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According to Kulula it has been targeted by FIFA for its ad on being the ‘Unofficial National Carrier of the ‘You Know What.” The low cost airline recently challenged other carriers to keep their fares low during the FIFA World Cup in June and July this year.

News broke on its official Twitter account (@kulula) with the following post;  “oh dear letter from FIFA’s lawyers says we broke their trademark of the use of “South Africa” and think our non-WC ad was about soccer…”

Apparently the lawyers are objecting not only to the use of “South Africa” but also to the use of soccer balls and the image of a stadium. Even use of the our national flag was an issue.

It is absolutely outrageous. We have signed over our country, its symbols and our economy to one  ‘Sepp’  Blatter. Nasty.

I have never met Rick Raubenheimer but I can yell you the guys has a sense of humour. He recently lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority of SA (ASA) against a print advertisement for auction house Aucor.

The ad in question reads:
“MEGA FURNITURE
AUCTION-NO RESERVE!
Thursday, 28 January @ 10h30 / 562 15 th Road, Midrand
R25,000,000 MILLION INVENTORY TO CLEAR!”

“In essence, the complainant submitted that the claim to clear 25,000,000 million is impossible as that is approximately 10 times the GDP of South Africa,” writes the ASA.

Aucor submitted that the ad was an error and that it would not be used again. The ASA didn’t rule on the merit of the case since the advertiser in question undertook to withdraw the case. A text version can however still be found on the Aucor website.

“Here’s to the crazy ones… who had the balls to copy one of the greatest commercials ever made.” The Bizcommunity.com peanut gallery was un-amused when Ornico recently picked a DStv promo titled ‘The Dreamers‘ as its ‘Ad of the Week’ on its ad showcase on Biz. The promo in question reminds one strongly of a rather iconic ad made by Apple for its successful ‘Think Different’ campaign in the late 1990s. Read the full story here.

One Taryn Hodgson of The Christian Action Network (CAN) has been gaining considerable exposure in the mainstream media thanks to SAPA. Hodgson launched an attack on DSTv for researching the possibility of offering a pornographic pay-TV channel to South Africans. SAPA decided to cast her as a vocal opponent of any such move and as an advocate for women’s rights.

“Should DStv introduce such a channel, they would be supporting those who exploit, objectify and degrade women,” she told SAPA. “Porn violates women’s constitutional rights to dignity and equality.”

There is sure to be lively debate around any move to launch such a service in South Africa. My interest really lies in the implied credibility bestowed by SAPA on Hodgson and her organisation.

This is the spokesperson for an organisation that tends to take points of view (as per its website) that would widely be considered as bigoted, racist and patronising. Some highlights;

1. The ANC government is ‘Marxist mass murderers [that] has led to the paganisation of this once strongly Christian nation.‘

2. Gay men and women (or homosexualists as per the CAN website) are attempting to ‘force all of society – beginning in primary schools – to conform to sexual deviancy.‘ Blatant hate speech takes up quite a lot of space on this website in fact.

3. It is implied that the movie Invictus is a paid for party-political advertisement filmed on behalf of Nelson Mandela and the ANC. ‘Under Clint Eastwood’s directorship, Invictus dogmatically asserts that Nelson Mandela and the black people needed to forgive the whites. Never does the film portray how much the whites had to forgive people like Nelson Mandela and his ANC terrorists who were responsible for the murder of thousands of South Africans. There is no mention in Invictus of the three decades of vicious terrorist warfare, including the burning down of thousands of schools, hacking to death of thousands of innocent people in homes and in the streets, pouring gasoline over a thousand innocent victims setting them alight, in the brutal necklace murders, the car bombs in public streets, limpet mines in shopping centres, petrol bombs and grenades through windows at night and assassinations.’

4. It’s implied that AIDS is deserved by those living with it. ‘Most humanist reporters who believe in a materialistic worldview refuse to consider the possibility that AIDS could be a judgment of God and a warning to promiscuous and adulterous individuals who violate God’s commands.’

