Sasol 'Ama-Glug-Glug' Remains South Africa's Most Loved Ad

Sasol ‘Ama-Glug-Glug’ created in 1999 by Lindsay Smithers FCB, now FCB Joburg, has retained its pole position as South Africa’s Best Liked Ad ‘of all time’. This is according to Adtrack, Kantar's proprietary advertising testing system which has evaluated the impact and liking of all brand advertising in South Africa since 1984.

 

Kantar released this week a retrospective of the ads that have found their way into South Africans hearts and minds, and analysing what Saffers like when it comes to watching TV. The retrospective ‘high fived’ Vodacom and Coca-Cola, which have the most ads in the Top 35 Best Liked Ads, with four and three respectively.

 

As far as agency groups go, the Nahana Communications Group (to which both the FCB and McCann agencies belong) and Ogilvy between them account for 15 of the 35 ads on the list. Nahana notched up eight while Ogilvy accounted for seven. There are also two ads, one each, created by McCann Erikson London and Ogilvy London.

 

Commenting on the accolade, FCB Joburg’s chief creative officer, Ahmed Tilly, and group MD Thabang Skwambane congratulated all the brands and all the agencies responsible for South Africa’s Most Liked Ads over the last 35 years.

 

They especially paid tribute to the brave Sasol client, Andriesa Singleton; Gaby Bush, the creative director at the time; Les Sharpe, the film director; and Dr Thomas Oosthuizen, the group director for planning and marketing.

“Today, science shows that, when it comes to motivating people, emotions are what drive us as humans. Brands need to evoke a strong, positive emotion – the more resonant, the better. And, for creatives to create a powerful experience, the strategy needs to identify what is most motivating to people and how the brand can satisfy these needs. These three gentlemen, legends in the industry, instinctively knew that … and created a piece of communication that resonated so strongly with the South African public when it was flighted, it set the bar,” Ahmed commented.

 

FCB Joburg have regularly dominated the Adtrack survey and are currently still leading the way, being the only agency with two campaigns in the top 10 in the 2018.

 

“FCB Joburg is a dramatically transformed agency operating in a media and marketing landscape they wouldn’t recognise,” added Thabang. “We are very proud of the fact that we’ve managed to continue that tradition and consistently produce some of the most loved communications in South Africa today.”