To see ourselves as others see us

06 March 2015 - 03:16 By Andile Ndlovu
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It is said that life is far too important to be talked about seriously - and South Africans, now more than ever, need to be reminded of that.

Insurance company Santam - along with go-to partner advertising agency King James - seems to be taking the lead in reminding us how refreshing we are as a people in a new advert, which should give you a good laugh.

The minute-long advert is a whirlwind trip around the world to hear foreigners reminiscing about their experiences of Mzansi.

Sure, we have an amazing climate and beaches and women, and our sports teams are always competitive. We don't need an excuse to pull out the braai grid and the beers.

But we also have load-shedding, we cram 16 adults into kombis and call them "mini-taxis", and we have car guards - a concept foreigners fail to grasp.

A Japanese woman shows her friends a picture she took in South Africa of a road sign that warns "Hippo Crossing" - but they think it must be Photoshopped because why would hippos have right of way?

Elsewhere, a man tells friends at a dinner party that "they love making fires everywhere, they call it 'chop and dop'."

They poke fun at us for having "really high walls" around our homes, as if to "keep something in or out".

And they marvel that "sometimes they just switch the power off".

"They even have a name for it," says a woman, and when asked what it is, a guy answers "load shedding", to which another replies, "Gosh, I could shed a little load."

The advert seems to have struck a chord with locals. By yesterday afternoon it had received almost 77000 views on YouTube.

Denershan Naidoo wrote: "Watching this ad makes you proud to be South African. It's funny, creative, and uplifting. Great ad!"

Alfred Thorpe said: "Well done Santam. Pretty cool advert. Or should I say: 'Kief bru'."

Others asked why the advert didn't include "our robots" and "the part about their president not having a matric".

Santam's executive head of brand, Yegs Ramiah, said: "With our new ad campaign we want people to spend more time celebrating the many upsides and wonderful aspects to living in this one-of-a-kind country - and less time feeling uncertain about whether they're properly covered."

"There are things that happen in South Africa that are part of our lives. Some weird, some wonderful, and some more serious. They're one-of-a-kind things," said Devin Kennedy, executive creative director at King James Group.

"We've become so used to them ... but to foreigners they're often bizarre."

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