Vodacom’s been having it
Vodacom flighted its latest “We’ve Been Having It” advertising campaign on various television stations during June 2008.
The commercial series highlights the offerings available to Vodacom subscribers such as: up to the minute weather report, emails, and personalised ring tones.
It features a man dressed in military-style clothing and saying things such as: “Hi. I’ve been hearing this propaganda about Vodacom and all its fancy tools and stuff. But I don’t understand, I mean we’ve been having it.”
To illustrate how he has “been having it”, the man generally uses far-fetched and humorous scenarios, such as getting long distance runners to deliver his mail, or having a live band play his favourite song while his phone rings.
These advertisements got Nils van Heerden and Wendi Steenkamp hot under collar for what they call “commercial reinforcement of stereotypical perceptions of African countries as being of third world status”.
They lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa, and according to the ASA complained that “the similarity of the main character to that of Idi Amin is not humorous but highly offensive and children should not view the commercial as being light-hearted comedy”.
The advertising agency, DRAFTFCB, on behalf of Vodacom, submitted that the target audience for the commercial was the 17-25 youth market classified as “mobile maniacs”. It said that its research indicated that this market was indifferent to some of Vodacom’s products such as email, ringtones, mobile television, and weather reports.
“With this in mind it created the “We’ve been having it” guy, who sets about debunking each of Vodacom’s products through tongue-in-cheek humour. He represents a generic, fictitious leader of a small African country,” DRAFTFCB said.
“The whole setting of the commercial is harmless parody intended to amuse and the reasonable viewer would see it as such. The main actor is not identified in any way and it is therefore, not reasonable to conclude that he represents Idi Amin.”
The ASA in its ruling said that it was satisfied that the hypothetical reasonable person viewing the commercial would view the scenes as being humorous, entertaining and exaggerated as allowed for by the Advertising Code.
“In light of this, the commercial is not offensive in the manner suggested by the complainants and therefore not in contravention of the code,” the ASA said.
The complaints were dismissed.
Vodacom advertising discussion
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