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Singing a brand song
'Dum di da da dum...and again...dum di da da dum...I like the way you mooooooooove!' Who would have thought a laid-back meerkat leading a conga line through the streets of Cape Town could have such an immense impact on a nation? However, the latest Vodacom Yebo Feva advert has forever entrenched the Bodyrockers' hit as the 'Vodacom song' in the minds and feet of South Africans and according to Millward Brown's Adtrack, was hailed as the 'Favourite Ad of the Emerging Market in 2005' (LSM 5-6).
Asked what the impact of an advert like this was on the product and brand, Mthobi Tyamzashe, Executive Director: Corporate Affairs for Vodacom South Africa said, "Vodacom's brand is young at heart. Our advertising needs to mirror our brand values and still portray the buzz around new 'must have' technology like 3G Video Calling, Video SMS and MMS (picture and video).
Good music can contribute to the effectiveness of an advertisement merely by making it more attractive. Historically, the use of music in advertising originated in early vaudeville, where music served to candy coat a spoken narrative sales pitch. Music served to engage listeners' attention and render the advertisement less of an unwanted intrusion.
Tyamzashe says in Vodacom's experience, musical styles can assist in targeting a specific market or may function as a socioeconomic identifier: "This campaign highlighted the best things about summer without branding summer and was immensely successful in touching the young, upcoming and emerging market," he says.
Yet the Yebo Feva advert, which was flighted until the end of January 2006, is not the first time the mammoth brand has been linked to a famous song. Mo the Meerkat first became famous doing his striptease to the Hot Chocolate single - I Believe in Miracles; De Pinna and Bankole did their comic act to James Brown's I Got You (I Feel Good); and who will ever forgot Vodacom's space baby who floated to the tune of BEAM's Seize the Day?
"With a spoken commercial, you need to advertise to the same person six times to be effective," says Gerhard Myburgh, Creative Director of FCB, the agency responsible for Vodacom's above-the-line advertising.
"It is one of the peculiarities of human audition and cognition that music tends to linger in the listener's mind. Surprisingly, such musical lingering may occur even when the mind is an unwilling host. Therefore, the association of music with the identity of a certain product may substantially aid product recall," Myburgh says.
So if when you hear the Bodyrockers' hit you become king of the air guitar, suddenly like to show-off your conga prowess, or feel the need to SMS your best friend... it's okay... it's what's supposed to happen!
