Creative Director Paul Warner says: "The brief required us to develop an ad that would match, if not better, the incredible audience response to the so-called 'Ferrari' ad, in which a young boy pretended to fill his toy car with Sasol fuel and the diminutive vehicle took off at a screeching pace - much to his amazement."
Continuing in the tradition of Sasol's fuel commercials over the years - depicting real people in typical personal or community situations - Warner and his team developed an ad set in the closing stages of a wedding reception, where the few remaining members of the wedding party are exhausted as they begin the clearing up process.
A grandfather-figure (Cassel Khanyile) is already asleep in his chair. One of his grandsons (Sibusiso Ntombela) takes advantage of the situation by pretending to start-up and drive a car, using his grandfather as the make-believe vehicle. Right down to pulling into a service station and using grandfather's pocket as an imaginary fuel tank that he fills with real liquid.
"We believe that, to be noticed and remembered, television commercials have to compete effectively with the full range of entertainment options - whether television programming, movies, the Internet, or gaming devices," continues Warner. "Our objective was, therefore, to create an ad that did just that - an ad that people will want to see time and time again, and one that they will always want to see through to the end."
The ad achieved a very high average liking score of 84% in pre-testing focus groups (comprising a representative sample of the adult LSM 6 to 10 population).
