South Africa: Overview - Beyond the vuvuzelas

South Africa’s adland is still sore with a post-World Cup economic hangover and some say agencies have taken their eye off the ball. But what shape is the ball anyway and what about these bold new directors? Danny Edwards investigates

The last time shots visited South Africa it was six months before the country was to welcome the rest of the world to its shores for football’s most spectacular showpiece. Some in the advertising community were worried that the country wouldn’t be able to cope with such a vast event, most were eagerly awaiting the onset of the festivities but it seemed that all were hard at work, in one capacity or another, creating the ads, idents and sponsorships that would highlight the 2010 FIFA World Cup. “Football,” Gary King, executive producer and owner of Johannesburg-based production company Picture Tree, said at the time, “is on the minds of most people.”

Round the (plastic) horn

Fast forward almost two years and while no one would argue that the event itself was anything other than a roaring success (save, possibly, for introducing the world to the vuvuzela), the positivity and, ultimately, the work generated from it pre-event hasn’t had the hoped for knock-on effect post-World Cup. Hilton Treves, managing director at Cape Town-based visual effects company Black Ginger goes so far as to say that the World Cup was a “disaster” for the South African advertising community. “Prior to the World Cup everyone was clamouring for it,” explains Treves, “but afterwards everyone had all this soccer footage and soccer commercials but there was no more World Cup. And there was no budget left to make new commercials to fill the gap left by the event so the industry came to a grinding halt.” Treves goes on to say that it took the industry a few months after the end of the World Cup to really address this problem then another couple before the board flow reached the point of production. “There was a six-month window where the industry went through the floor,” he states. Anton Rollino, executive producer at Cape Town-based production and service company One Step Beyond agrees, “While the World Cup was a fantastic event, extremely well-planned and executed, there wasn’t much of a major boom in the run-up,” he says, “and there is most definitely an economic hangover as a result.”

But what of now? Has the South African industry managed to pick itself up off the treatment table and get back to full match fitness?  Judging by the turnout for the recent national award show, The Loeries [see page 56 for more insight on this], the industry isn’t doing too badly at all. A wealth of delegates attending the three-day festival points to a positive attitude and a willingness to celebrate work that has been attempting to push some boundaries. But despite the feel-good factor during the Loeries there is, some consider, still work to be done. “The quality of [South African] work has to be judged in relation to the ideas on offer,” offers Glen Bosman, EP at Johannesburg’s Catapult Commercials. “Based purely on execution the works’ quality is still world class but it is too often pulled down by average ideas and restrictive budgets.”

Differently shaped balls

Of course restrictive budgets are a common cause for complaint and one that isn’t confined to South Africa, but while some production companies may feel that agencies have taken their eye off the creative ball many of those agencies believe it’s simply that the ball is now a different shape. South Africa is attempting to ease itself more fully into the digital arena and agencies have been trying to harness ideas and executions that utilise digital touch points and maybe this has led to a fall in ‘traditional’ television ideas.  “The guys here are always pushing,” says Justin Gomes, executive creative director at FoxP2, Cape Town, “and certainly the influence of digital is changing the way things are done.” “There are so many new platforms that creatives have had to come to terms with to reach the consumer,” Bosman adds, “and some really good work has come out of it which, occasionally, has spread through to some good TV work.”

Bother with bandwidths

The problem that Gomes and his contemporaries has is that the South African infrastructure and, maybe to a greater extent, the South African people, aren’t necessarily ready for a huge digital push. While there are still improvements to be made South Africa has increased its internet access and bandwidth recently – Gomes describes it as “pretty decent” – but what can be limiting to any digital ad campaign is the amount of people able to interact with it. “Everyone really wants to do a lot more digital work,” continues Gomes, “but the masses here just aren’t fully digital. There’s an interesting tension because there’s this push for exciting things to happen but you’re restricted in these markets. But as a result of this, creativity does come out; creativity in the sense of smart solutions to a problem rather than sophisticated, technological ones.”

Fran Luckin, Ogilvy Johannesburg’s executive creative director, believes that some of the digital problems lie with clients’ lack of experience with digital work and its possibilities. She admits that fully integrated campaigns can be a huge amount of work and take a lot of time and manpower – citing Droga5 New York’s award-winning Decode Jay-Z with Bing campaign as an example – and sometimes clients baulk at that. “It can be a hell of a lot of effort,” she says, “and I think sometimes the clients look at that and think ‘shit, that’s a lot of work’. In fact I’ve had that feedback after we’ve presented a campaign to a client. Sometimes it’s just easier for them to do a TV ad, it really is, especially in South Africa where we can still reach 90 per cent of the population.”

But just because digital executions are slow to come to the fore we certainly shouldn’t paint too dim a picture of the creative landscape in South Africa at the moment. There are still clients willing to take risks, digital or otherwise, and still a good selection of work which hits creative highs. A recent example would be agency Joe Public’s Clover campaign, which displays a completely new approach for them as they look to move the brand forward. Not only have they backed an animated, epic TV spot [directed by Shy the Sun - see page 14 of the Inspired section for more info] but they are also completely rebranding. “There are clients who are prepared to take risks,” says Black Ginger’s Treves, whose company worked on the Clover commercial.  “Clover has gone out on a limb with this. Usually [this type of client’s] advertising can be little conservative but this is a complete shift in thinking for them [and] it will be interesting to see what transpires.” 

No overnight sensations

Cannes- and Loerie-winning work from both FoxP2 [Brandhouse’s Dry Drive Initiative] and Ogilvy Johannesburg [POWA’s Waking Up the Neighbourhood] has also heightened the creative bar and proves that there is still a very strong creative impetus in the country. So too has work such as Keith Rose’s 8.ta spot Emoticon Boy and Greg Gray’s Cadbury Lunch Bar Voice Over commercial. These directors and their contemporaries such as Kim Geldenhuys, and Miles Goodall, are testament to the fact that South Africa has a rich history in producing visionary directors, a history that Catapult’s Bosman believes is set to continue. “There is a new breed of South African directors coming though,” he says, “and the exciting thing is that they’re happy to go out and shoot their own ideas to put a reel together if need be. I recently judged five presentations of new directors, all under the age of 27 [and] they were creative and fearless, which is so important nowadays when boardroom tactics often contribute 60 per cent to a director being awarded a job or not.” One Step Beyond’s Rollino has similar, if more cautious views; “It should be remembered that the Keiths, Gregs and Kims of this industry didn’t make it overnight,” he says. “Besides their natural talent they’ve paid their dues and honed their craft over a long period. There is a strong middle body of journeymen [in South Africa] putting out solid work and a couple of ‘young uns’ showing promise, but the top echelon is still firmly entrenched.”

Opportunities always knock

Ultimately, South African advertising and creativity, as in many countries, is undergoing something of a transition. New technology is being embraced as much as is possible and ideas and invention are being employed where clients have the stomach to open up to them. Money, as is often the case, can be tight and budgets can restrict true ambition but the creative nature of the South African advertising community has shown it can work around such problems if it needs to. When asked what the next 12 months might bring to the South African market, Catapult’s Bosman is sanguine; “The same as the previous 36 months; tough but there are always opportunities and sometimes we have to innovate from our side. I’m looking forward to it.”

shots would like to thank the fantastically helpful Grand Daddy hotel in Cape Town for hosting them during their stay in the city. granddaddy.co.za