Brendan Seery writes on Media and Marketing for Independent Media and has a regular column on advertising, Orchids and Onions. Here he pays tribute to ad agency FCB as it commemorates its 90th anniversary in South Africa.
What is good advertising? It's a question I often grapple with when I ponder awarding an Orchid for a TV ad, a radio spot, a print page or event a billboard.
Good advertising is a magical combination of art, of poetry, of humour... but, most importantly, it goes to the heart of what makes you tick as a human being.
It can make you laugh, it can make you cry, it can even make you angry. But good advertising never leaves you feeling nothing.
Good advertising, especially in a country like South Africa, can also play a subtle, yet vital, role in helping us heal wounds and rebuild our sometimes battered Rainbow Nation.
Yet, even if advertising ticked all of the boxes above, it would not be doing its job – and not have the momentum to pass from good to great – if it did not fulfil its primary purpose, selling.
Some sharp ad person once said: "I think this is small business week. If you want to keep your business small, it's easy. Don't advertise."
And the best advertising turns a viewer or a listener into a buyer – and turns brands into household words.
The world's most powerful brands have built their status on advertising...and that is no less true in South Africa, where our country's most well-known logos and trademarks are allowed into our homes and our lives. We trust them because we have a long-standing relationship with them as they chatted with us, and entertained us, over the years through their advertising.
The South Africa ad agency which has done that for its clients most consistently down the decades has to be FCB.
As it celebrates 90 years of existence, the signs of its success are all about. The trucks full of Loeries advertising awards. The boxes full of Orchids I have awarded them over the past 15 years (more than any other agency). The astounding growth of the business: FCB Johannesburg has tripled in size over the past three years in one of the toughest economic periods in our history.
Their current and previous clients read like a Who's Who of Top SA Companies: Toyota, FNB, Vodacom, Absa, Cell C, Sasol, Engen, Tiger Brands, Eskom...the list goes on.
But what really sets FCB apart is the fact that the ads it makes are uniquely South African. They are not clones of the mid-Atlantic mush which passes for creative thought in other parts of the world.
In that sense, FCB's best work is part of our lives: the soundtrack of this unique, beautiful, enigmatic and sometimes frustrating country we call home.
To commemorate FCB's 90th anniversary in South Africa, we bring you some of those moments and we hope they bring back happy memories, make you smile or even make you chuckle.
This would not be a Special Edition of Orchids and Onions if I did not stick my neck out to name my favourite FCB work.
Sasol's "Glug-glug" and the "Baby in the pram" are right up there because of their sweet innocence. So too is the entire "Yebo Gogo" series which broke new ground in the sensitive area of race (a place where most of the world's agencies are too chicken to go, even today). The Coca-Cola dog was also wonderful, because not only was it fun and energetic but it showcases the product well.
One of the cleverest lines in South African advertising for the past 15 years has to be "Met Eish", which surfaced in the "Friendly Frikkie" ads for Distell's Klipdrift Brandy. And the humour in FCB's ads for Savannah doesn't come any drier.
But, I think that, as a body of work, the years of ads for Toyota would have to receive my Grand Orchid. From the slogan "Everything keeps going right" (which is up of the best brand summations I have ever seen) to the gorgeous Josie Boraine in a Hilux facing down a tank on a bridge; the go-karts roaring down the hill; "My dad's Hilux is tougher-er than yours"; the sexy woman who nicks rally star Gniel De Villiers's racing Hilux and shows the boys how it should be done; and last but not least Buddy, perhaps the most loved animal character in the history of South African advertising.
All of those ads are uniquely South African, but the one I will never forget is the one which was the genesis of Buddy. It was a radio ad (which won a Gold Loerie) for the Toyota Tazz where we heard a laidback, Cape Town-like dude talking to his dog about the virtues of the hatchback car. The conversation continued in words and barks, until the dude stopped and told the dog: "hey bru, you can't say that on the radio..."
undefinedSo, FCB at 90. This is what great advertising is about.
A Bouquet of Orchids to you...