Santam vs Nando's an unlikely duel

We have all come to expect something from the people behind Nando's advertising. They always seem to be able to produce something that brings a smile to one's face. Sometimes the adverts are deemed a little to risque like their 'Last dictator standing' advert which was ultimately banned from airing.

This time they have responded to an insurance company advert. The insurance company advert is clever in that gets you to start noticing things that you don't normally notice, as in the fine print, of for example your insurance contract. Watch the advert here.


Nando's, the popular fast food chicken chain, created this advert as a bit of a tongue-in-chick (cheek) response. Instead of the fine print of the contract they talk about the menu but in the same style and manner as the Santam advert. See it here.


This is normally where it ends as most companies that get spoofed by an Nando's advert normally object and go the boring legal route and get the advert banned. Thankfully for a company that is 94 years old they too have a sense of humour and responded brilliantly with this advert.


If only companies could be this way more often and avoid the courts and embrace the challenge, unlike some very standard bank.

Majority Rules, should it?

"Majority rules" is oftened heard in group discussions on plans of action whether in the business environment or social interactions with friends and family. Unfortunately for the person in the minority they will normally hear something like "sorry for you.." and life goes on.

Now in most cases "majority rules" works simply due to the majority of the group generally wanting the same thing. What if however you are the sole person that knows what you are saying or trying to convince others to do is 100% undeniably correct yet the majority do not see it.

Should the majority really rule in all situations? If you had two experts that had a solution to a unique problem yet the majority want to do something else that may work out in the short term but not for the long term why would people go with the majority and not the sure fix. Surely in some instances it makes more sense to give those in the minority more leverage to change a situation.

Obviously this makes sense if those in the minority are providing sensible solutions and are not in fact part of the problem. If things are also being done properly those in minority should also have had their say in swaying the groups opinion to becoming the majority. But there-in the cycle starts again.

Just something to think about.

How the Media changes a story

In South Africa there has been furious discussion over the roll of media in the country and the Media Tribunal is just one of many aspects being discussed. The media has and always be a powerful force in the world. Especially has more and more media houses embrace the full potential of social media their power will only get more powerful.

People everywhere in the world are able to sway discussion in any direction and unfortunately the court of public opinion is where you need to win and for media houses winning means more money. It must be a difficult task to present accurate factual news but what I want to discuss is the brilliant advert below. It is by The Guardian a UK based media company.



As brilliant as the advert is, it proves how the media can turn a story into something so far removed from the core story. A case in point is the strike that is happening all over South Africa. Cosatu, the largest trade union in the country has called a strike to protest the Gauteng e-Toll project and the use of labour brokers.

Both points, that the union is striking against are hot topics of discussion and the e-Tolling is one that has earned the fury of just about all Gauteng residents. So you would think that the media would be focussing on the strike and what the strike is about. The e-Toll project has been covered extensively and continues to be.

The media are covering the strike and doing their bit, but like in the above advert, the story they are covering most is the fact that teachers are striking which obviously impacts on the education of children. The education system is now getting a lot of focus and teacher unions are getting involved in radio talks yet the point of the strike has nothing to do with education?

Do not get me wrong education is a massive priority in this country and deserves all the attention it gets but the point is media can and do twist the initial news story into something completely different. Right or wrong or I do not know but I guess that is how news rooms continue to produce news every day, even on slow news days.

What do you think about media and their power to manipulate a story?

Related articles

• S Africa braced for toll protests (bbc.co.uk)
• Guardian Open Journalism: Three Little Pigs Advert (techfleece.com)
• Rule No. 1 about using social media (marketing.yell.com)

Facebook's Timeline

Image via CrunchBase

Facebook has launched their new timeline visual approach to their user profiles. Initially I was not taken with the new lay-out but I have since begun to like it. It is certainly a big change from the existing profile lay-out. The lay-out of old seems to be so bland and boring now.

A nice feature on the timeline is the cover. This graphic is like the book cover to your profile and is a nice big space to show a picture of whatever you want compared to the small profile picture we have had for so long. It is still good to see the profile picture has remained but does take on a slightly less important role now.

The rest of the page is divided into two main columns by a dividing line, representing the passing of time, hence the timeline look and feel. This allows to include milestones or life events and you can record your life’s history easier than ever before.

