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Ad of the week with Oresti Patricios – AFCON and the spirit of Africa

MarkLives Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – AFCON and the spirit of Africa. The African Cup of Nations (AFCON) is on the go. In fact it is almost over. Mali faces off against Nigeria today (Wednesday 06 February 2013) at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, as does the Burkina Faso versus Ghana match which takes place at the Mbombela Stadium just outside Nelspruit, the capital of Mpumalanga. The semi-finals and finals go down this weekend on Saturday 09 February 2013 and Sunday 10 February 2013.

First up I need to declare my interests. I am a soccer lover of note and I have massive affection for Africa. Soccer is my passion but falling in love with this continent has been a matter of business, taking me from Kenya to Nigeria, from Ghana to Mozambique.

Over the past five years or more I have been travelling the continent, and let me tell you this has been a liberating, eye-opening and jaw dropping experience. I can only describe the experience as similar to blind dating, where you think you know someone from a distance and then meet them up close and experience their nuances, fragrance, wit, intelligence, culture and personality first hand.

The big problem that a lot of local brand marketers have is that they can view Africa as a country. Mighty Africa, of course, is no country but a massive land mass with very distinct and culturally disparate countries that are as different from one another as Alaska is from Australia. AFCON 2013 presented local brands with the perfect opportunity to explore this continent through soccer, a game that’s adored by so many South Africans.

Ad of the week with Oresti Patricios – Diffusing political drama with satire

The last couple of weeks have been saturated with the drama of the ANC/FNB debate, resulting in heavy and heated discourse on the issue. That’s why it was such a delight when the latest CAR Magazine advert landed in my inbox.

If there’s one thing that effectively diffuses political drama it is satire, and CAR Magazine’s parody of the FNB’s controversial campaign does this with clever copy that will give lovers of radio a reason to smile when they hear the spot. The ad opens with the dulcet tones of an accent that’s very at home in South Africa. “There will be a day…” the ad sounds with serious music playing the background that sets up the scene for an announcement of some gravitas. “… a day when every car magazine throughout this magnificent land will come with a free, full-colour poster of the McLaren MP4-12C Spider.”

“There will be a day…” the ad continues in solemn timbre, its tongue firmly in its cheek, “when CAR Magazine will give its readers an exclusive preview of BMW’s new four series, with special emphasis on the M4. That day is today, and tomorrow, and the day after, and every day until March, because you can get all of this, and much, much more in the February issue of CAR Magazine. On sale today.” The ad ends with the voice over becoming more hopeful and wistful, and the music ending on an up-beat tenor.

The ad. A week. How can we help?

by Oresti Patricios This is not the ad of the week, because how could I do an ‘ad of the week’ and ignore the elephant in the room?

(Not) Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Beer brands and the Great White Hype

I love the idea of craft beer. But let me unpack that statement so that it’s not just a glib say-so.

Beer is a refreshment that just about everybody loves – easy to understand. But I love the idea of craft – that time honoured tradition of ritual and the observation of sacred practice. That’s why although I wouldn’t label myself the world’s greatest beer drinker; I am passionate about craft beer because it is all about creating something that consumers can enjoy. It is the making of a beverage according to a time honoured tradition or on a small scale or using only the best ingredients.

After years of domination by the SABigboys, in the past few years the local craft beer market has really opened up. Yes we’ve always had craft beer, but for the first time restaurants, pubs and eateries are beginning to understand the complexity and brand opportunity in beer as much as there has been in wine.

Ad of the Year with Oresti Patricios – The best ad of 2012

Now’s a good time to choose the best ad and advertiser for the year that’s left us, and it is a fairly easy choose.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – You’ve got the power

Given that this is the last ‘Ad of the Week’ for 2012 it feels good to celebrate the power of the individual with an advert that comes to us from Cell C, and which is very reminiscent of those legendary Apple ads, that famous campaign that put the company back on track when it had lost its way.

You know the ads, probably off by heart. But for the sake of nostalgia, let’s read those words again:

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits.The rebels. The troublemakers.The round pegs in the square holes.The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.Because they change things.

