Romans Pizza has pulled its Boerizza TV ad featuring a blonde woman playing dumb and common. A viewer complained to the Advertising Standards Authority stating that the ad constituted “an attack on Afrikaans white women who are marginalized. It portrays this group of society as being backward and sex crazed.”
Romans got in attorneys Klagsbrun (ouch) De Vries and Van Deventer to tell the ASA that its client did not wish “to offend the integrity of the Afrikaner” and that it will pull the ad voluntarily. Beeld headlines the story Ad ‘an attack on Afrikaners.’
Firstly the ad was never very funny. I for one won’t miss it. Secondly the complainant misses the boat in that he believes the ad to be an attack on Afrikaner women (one Tweep recons it’s an attack on TV viewers) when it quite simply films one of those tasteless dumb blonde jokes Afrikaner (ok all) men tell one another at every braai in the history of braais.
The ad is sexist, I guess not very many women buy Romans Pizza, and for that reason alone would have been better left unflighted. That said if that is the way a brand wants to shoot itself in the foot I don’t believe the PC brigade need to interfere to save it from itself.
The South African illustration house Am I Collective has scored a major creative coup when it was commissioned to create 32 murals for ESPN’s 2010 FIFA World Cup campaign under the direction of New York based ad agency Wieden+Kennedy. The 32 murals celebrate each of the 32 teams that will be competing in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. ESPN owns the broadcasting rights to the event in a number of territories including the USA.
Am I Collective MD Mark van Niekerk explains that Wieden+Kennedy had been scouring Africa for artists to create the murals in the style of 80’s Ghanaian movie posters. They kept running into the lack of design infrastructure across the continent. Getting the work to and fro the Wieden+Kennedy studios would have proven problematic for many African artists outside South Africa due to lack of access to broadband. Wieden+Kennedy then approached van Niekerk after artist management agency Bernstein & Andriulli recommended the Collective. Van Niekerk says Wieden+Kennedy were convinced by a test poster to hand all 32 murals to his team to create.
It took nine people three months to create the final murals which effectively meant that half the studio was booked out between December and February. But the end result speaks for itself as is obvious from the depth and attention to detail witnessed in each of the murals.
Van Niekerk says his team of illustrators used Ghanaian movie posters as a reference only, taking it into a new direction to give it an experimental yet refined and contemporary feel. “It’s a global campaign with an African base,” says van Niekerk.
With Am I starting work in December, well before many of the final World Cup teams had been announced, they had to keep in mind that changes would occur as some players fall to the wayside. The illustration team had to adopt its’ working hours as well, starting later in the day and ending well into the evening to ensure they stayed on call to Wieden+Kennedy.
Am I Collective is already attracting international attention for their work on the project with Vanity Fair, Ad Age and a number of blogs covering their involvement. While the Vanity Fair article referred to AM I as a “little-known … group of artists based in Cape Town” the Am I Collective is in fact well respected and quite well known to international agencies. To date it has produced work for agencies in 22 countries including India, Spain and Australia, amongst others, and van Niekerk confirms that up to 80% of its revenue these past eight months had been generated through international commissions. This is expected to rise as ESPN’s PR machine rolls the posters out in its targeted territories.
Van Niekerk also believes that the work will grow his groups’ stature in the South African market. Van Niekerk says some clients still view illustrators as “a bunch of freelancers having a good time” but the international nature of this campaign will cement its reputation as a professional and well run outfit.
Sarah Park, Creative Curator at ESPN ad agency Wieden+Kennedy, says AM I was a perfect fit for the agencies illustrative needs on this campaign. According to Park the artwork has begun rolling out in print, in major markets across the United States (New York, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Philadelphia), and online. Additionally, they will be incorporated into such executions as print ads, billboards, bus shelters, hand-painted murals on buildings, food trucks, a print insert, 3’x4’ art gallery pieces, art book, digital banners and rich media banners – all of which will begin launching throughout the period of 5/24 through 6/12.
Press Statement: ProJourn supports court ruling on freedom of expression
The Professional Journalists’ Association supports the court ruling, made late last night, that has allowed the Mail & Guardian to publish a cartoon, drawn by Jonathan Shapiro/Zapiro, depicting Mohammed in today’s edition.
The Association supports the ruling on the grounds that it is an important ruling in support of the right of the media to comment on important issues without fear of intimidation.
In Islam it is forbidden to depict Mohammed, in any way, hence the objection to the cartoon, and while ProJourn supports the ruling, the Association notes that issues like these need to be dealt with with tolerance, respect and consideration for our fellow human beings. We are a country in transition, with very disparate communities, we’re still getting to know each other, and people need to be aware and mindful of each other’s differences.
ProJourn recognises that there is a need to balance the requirements of strengthening our democracy through vigorous debate and interrogation of social issues – even in a humorous or tongue-in-cheek fashion – and of strengthening it through the mutual appreciation of our differences and diverse beliefs. While we have constitutional restrictions relating to hate speech that do not exist in some other democracies, these have so far been interpreted in the courts, correctly in our view, in a narrow fashion so as not to unduly limit healthy public debate and engagement.
