Don't mention the 'you know what'!

DT’s Karolina Throssell shares a story that caught her attention in the media recently...

Sponsorship of large scale events is big business. Brands pay huge amounts of money to secure themselves a slice of the associated publicity, but there are just as many un-affiliated companies who will do their best to capitalise unofficially, with some commendable results.

Whilst, we are always keen to share our successes, it was a cheeky advert from South African airline Kulula that caught my eye recently for its ingenuity. It led with the words ‘Unofficial National Carrier of the ‘You Know What’ and used football imagery in a full page advert promoting flights to destinations in South Africa, as well as pictures of Vuvuzelas, which are horns regularly used at South African football matches.

Cue a threatening legal letter to pull the advert from the powers that be, which Kululu did. The official line is that the airline was never told it couldn’t use certain words or symbols but that used in combination is tantamount to ambush marketing for the World Cup.

The surrounding publicity around this gained Kululu some new fans, including myself, especially when I saw the replacement advert. Poking fun at not being able to use the date of the World Cup in any marketing, the lead text read ‘Not next year, not last year but somewhere in between’ with smaller print going on to explain ‘there are so many more exciting reasons to travel around our country this year, than just for that thing we wouldn’t dare mention’. Imagery was also changed to pictures that at first glance could be mistaken for football or World Cup related imagery but were annotated to explain that they were in fact not.

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