All those links you used to have on the left hand side of the page have not disappeared they are just displayed elsewhere. There are now a couple of tabs displayed just under the cover picture. These tabs can be expanded by clicking on the little down arrow on the right hand side. What this means is that only three tabs will be displayed at any given time. This gives a bit more life to your profile as the tabs rotate through.

If you have a post that you wish to make more prominent you can select the post and highlight it. This will make your post appear across the entire page and give it more presence.  Also posts that have more comments / shares get a bigger portion of the page. It is a nice way of seeing at a glance which post got the most action.

The timeline is now available to those who have Facebook pages for their businesses or other reasons. The mandatory cutover date is 30 March 2012 to the timeline for pages. The timeline for pages will affect businesses in a big way.

Business will be able to place more branding images on the page now, think of a big Coca-Cola image on the cover picture and the bottle of Coke as the profile picture. Businesses will be able to make use of the milestones feature by way of promotions, specials, product launches. The will be able to build the brand better and engage with customers.

The ability for a page admin to take a message and turn it into a private messaging session with a customer will allow far deeper communication than ever before. Marketers will need to re-think their strategy on which tabs display above the ‘fold’ as this will be the first thing customers will see when landing on the business page.

It should all make for some interesting changes in the way we see people’s lives and businesses unfold in real time. Let me know what you think of the new Facebook timeline on my facebook page TechNOBLEgyIT.

Related articles

• Facebook launches timeline for pages (sujithselvan.wordpress.com)
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• Facebook brings Timeline to brand pages (technologytell.com)

Last dictator standing

In an earlier article I talked about the standard of advertisements in South Africa and how they seemed to be getting better. One of the main reasons for South Africa having good advertising is the Loerie Awards. The awards were designed to inspire advertising agencies to continuously push the limits of advertisements and create new and innovative ideas.

One of the best advertising campaigns has got to be the Nando's adverts. The fast food chain has had so many brilliant adverts over the last few years across all forms of media. Their ads have ranged from rogue blind dogs to issues of illegal immigration and more often than not they capture the political climate in the country and more recently worldly events.

In their latest advert, they have created a viral hit of epidemic proportions. "Last Dictator Standing" is the newest advert and we see look alike dictators reminiscing about the old days. Robert Mugabe and Gaddafi are seen playing with water guns in the form of AK-47's and karaoke with Chairman Mao, making sand angels with Saddam Hussein and even swinging with P.W. Botha.

Although the reaction to the ad has been brilliant, it even earned a spot on TIME's Newsfeed. The majority of people surveyed all enjoyed the ad as pure entertainment but were unsure of the actual product offering, Nando's 6 Pack meal, which includes 1 ½ flame-grilled chickens, two large portions of fries, a pile of bread and some Liqui-Fruit for R170)

You can see the Ad here.

Related articles

• Colonel Gaddafi and Robert Mugabe shown in water-gun fight in new Nando's ad (mirror.co.uk)
• New Nando's Last Dictator Standing Commercial (great-ads.blogspot.com)
• Last dictator standing: Robert Mugabe has no friends! (dangerousminds.net)

Nokia N9 - Nokia is back in the game

Image by Nokia RSA via Flickr

Work of Art Smartphone

The new Nokia Smartphone, the N9, is a beautiful piece of electronic wizardry coming together to
become a sure competitor to the much loved iPhone. The new N9 is really an impressive Smartphone; the interface is slick and so easy to use. After many years of falling behind in the Smartphone market Nokia have hit back.

Striking All-screen design

The phone is a perfect fit in your hand, the materials used in the manufacturing of the phone add to its appeal. Technically it is a single piece polycarbonate with a curved glass all-screen front. In reality the plastic used is made from the same material as ice-hockey helmets so that ensures the phone can take some serious damage without breaking. The glass on the front panel is the glass used on helicopters, giving you confidence the phone won't shatter or spider web on the smallest of falls like other smart phones would.

Another plus to the materials used is that the plastic does not block signal, so even with dodgy cellular service you can only blame the carriers and not your phone. The 3.9" AMOLED display makes the display great and gives the effect of everything appearing to float.

