Janet Smith : Design of the week
Port Elizabeths got one. Cape Towns got one. Pietersburgs got one. And Joburgs got three. Nine more are planned nationwide and by the end of the Christmas holidays, the YoTV Mural Project will have made an impact in strategic areas like no other South African childrens branding campaign has done.
It earns Design of the Week by virtue of its designed intent: to take childrens marketing away from the areas of privilege which are the traditional home of KTV and into the neighbourhoods of its future viewers who will be parents one day.
Its not about flash and fancy, about selling a product, so much as selling a great idea, a headful of optimism about South Africas future. Murals are seldom about pretty pictures and far more about commenting on society. The YoTV murals reinvent the fantasy world of childrens TV in the real, usually tough world of everyday township life, sending a clear message that the channel, SABC1, is the nations source of entertainment because it understands their lives.
Strategic communications agency The Chain Reaction collaborated with community artists working under the direction of Apt Artworks from the Alexandra Art Centre, Katlehong Arts Centre and the Funda Centre in Soweto on the mural project. Each project lasted over a two-week period and three groups of 20 scholars aged four to 16 were brought on board to create images which were workshopped before the painting on the walls began.
YoTV brand manager Vukani Magubane said the murals have helped integrate the YoTV mobile outdoor taxi campaign which has been a huge success.