Thursday, December 9, 2010

Why Trevor Noah, sold out and we love the Nando's ad!

yeah I'm eating

Some time in October, Cell C, decided it was goin to revamp itself. Not a bad decision seeing as how kak, they were as a service provider. We only felt the winds of change when Cell C, wrote it's open letter to Trevor Noah, who had openly crticised the service provider, on their general kakness! That was the first sign we got that Cell C was making amends. In a move that was obviously decided in some boardroom, Cell C was pandering to Trevor, openly courting him, so they could get married and consumate the wedding with a slew of  television and radio commercials, that starred Trevor and his voice. Cell C associating themselves with the cool that Trevor had  gained from his Daywalker dvd. This is the story of how all the above parties lost their cool.







I'm not one of those dicks, who thinks artists should starve  for their craft, matter of fact. I'm all for those in the arts getting their slice. I'm tired of people thinking tenders are the only way to make money. So please don't see this a severe case of the hates.



Trevor, stood high above the comedic heap, with the release of his Dvd. He eclipsed most comedians in South Africa, from a commercial success point of view. Hell, my parents even laughed hard when watching it, and trust me my parents think this generation is good for nothing, so Trevor, definately was onto something. Not a day went by without someone reciting some joke from that dvd. My personal feelings on the Daywalker. It was meh, he made me chuckle a couple times, but when Trevor,starts a joke i can see the punchline sentences before, he even says it. So only his delivery was carrying him. Anyway, my bullshit aside, there was a murmur, in  the comedic fraternity, that other prominent older comedians, were upset with Trevor for stealing jokes. We all took it with a pinch of salt, hell I even thought, that these older guys had a case of the hates, seeing as Trevor, had risen above them in a relative short space of time, excecpt for that strange feeling of familiarity I got when listeneing to his jokes.


angry balck comedians

At this point I was thinking to myself, maybe these older cats should sit back, and write for Trevor, come to some sort of agreement, where they get payed to ghostwrite, for him. If you look at it objectively Trevor is the perfect vehicle of delivery for their material, He's good looking, clean, has that nice boy, goodie two shoes vibe going for him. He's also got that unique vantage point,of having been raised in white S.A and black S.A. These things matter in this country. Your uber black comedian, will never cross over the way Trevor has managed, even though his material is delivered, in English, he's too unsettling to the white audience, bring someone like Kagiso Lediga into a white audience and the white half of the audience switches off.  It also works the other way round, take your Barry Hilton into a black audience, and they drift off as well. Trevor walks both worlds, and can draw from his experiences when delivering to both audiences. Trevor also appeals to all age groups, as earlier stated my parents loved him. I know the young girlies out there are falling all over themselves to see him. So i was thinking "Trevor, just pay the boys and keep your face in the limelight." The Milli Vanilli of this comedy shit.


Not exactly a Cell C Board member, but you get the idea


At this point someone at the Cell C boardroom was reciting the jokes he heard on the dvd, and the board of directors had their Eureka moment(of course that's obviously false, but i like to think it happened that way). Then the Cell C rebrand was complete, new logo, new slogan, and  new spokesperson. All the right boxes ticked.

Then they aired, Trevor came off smug as shit, and so did Cell C, and instead of him being a comedian and making us laugh, or making us believe he had a part in writing his own lines, they all came across as forced. The frequency with which those ads played also made them irritating as fuck.


Like a hawk! Come the fuck on man


Three Months later enter Nando's. I don't know if they picked up on my personal irritation, or the nations as a whole, but they went and put Cell C in their place. Nando's, has always had ad campaigns, that are topical, and tend to poke fun at things we as society are fed up with. This time the irritating Cell C, was firmly in their sights.



They used one of the comedians rumoured to be angry over alleged stolen material, and proceed to dismantle all the things the Cell C ads had been beating their chests about. Kagiso, does a brilliant job, he comes across as a funny man, not a reciter of someone elses corny lines. All this from a business that doesn't even compete directly in any way with Cell C. I for one am loving them for it.



Basically what I'm saying is, Trevor you went from makin fun of the man to being the man being made fun of!

L.G

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