pick up the product/s if there is something wrong with the order.

To make these points, we decided to use the lovable character of Santa to tell the story,” says Ray.

Which goes something like this: Santa arrives at takealot.com’s colossal Johannesburg warehouse, pumped up and ready to take on the season. He soon meets up with ‘TK’ from takealot.com, who delivers some happy news: takealot.com has ‘got Christmas covered this year,’ so Santa can kick back, take a break and go enjoy the many pleasures of JHB - which Santa then does, with gusto!