A Vodacom caricature

The series of six 10-second advertisements feature the characteristics, movements and mannerisms of both characters captured by studying hours of real life video footage. Part of the characters' attraction are the subtle expressions and nuances on their faces - their expressions were mimicked on 3D models to make them instantly recognisable to the viewing audience.

The advertisements - promoting Vodacom's value-added services such as international roaming, picture messaging, ring tones and operator logos - build on the brand recognition generated by the highly successful corporate advertisements.

First flighted in 1994, the series of 13 original advertisements that featured the now two famous characters, have become synonymous with Vodacom and have represented the stability and continuity of the company and the network over the last nine years.

Vodacom Director Andre Beyers says: "As Omotoso and da Pinna are the strongest properties Vodacom owns and are seen as pillars of the Vodacom brand, this is a great opportunity to use these well-known and well-liked characters in completely different settings that allows us to expand their repertoire and create even more amusing and entertaining situations."

While the studio had produced animated figures before, this was the first time that they had reproduced real life characters into instantly recognisable animated figures in a project that took one and a half months to complete.

Confirming the popularity of Omotoso and da Pinna, Beyers adds that with every advertisement broadcast, Vodacom performs a monitoring service that rates the 'noting' and 'liking' factors of their advertisements.

"With a rating of 5 out of 10 seen as good, these two characters and their advertisements have consistently generated an average rating of between 8.4 and 8.6 since inception," he says.

It is by far the biggest animation project yet undertaken by award-winning Creative Directors Wing-Wing Mdlulwa and Quintes Venter from FCB South Africa, in conjunction with Luma studios, under the direction of Jason Cullen and animated by Jacques Venter and Guy van der Walt, "These two characters have achieved cult status amongst South African audiences, and are instantly recognisable wherever they go," says Beyers.

"We have had different kinds of fun with them. The two characters still perform the same roles and retain similar actions, only this time the action and jokes are more cartoon orientated and more slapstick, which allows us to bring out a lot more humour to make these characters even more likeable by increasing their versatility and their role playing abilities."

Quintis Venter says in producing these advertisements, the creative team have tried to be very different, going for more than just brand recognition.

"As these advertisements are very much goal driven, the success of this campaign can be instantly measured by Vodacom according to the increase usage of their value added services, making the tracking very easy for them," he says. "Because the ads are 10 seconds long, they fit quite neatly into the smaller spots which Vodacom have on television as part of their many sponsorship deals."

Commenting on why Vodacom made the decision to turn the two into cartoon characters, Beyers says that audiences enjoy animation, and just like the corporate ads, they are tireless because they are funny and watchable in addition to conveying the message.

"These characters will be instantly recognisable as the real characters, so the consumer will relate to them. The objective is not to replace them in the corporate ads, but rather to extend their characters," he says. "We know consumers like them, so this gives us a chance to place them in even more unreal situations where they can do more than human beings."

Vodacom is launching the series with the international roaming service because it is one of the sponsors of Rugby World Cup. The advertisement is already running on different TV stations in South Africa.