/ 28 May 1999

Ad agencies in rush to fart back

Brenda Atkinson

We’ve been driving past them for months now, rows of posters from which well-fed men beam at us, assuring us of political prosperity with a variety of tawdry one- liners.

There’s the dubious double entendre of “The guts to fight back” (Democratic Party); the sheer poetry of “Die span met ‘n plan [the team with a plan]” (something to do with Louis Luyt); the crass strategy of “Die man wat u kan vertrou [the man you can trust]” (Mangosuthu Buthelezi, skattie); the earnest wit of “Corruption, for instANCe” (New National Party); and the understated dignity of “Vote ANC”.

While the byte-size rhetoric of South Africa’s party political poster campaigns is rich in imaginative manipulation of reality, their impact on drive-by consumers is questionable. I must confess to warm feelings at seeing Luyt’s poster persona head first in a bush in Rosebank, and utter glee at watching a midnight posse of homeless people burning slogans for warmth in Auckland Park.

Ah, the transience of the cardboard pin-up.

Advertising agencies are the double agents in this game of Try vs Try. As the two-team batters who fuse products, personalities and brands, it is them we can blame for electoral banalities, as well as thank for product ads that piggyback on politics.

Certainly the most exciting thing about election advertising this year has been the subversive media assault on the political “mainstream” – those posters, television and radio spots that sneak up from behind and knock out all that is desperately sincere.

Heading up the light-relief lobby is Hunt Lascaris for Nando’s. Hunts, who handled the African National Congress’s campaign in collaboration with Azaguys, have a track record for taking the piss out of local politics through the culturally savvy Nando’s brand. This year they left no sacred cow unslaughtered, no bullshit undetected.

In a poster campaign that includes a chicken foot as the centrepiece of a peace sign, the line that must go down as one of the finest in Nando’s history is “Try the beloved poultry”. Alan Paton might well turn in his grave, but commuters get to grin on their way to work in the morning.

Linking up with the “Tired of bull? Try some chicken” posters are nine TV spots that take the concept a whole lot further. In The Daily Grilling, a Nando’s newscast, “Spooky Swimming-Gala” interviews hopeful MPs-to-be about their party manifestos. Unfazed by the indomitable newshound Spooky, a slightly built, khaki-clad black man on a white horse extols the virtues of colour-blind political parties, explaining that his party, which used to be for whites only, has accepted black members. When asked if this is part of the new manifesto, he deadpans: “I don’t know – they won’t let me into the meetings.”

In another, a white female candidate, asked whether wanting all of the 11 languages to have equal status isn’t impractical, responds by saying “No” in all languages.

As Julian Ribeiro, account director for Nando’s, points out, “These ads work because they fit with the brand’s personality. Nando’s is cheeky and irreverent, and is always responding to local culture, to those things that affect everybody in some way. We rip everybody off, and we always get an overwhelming response.”

Another “brand” with a strong, if slightly more serious, social commentary track record is Radio 702 (handled by Ogilvy & Mather), who have added their outdoor ad to the fray: a new billboard on the M1 simply asks, “Has your X come back to haunt you?”

The station is also strongly punting a Minolta radio spot, produced by Berry Bush, that cheekily shifts the meaning of the DP’s “Fight back” message. Spoken in classically Sarf Efrican diction, the slogan becomes “fart back”. This is new territory for Minolta, but ties up with their ongoing “perfect copy” message, as well as a radio competition that invites the public to submit “copies” of political slogans in the same conceptual vein.

There are a number of other advertisers who have “joined the party” (apologies to 5FM for that one, but they could surely do better).

Bruma Lake flea market is ripping off the DP’s “guts” line with posters that mimic the design and layout of the DP’s ubiquitous party ads, but have not picked up on the “guts”/stomach entendre (or perhaps Tony Leon doesn’t have one?).

Even Diesel has a new billboard that features the usual denim-clad heroin-chic lot half naked, cooling off by vandalising public water pumps and playing in the spray. “Stop crime now!” insists the text.

I can go for that.