It is a fact that the 2010 World Cup has brought South Africa a huge amount of marketing exposure.
While there were so many doubting Thomases before the kick-off of the world’s biggest sports event (both locally and abroad), most people are now more than convinced that South Africa has indeed managed to pull it off with aplomb.
Brand South Africa has never in the history of the new South Africa encountered this amount of exposure in all the corners of the world…
…except in Chicago.
What wrong with this picture?(Cheers to SA Promo Magazine on FaceBook for the pic)
Eish! What more is there to say? One would think that with the might of the American media machine behind them, WGN would get this right.
WGN9 is a television channel in the US city of Chicago. We wanted to link to their website, but the bumbling idiots do not deserve it.
Forgive them, they live on an island…
Then of course, there is the report from Rugby15.co.za on Facebook telling of the New Zealand reporter asking the Springbok media manager (with a straight face nogal) what “TRIBE” Springbok fullback Gio Aplon is from. Needless to say, the Bok media man could not keep a straight face and could not stop laughing.
In this day and age.
Fooi tog!
Former BlitzBok & Springbok fullback Gio Aplon faces the Kiwi media in Auckland.(Pic: Gallo Images)
I remember writing elsewhere on this blog that “I can probably write a book” about the kinds of negative African stereotypes I’ve encountered while living in China. Once again, I’m not going to, at least not on this blog-post. I will however, tell you about one incident that happened to My Missus while we were living in Taiwan a few years ago.
My Missus, a teacher at an international school in Northern Taiwan, was called to the office urgently. Upon arriving there, she noticed a black person in conversation with a senior teacher. The teacher excused herself from the conversation and hurried over to My Missus. Excitedly, she told her that the person she is interviewing is “also from Africa” and that she would like My Missus to come and “speak African” to him!
We still laugh whenever we tell that story!
With the 2010 World Cup upon us, many thousands of visitors will flock to the South African shores with similar (more daft?) stereotypes. And who else but South African fast-food chain Nando’s to use it in their ad-campaign:
