Cellphone giant Vodacom has retired brand legends in the form of the Yebo Gogo duo and the fast-moving meerkat for a dictator in its new marketing campaign.<\/p>\n
Thanks to an infectious laugh and a catchy phrase — “We’ve been having it” — actor Charles Bukeko has burst onto the scene for reasons other than that associated with tyrants. This Idi Amin look-alike from Kenya was chosen over hundreds of other hopefuls to play the lead in Vodacom’s latest television commercial — because of his laugh, said Vodacom commercial executive director Romeo Kumalo.<\/p>\n
The yapping “benign and slightly ridiculous dictator” is the latest in a string of characters introduced to South Africans by Vodacom over the last 14 years.<\/p>\n
The characters may have changed over the years, but Voda-com’s driving force behind marketing their product has always been the same.<\/p>\n
“Our philosophy hasn’t changed, it’s been the same since day one: to communicate the personality of the brand in a light-hearted and entertaining manner,” said Kumalo on Friday.<\/p>\n
“It must be memorable, people must talk about it.”<\/p>\n
And they seem to have pulled that off with their latest offering.<\/p>\n
Kumalo said they had received six complaints about the advert from people arguing that it “is fuelling the stereotype (of dictators) and they linked it to xenophobia”, but “the vast majority love it”.<\/p>\n
Comments on the marketing and advertising website, Bizcommunity, range from “the best advert ever after that scrawny rat-meerkat and the blithering idiot George” to more negative views that the timing was bad as thousands were still reeling from xenophobic attacks.<\/p>\n
Kumalo defended the timing of the introduction of the advert — it was first aired during the Super 14 final at the end of May — saying it had been conceptualised in October last year, long before the post-election drama in Zimbabwe and the xenophobic attacks back home.<\/p>\n
Despite remarks that the jovial-looking actor closely resembles the former Ugandan president, both the client and advertising agency, Draftfcb South Africa, agree the character is completely fictional. “We didn’t have Idi Amin or Robert Mugabe in mind,” said Kumalo. “He wasn’t supposed to represent anything, he’s just an imaginary character.”<\/p>\n
Kumalo — who is only prepared to say that the company’s marketing budget is “sizable” — believes the success of their numerous campaigns over the years can be tracked in the number of subscribers to the provider’s various services.<\/p>\n
Since the “Yebo for less” campaign first aired seven weeks ago, it has already signed up “hundreds of thousands of customers”. The 4U Vodababy campaign of the 2000s generated 3.5million subscribers and more than 70000 downloads of the sound track tune, Seize the moment, seize the day.<\/p>\n
Other favourites over the years include the Yebo Gogo adverts, featuring Michael de Pinna, in leopard-print outfits, and Professor Kole Omotoso, and Mo the Meerkat, a cartoon character. <\/p>\n
Kumalo is promising an even better advert, which will air in a few weeks.<\/p>\n
Featuring two of South Africa’s biggest sports — soccer and dancing — the advert pits South African soccer legends against the new generation of players in a Sophiatown-style dance-off.<\/p>\n
As for “The Dictator”, Draftfcb’s Heidi Nelson said: “Cherry on top for us, however, would be if his catchphrase — ‘We’ve been having it’ — becomes as popular as ‘Yebo Gogo’. We think there’s every chance it will.”<\/p>\n