Co-working seems to be booming all over South Africa. Our co-working space in Johannesburg is nearly full-up, and there have been some other interesting spaces popping up. We’ve brought you some of the best, most interesting spaces in Cape Town to work from to meet other inspiring creatives. The second series in the 21 Icons project has also been released with FW De Klerk and we show some interesting work from local illustration studios. Lastly, have a look at the wacky Stimorol campaign, while Toyota have seriously taken the interpretation of physical/digital to a new level with the outdoor website built by Hello Computer and DraftFCB.
Category archives: S’HOT
Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – you keep your eyes on the road
Mercedes Benz has developed yet another pioneering, high-tech innovation, aimed at improving road safety. Studies show that around one quarter of all serious motorway accidents are attributable to sleepy drivers in need of a rest, meaning that drowsiness causes more road accidents than drinking and driving.
This latest piece of computing wizardry works on several levels to analyse a driver’s behaviour in order to detect if they are getting sleepy at the wheel, and then sound an alarm that brings their attention back to reality.
Of course, just showing this technology would probably induce sleep in today’s low attention-span TV audience, so ad agency Net#work BBDO came up with an amusing take on two ‘Walter Mitty’ type characters. The first features a good looking executive type, who catches his own reflection in the mirror while driving. He’s clearly in love with himself, as each time he looks in the mirror, his gaze lingers a little longer.
The music, a Sinatra/Perry Como-style song (created for the ad by Pulse Music New York) that harks back to the sultry lounge-lizard era, is a ballad about “You’ve either got it or not,” – something that this driver seems to think is the case.
As his hand reaches up to run his fingers through his hair, and you’re about to snarl “Keep your eye on the road,” a loud beeping snaps him back to reality. It’s a reality that is a bit of a shock, because now we see that he is, in fact, balding, and maybe slightly older than the ‘mind’s eye’ picture that we previously had of him. The beeping sound was, of course, the Mercedes Benz Attention Assist technology, that picked up the fact that the driver wasn’t paying enough attention to the road, and quickly brought him back to reality.
The byline is: “‘When your mind wanders, ATTENTION ASSIST brings it back.”
Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Miracle on the Hudson
If this advert doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, or at the very least a lump to your throat, perhaps you need to check yourself in for some psychological observation. It’s rare that an advert gives me a sucker punch, but the new television for Nedgroup did just that. It took my breath away and reminded me of what a powerful story can do to communicate brand values.
Brandlab, with production company Giant Films produced the fantastic high-drama recreation of a story that captured the world’s attention a couple of years ago. It is the story of a dramatic event that made global headlines on January 15 2009, when Captain Chesley B “Sully” Sullenberger made an emergency landing of his Airbus A320-214 in the Hudson River, in New York. The ad celebrates this veteran pilot’s heroic and professional actions in the face of extreme danger, actions based on rational thinking and experience that saved the lives of 155 people.
The message of the commercial is: “In the right hands, anything is possible.”
Filmed in New York City, the ad starts with aerial footage over the city, and follows the flight path of the plane. Cut to Capt. Sullenberger, on location on the banks of the Hudson. “It was an ordinary winter’s day,” he tells us. Cut to various scenes of typical wintry New York activity: taxi drivers getting into their cars; kids crossing the street with their teacher; a dancer rehearsing. A plane takes off, and air traffic controllers speak to the pilot of Flight 1549.
Design Annotator: Art and Entrepreneurs
Design Annotator with Uno de Waal is a new column featuring the top design work from South Africa’s biggest online creative showcase, Between 10 and 5, curated by Publisher Uno de Waal @Unodewaal.
I have no doubt in my mind that anyone who is interested in running a successful creative business would find inspiration and resources from our series of Creative Entrepreneurs. Last week our focus was on fashion start-ups and today we’re bringing you some of the coolest start-ups and projects in the art world. If you are interested in starting your own creative business, or any business at all really, have a look at the course from StartupCherry, a very insightful course on how to start a sure-fire business success.
We also chat to Nick Ferguson, partners with Barry and Jody who are behind some of Cape Town’s most interesting rejuvenation projects. Lastly, we are incredibly excited to see the roll out of the 21 Icons project from photographer and filmmaker Adrian Steirn. His first portrait is of Nelson Mandela and if it’s anything to go by, the next 20 icons will be just as captivating.
Design Annotator: Creative Entrepreneurs and Mandela’s Legacy Posters – plus Men with Beards
Design Annotator with Uno de Waal is a new column featuring the top design work from South Africa’s biggest online creative showcase, Between 10 and 5, curated by Publisher Uno de Waal @Unodewaal.