Ignorance. Check.
Homophobia. Check.
Racism. Check.

Oh – and women’s rights – the cause SAPA makes us believe Hodgson is fighting for? ‘By making the murder of pre-born babies legal, easy and taxpayer funded, the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act defies all logic,’ reads the CAN website.

If the views of such an obviously bigoted individual and organisation are going to be given such eminence at least contextualise where it comes from. Implying Hodgson is an advocate for the constitution or for the rights of women seems both untrue and like poor journalism to me.

Mandy de Waal believes influence to be one of the most valuable commodities in Social Media, communities and business today. To find out who has influence, what influence is and how it will affect our lives and work, she speaks to some of the most influential people in media, marketing, branding and technology in a series of interviews that seek to reveal who the big guns are, and who’ll be grabbing attention this year. You can follow the series on MandyLives.com.

Arthur Goldstuck is South Africa’s foremost authority on the Internet. He was one of the first journalists to cover online in this country, one of the first to go online with his content, and one of the first to research and predict its influence on society and business. Something he still does it masterfully to this day.

Mandy de Waal: Who are you and what influence do you have?

Arthur Goldstuck: I’m head of World Wide Worx, a market research company that focuses on technology trends in business and society at large, with a strong focus on the Internet and mobile technologies. We’ve built up credibility over the past decade for the objectivity of the research on the one hand and on the other hand for our willingness to stick our necks out on the implications of the research.

Mandy: Who are the most influential people in technology, telecommunications and the digital sectors in South Africa today, and why have you chosen these people?

Arthur: No specific individuals, but four categories: The journalists covering the sectors on a regular basis; the founders and CEOs of companies that have a strong media presence; individuals within organisations who have championed the cause of areas like broadband, affordable telecommunications and the like; and politicians both in Government and outside who campaign for or set the agenda for technology access.

Mandy: How will technology influence local marketing in the next year and beyond?

Arthur: There are several areas of technological revolution that must change the way marketing happens. One is the bandwidth explosion that will arrive with the range of new undersea cables, combined with new fibre-optic networks criss-crossing our cities. A second is the move from “traditional”
cellphones to smartphones – a development that will eventually give half the population access to computing power and Internet applications.

Mandy: Which thought leaders have influenced your thinking in the past year and how?

Arthur: People who are active on the ground, working at understanding and enhancing technology access in disadvantaged communities or sectors, have been the ones who get my ear most easily. Examples are Steve Song at the Shuttleworth Foundation, Andrew October working in the townships of Cape Town and David Barnard, head of SANGONet, which is working at improving technology use among non-governmental organisations.

Mandy: What technologies will most influence the world in the coming year, and how will this play out?

Arthur: The battle for the smartphone market between Apple’s iPhone, Research in Motion’s Blackberry and Google’s Android phones will have a defining influence on the world of communications. The evolution of sustainable energy, mainly in the form of wind and solar power, will come into focus more strongly than ever before, and influence policy to an extent we have not seen before.

Mandy: Which local brands wield the most influence online, and why?

Arthur: Global brands like Google, Apple and Blackberry have a greater online influence in South Africa than most local brands. However, media brands like Mail & Guardian, Times Live and News24 are growing in their online influence as thought leadership platforms as well as information media.

Mandy: What do brands and marketers need to know about the influence of mobile?

Arthur: They need to know that it is not as big as they think in terms of an addressable market. It is not possible to reach the mass of cellphone users via the mobile Internet, as it is too diverse and dispersed. At the same time, it is much bigger than they think in terms of its influence on people’s lifestyles and information lives. The youth market, in particular, is embracing the mobile Internet across the board, in all socio-economic groups, and are way ahead of the marketers in the way they access and share information.

Follow Mandy de Waal on Twitter. Follow Arthur Goldstuck on Twitter.

Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai creative director Piyush Pandey introduced South Africans to these Zoozoo characters created for Vodafone during last years IPL. He was a speaker at this years Design Indaba. They were a huge hit in India as well as with the crowd at the Indaba.