The balance between rigour and tolerance in the media’s coverage of socially sensitive matters needs to be read through the lens of the intent of the cartoonist, writer, or other media worker. In this case, we believe that fair comment and not insult was Shapiro’s intent so we welcome the court’s decision. However, we recognise that South Africa’s very diverse social landscape does make social commentary difficult, so we urge journalists to professionally apply their minds to these complexities in a way that is unbiased and respects the dignity of people adhering to differing creeds.
We take note of and salute leaders in the Muslim community who, although they do not agree with the judgement, have urged restraint by their community and respect for the law of the country.
MarkLives recently featured a couple of ads by ad agency FoxP2 that originally ran in 2008 to promote the use of dairy yet still remains eerily relevant (they ‘feature’ both Malema and Mugabe). Here are three more ads, from the same agency but this time for Frisco, that could as well have been made today. One features the prez (or is that prime minister) singing Julius’s favourite song, another feature that word favoured by the ruling party to tar any opposition with and the third celebrates the national treasure we have in Eskom.
Mashable is the Martha Stewart of cyberspace. I feel somebody had to put that out there. I have proof.
1. Like Martha, Mashable diggs the colour blue. It’s the stand-out colour on both sites though I suspect Martha’s good taste was first to the party. Mashable probably went blue because it’s the favourite colour of Twitter too, and because (I’m guessing) it works with Pete Cashmore’s eyes.
2. Both can be billed as social guides. Mashable teaches you how to Tweet and gather ‘followers’ and Martha teaches you basic etiquette and to gather ‘followers.’ Followers are what we call friends in Web 2.0. Except on Facebook where friends can be fans. But then Martha is on record as saying Twitter is better than Facebook. She likes to think of Twitter as “the Wal-Mart of the Internet.” Like Wall-Mart and apparently Twitter, Martha is mainstream, about mass communication, and her company is not called Omnimedia for nothing. Mashable is all about mass communication, but on how to do it perfectly in 140 characters or less.
3. Mashable guides you towards becoming a good influencer (Listen then respond. Be comfortable with ambiguity. Filter through your purpose.) Martha also teaches us handy social skills like making ‘Paper Leaves of Thanks’ over Thanksgiving or creating ‘Lobster Invitations’ for a lobster dinner (‘these clever pincers are perfect for a lobster dinner, and they’re a snap to make…’).
4. Martha loves lists. You can learn ‘How to Make a Life List’, a ‘Guest List’ or a ‘Laminated Phone List’ (slip your list inside a plastic page protector, and hang it by the phone). There are ’10 Ways to Display Your Photos’ and ’15 Easy Ways to Make Over Your Bedroom’. Mashable also loves lists. ’15 Ways to Shop for the Twitter Obsessed’, ‘5 Tips for Building Lasting Online Friendships’ (Meet Them Offline *snort*), and ’10 Ways You Can Use Twitter Lists’.
5. Mashable’s Pete has been honoured as ‘the most influential Briton and most influential Twitter user in the world in 2009’ – by a mobile phone manufacturer no less! TIME called Martha one of America’s 25 Most Influential People in 1996, along with comedian Jerry Seinfeld and fashion designer Calvin Klein. They even share crap accolades!
Of course I don’t really mind lists, or blue, or idiot guides, or all this Twitter-loving. I’m as partial to it as Dick Cheney is to shooting his friends in the face. Possibly I’m jealous of those jaw lines – who can tell Pete apart from Martha?
* Welcome to the mix Memeburn! May your lists be bigger and better than those of Martha & Pete.
Buddy – Toyota South Africa’s badly done special effects spokesdog – just got a tjommie. It’s ChiChi the Chihuahua to whom being fearless doesn’t come naturally. The ad was created by Draftfcb Johannesburg for the launch of the Toyota Auris X range. Will ChiChi eclipse Buddy? Only time will tell…
(Whatever you do avoid looking up the Urban Dictionary definition of tjommie. They obviously don’t speak Cape Town.)
This set of ads were created by ad agency FoxP2 in 2008 to promote use of dairy (an initiative by Milk SA of course) remains remarkably relevant today. Featuring the Malema & Mugabe families the ads call on consumers to rediscover the natural goodness of diary and youth (before the ANCYL hijacked that word to mean 30-somethings). Malema recently visited Mugabe as part of his drive to study the effects of “nationalisation.” The third ad features Benni McCarthy who has made a habit out of being unavailable for Bafana Bafana.
On April 1st, Kulula.com and its agency King James took yet another dig at FIFA by creating a fictitious law firm called Majut and Sons and notifying FIFA and the media of its application to trademark the Sky™, and potential problems this posed for anyone daring to transgress it. Here is the brochure created by King James.
The creative team: Mike Wilson, Paige Nick, Christan Boshoff and Daniel Pinch.
Kulula.com as agency King James has created a battery of 5 second, tongue in cheek, stings sung in the style of the budget airlines’ iconic audio mnemonic, further reminded consumers of the spat between Kulula.com and FIFA.
The creative team: Mike Wilson, Paige Nick, Christan Boshoff and Daniel Pinch.