One of our most anticipated projects has completed and the response to the Mandela Poster Project could not have been better. The Mandela Poster Project honours Nelson Mandela’s legacy in a series of poster tributes. I’m a huge fan of the work produced, and we’ve curated the posters that we liked the most. Some of South Africa and the Worlds best illustrators contributed to the project – definitely one to check out. Probably the funniest projects we’ve featured this week has been Bernard Brand’s photo’s of dudes with beards. Bernard has amassed a collection that would make any hipster-loving copywriter crazy with envy. Our last video is from the electronic music act PHFat – their latest video is an eery black and white semi-horror. This month is also 10and5 Self Starter Series. We’ve delved deep to find South Africa’s top creative entrepreneurial talent. Our first interviews are with Dion Chang of Flux Trends and Ross Drakes of Nice Work. Check out more of the great work that South African creative entrepreneurs are doing in our Self-Starter section.
Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Yawn for a Cuppa Joe
For many FMCG products, the best way to win customers is to let them experience the brand directly. To interact with it, taste it, touch it and hopefully to watch as people come away with an enjoyable, happy memory of the experience.
Brand activation in the form of in-store promotion—if done correctly—has been shown to work well in consumer research. So much so that these activations can even convert customers from entrenched or established brand allegiances. However creating activations is labour intensive – much more work than creating a commercial that is flighted for maximum reach and penetration, and is therefore more financially lucrative for the agency.
That said, real world experiential branding can have a limited reach, so it must be part of the broader marketing mix. It also works if brand activations are in themselves creative and clever, and can drive social media campaigns that broaden their reach and engagement.
One way to extend the reach of an activation exercise is to make the experience fun and memorable enough for the conversation to continue beyond the original event. In DouweEgberts’s recent activation, conceived and produced by Joe Public, the ‘zinger’ was the addition of technology that allowed users to interact with the brand in a fun way.
A coffee machine with DouweEgberts branding was placed at OR Tambo International Airport. But there was no coin-slot: all the tired travellers had to do was what comes naturally after a long and exhausting flight: yawn.
Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – When Vampires Attack!
We’ve passed the winter solstice, which means that summer is not too far off. For most South Africans it’s the season of fun in the sun. There’s so much to look forward to: longer daylight hours, braais, swimming… and then there’s the mosquitoes. Well, everything good must have a downside, or so they say.
But the reality is that those whiney bloodsucking vampires are incredibly annoying! Somehow they always find the most annoying place to bite me – like on my knuckle, my ear or my elbow. The worst part, though, is the whining sound as they start to dive-bomb, about twenty minutes after I turn out the light… or just as I’m about to drift off to sleep.
Tabard has established itself very solidly over the years as a household name in South Africa, and several other African countries, due in part to its easy application and not-too-unpleasant scent. But mostly because of its effective ability to banish the blood-sucking scourge that’s the mosquito.
Given that that the Tabard brand is familiar and well entrenched – owners the Acorn Group say it is Africa’s “most trusted insect repellent” – what’s important to the brand is that it remains relevant.
Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – “The Chef”
Amstel Lager’s main brand differentiator has been the promise that it is “slow-brewed”, which allegedly produces a better tasting product. This beer has always been a little more expensive than the other mainstream brands, and has traditionally occupied a prestige space that is somewhere between the imported and the local brands.
The concept of taking time to achieve true quality has been re-interpreted in the latest campaign, which tells realistic life stories of ordinary people who have to pay their dues to achieve their goals.
Humans are storytelling animals: telling a story has been proven to be the best way to engage an audience, be it in a presentation, a speech or a commercial. This campaign has used that to draw in its audience and make a very definite impression.
Design Annotator: Beer campaigns and street art
Design Annotator with Uno de Waal is a new column featuring the top design work from South Africa’s biggest online creative showcase, Between 10 and 5, curated by Publisher Uno de Waal @Unodewaal.
Street art and graffiti has often received a bad reputation by being classified as vandalism. If you feel the same way, have a look at r1’s beautiful street interventions – it could very well change your perception of what is traditionally considered as street art. For some reason the beer industry has been upping their game – this week we’re featuring two new beer campaigns, one being an interesting longer-format TV ad and the other a physical/digital implementation – definitely an interesting way to market beer. We’ve also completed the Dutchmann Racing Poster series – 10 of South Africa’s top illustrators created posters for the Dutchmann racing team. Have a read and let us know what you think in the comments.
Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – the foodie revolution
There was a time when food in South Africa was fairly simple and straight-forward. We were the land of tripe and polony. Gourmet wasn’t a commonplace word, and fancy food was all about special Sunday roasts or hotel buffets, or if you were of another class, the stuff people ate in restaurants like those in the Carlton Hotel or The Mount Nelson. Masterful chefs were the preserve of a small elite – not the every man and woman.
Fortunately times have changed and gourmet foods, products and processes have become much more democratised thanks to television and the interwebs. As the media discovered that human beings love to watch other humans cooking, all things gourmet have seeped into our popular culture.