I recently found this very interesting, banned, South African advert. It paints an awful story of South Africa’s future as a result of no education.


After sharing it with the rest of the QuirkStars I was amazed at how diverse the responses were. The responses were naturally down one of two lines – “love it” or “hate it”. The love it camp looked at the role of education and how the examples given are realistic and that South Africa needs “a shock wake up”.
The hate it camp on the other hand accepted that the results were realistic but questioned the manner in which it was portrayed - it was considered too scary and overly shocking. It was recommended that concepts of beauty and possibility were far more effective in achieving a general buy-in.

This advert reminds me of a Seth Godin blog post from ages ago where he discussed marketing to the one, few, many and all. This article is directed, if unintentionally, at the “few” (to Quote Godin: “A FEW: Being exceptional matters most. Stand out, don't fit in.”) which is why the majority of the office “hate it” - the advert doesn’t fit in with the viewers' priviliged lives. Watching it is an abrasive experience that moves us out of our comfort zone.

The ad has massive TV and online appeal but needs some minor “tweaking” before the general public accepts it. The major factor which needs to change is the mode of portraying the message which is currently “scare the be-jesus out of the public”. This needs to be replaced with “lets work together for a promising future.” The change is a subtle one and simply requires that a positive spin of “act now save later” be brought into the advert.

With all comments noted my vote is still for this advert, it is shocking to the core but provides a good motivating factor (to the few).