Image by Nokia RSA via Flickr

Effortless - just a swipe away

The best part for me about the phone is the way the phone actually works. In short it just does. You just slide your finger over the screen to move onto one of 100 apps permissible on the device. For example you are watching a video clip and decide you want to send a sms, just slide your finger up and select sms, the video clip will pause and resume again when you select the video clip again. Amazing!

The next big thing is NFC, near field communication. Imagine having a funky wireless speaker and you want to play your music through it. Easily enough just touch the top of the phone with the top of the speaker, the two devices will sync and the phone is now playing through the speaker.

The phone has so many other incredible features that you expect with smart phones these days but the thing makes Nokia better than others in this field is the Nokia Maps and navigation. The camera quality is brilliant, with a Carl Zeiss 8MP auto-focus, wide angle lens, allowing for HD quality video capture with stereo audio recording.

Having played with the phone, there is so much more to this phone than one can possible write about in this format. I really suggest you go and see this device for yourself; maybe some lucky people will find it in their Christmas stocking this year...

 Either way I am glad that Nokia have eventually brought a phone to the market that competes head to head with the iPhone and will most likely trump it in every way. However Apple's marketing and the popular belief that Apple is best will make Nokia's comeback very difficult but certainly not impossible.

Visit www.nokian9.co.za for more.

Related articles

• Nokia N9 Review and Nokia N9 Price (myjournal4all.wordpress.com)
• Nokia N9: last of the line (guardian.co.uk)
• Nokia Ships the N9, a Phone Without Apps (technologizer.com)
• Report: Nokia N9 not coming to the U.S. (news.cnet.com)
• Nokia promises several N9 updates, years of support (electronista.com)
• Nokia N9 Will Run Android Apps (appscout.com)

Advertisements - are they getting better?

We are most probably all annoyed when watching our favourite TV programmes and those infernal television advertisements come on. Generally if you are watching a tv channel like our SABC then the ad break would happen at the most inopportune time and the volume of the advertisement always seems louder than the programme you are watching.

The ad break often leads to channel surfing, where most likely you are going to find adverts on the other channels on at the exact same time. Annoying as the break is, what is more annoying is the often pathethic advert that seem to be stuck on a loop. These are the advert's played after every other ad at every ad break at the exact same time. Thank goodness for PVR's.

For those people that do not have PVR's and are forced to put up with adverts ruining our tv viewing pleasure there is not much to be done except to sit back and grit your teeth. However, over the last few months the adverts on tv do seem to be of better quality?

There are some adverts in my opinion that are quite bereable to watch. There is the brilliant Tracker advert that goes backwards from an old lady right back to when the lady was a baby. This is an excellent example of looking at a service or product out-of-the-box so to speak. The focus here is not on the 'what' as in recovering stolen vehicles but rather on the 'why'. Why does Tracker recover vehicles - to save lives?

There are many other great adverts that have graced the smaller screens, such as the Berocca advert with two lumberjacks dancing on a log in the water with the payoff line being 'You, but on a good day.' OMO also have a decent ad running with their 'Just one small cap is enough' where the domestic helper smacks the hand of the 'madam' and says the pay off line.

Some other good adverts is the launch of the Heita cellphone network ealier this year - not my personal favourite but the ad was well done. Other popular adverts are for liquor brands like Johnny Walker, Hennessy and the Hansa ads with 'Vuyo'.

Then again there are still the horrible ones like 'Dettol', especially the one where the little boy sneezes all over his lunch and then hands one of his sandwiches to the girl next to him. Not to forget the pathetic 'Mr Muscle' cleaning product adverts with the supposed superhero himself 'Mr Muscle'.

The Loerie awards, held in Cape Town recently, recognises the best of television advertising and other communication mediums the Oscar's of television advertising in Africa and the Middle East. The finalists for 2011 are listed here. http://www.theloerieawards.co.za/ Some of them, I cannot understand but then again I am no expert - I just like what I like.

What are your favourite or best adverts presently on tv?

Related articles

• UK Advertising Authority smacks Motorola for misleading Atrix advert (video) (engadget.com)
• BA used Virgin plane in £20m advertising campaign (mirror.co.uk)
• A bird in the hand (teamredjhb.com)