They invent.They imagine.They heal.They explore.They create.They inspire.They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people. While some see them as the crazy ones,we see genius.Because the people who are crazy enough to thinkthey can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Now that campaign for Apple – which was called‘Think Different’ because that was the slogan for the ads – was created by TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles in 1997, a year that Apple Computers (now known simply as Apple) was in trouble. Steve Jobs exited the company following a palace coup in 1985, and what followed for the Apple brand was about eleven years in the wilderness.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Share the gift

The festive season is when advertisers traditionally tug at the old heart strings, and the commercial for Ster-Kinekor’s charity initiative in conjunction with Specsavers, which implores viewers to ‘share the gift of sight’, is no different.

This commercial movie (and yes it is a little movie in that it tells a beautiful story and has impressive cinematic production values) opens on an RDP-styled house somewhere in South Africa. The house has been built on to, so it appears that this family is moving up in the world.

A little boy in school uniform runs into frame, opens the door and tries to sneak past his mum with his head down (as we’ve all done, some or other time in our childhood). This lad is almost home free when guilt gets the best of him. You see him wavering slightly as he’s almost out of eyeshot of his mother, who is cooking dinner because night has fallen and supper time is fast approaching.

The young son, who is wearing the most awesome black hipster glasses, turns and walks towards his mother and looks her straight in the eye. It is then that the viewer clearly sees that one of the lenses of the glasses he is wearing is missing.

The mother is furious of course, because the shiny new glasses must have cost a fortune. She scolds him as he remains silent, and then she demands to know what happens. As soon as he’s mustered the word about who has the other lens, mum leaves the cooking and drags her son off to get his missing lens back.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Ramsay’s meaty new campaign

Gordon Ramsay is back on South African television screens, but this time the British celebrity chef is not telling failed restaurateurs to “fuck off”, he’s checking Checkers’ racks.

“Checkers reckons their butchery’s top notch,” says the legend who holds an incredible 12 Michelin Stars. In the advert he’s carrying in a whole lamb on his shoulder into what looks like a pristine gourmet kitchen. You don’t immediately see that the chef carrying in the carcass is Ramsay, so there’s a big surprise when that meat hits the wooden cutting board, and that unmistakable, self-assured tone growls at you.

“Well, let’s see what they’ve got,” Ramsay asserts over music that sounds just like ‘Misirlou’ a folk song popularised first by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, and then by Quentin Tarantino when it was used in “Pulp Fiction”. Viewers of the chef’s compulsive US reality show, Kitchen Nightmares, should find it familiar because ‘Misirlou’, a wild, rebellious soundtrack was used with that show. The makers of Ramsay’s television programmes have always made astute choices for their soundtracks, and the Checkers butchery commercial is no different.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Insurance advertising that doesn’t suck

For the longest time in the history of advertising, insurance commercials were awful. The usual fare in this category used to include a washed-up actor (or former television news presenter) droning on about what would happen if one suddenly died and left the wife and children all alone (with the wolves knocking at the door). The punch line would be how Dead Dull Insurance Co was the answer to life, death, the universe and funeral bills.

If you weren’t being destroyed by guilt, you’d be spurred on by fear – that other classic marketing staple. These insurance adverts usually included children and the grim reaper, although Mr Reaper wasn’t always cast in a starring role. The hooded figure with the large, scary sickle was often off camera, but cast a long enough shadow to let you know he was lurking. These ads were more frightening than anything featuring Jason, Freddy or a Jesuit priest called Father Damien Karras.

Thankfully, most thankfully, insurance advertising has become a little more inventive, creative and even funny of late. Financial services companies have (at last) realised that buying insurance is a grudge purchase and that there are better ways of plying this type of product than trying to freak people out.

Ad of the Week with Oresti Patricios – Gotta love this horrifying new campaign

What is it about Marmite that makes the yeasty spread such a perennially relevant brand? Perhaps it is because the dark, salty sandwich favourite has been around for almost 110 years, but my bet is that it is, in part, because the people who market the brand are clever. Oh so very, very clever.

In the UK, the makers of the dark brown paste where intelligent enough to work with an advertising agency that told them that not everyone was a lover of Marmite, and that the sandwich spread shouldn’t try to be all things to all people.

Harvard Business Review tells how Marmite’s brilliantly controversial ‘Love It or Hate It’ campaign was born 15 years ago out of a difference of tastes among the creative team at DDB London. “One loved the brown, savoury spread and one hated it. The campaign’s longevity and fame reflects the fact that even in its country of origin, the brand’s strong taste is ‘challenging’.”