Volkswagen and Ogilvy 'Drive to Defy' in every way

The online films made for the launch capture the life stories of two South Africans who have defied the odds, expectations and stereotypes to achieve remarkable success; Major Mandisa Mfeka who is the nation’s first Black female combat pilot (and flew with the Hawks at President Ramaphosa’s inauguration in 2019) and Kitty Phetla who is the first Black ballerina to dance The Dying Swan in Russia.

“The emotional stories of these two remarkable women are powerful examples of the drive to defy the odds,” says Goldberg but the making of the films during the Covid-19 pandemic also represented a huge challenge. “They were briefed and produced during the lockdown in Johannesburg, Alexandra, Pretoria and at Middleburg Airfield, with the core team attending and directing shoots remotely. It was logistically complex and the health of everyone taking part had to be the top priority. The end product from director Fausto Becatti and Bioscope Films is superb by any standards and exceptional given the constraints we were working under.”

A further significant layer in the campaign was a deliberate decision to involve people in the production process who had defied the odds themselves to get to their current position in the industry and then to make four additional films telling their stories, directed by Kyla Philander, who describes herself as “a femme of colour in the film industry living with mental illness.”

Ogilvy Cape Town MD Vicki Buys says: “We are very proud of this campaign, which pushed everyone to their limits and then some, but we had some incredible partners who put every inch of their creativity into bringing it to life and we had the most important thing of all, a client committed to the vision of defiance.”

’Drive To Defy’ credits:

Client: Volkswagen South Africa
Agency: Ogilvy Cape Town
Production Company: Bioscope Films
Post: Strangelove
SFX: Sinister
Sound Design: Workroom
Music: Audio Militia, Pressure Cooker and Daniel Caleb
Photography: Jodi Windvogel

Full credits list:

Client: Volkswagen South Africa
Client: Meredith Kelly, Loryn Symons, Neo Nkosi
Agency: Ogilvy Cape Town
Creative Director: Alex Goldberg
Associate Creative Director: Riaan Van Wyk
Creative Group Head / Art Director: Sibs Zihle
Creative Group Head / Copywriter: Marjolein Rossouw
Copywriter: Sandhya Mathura, Melanie Horenz, Steven Lipschitz
Art Director: Lisa Hodgskiss, Annie Bekker
Account Team: Lexi Leih, Chris Spencer, Jeanine Hugo, Sivenathi Jayiya
Agency Producer: Cathy Day Tooze
Delivery: Mel Forgus
Production Company: Bioscope Films
Director: Fausto Becatti
Producer: Daniel Kaplan, Lee-Anne Jacobz
DOP: Adam Bentel
Post: Strangelove
Post Executive Producer: Bevil Schwartz
Editor (Brand): Daniel Mitchell
Editor (Content): Shelby Ncube
Flame (Brand): Charmaine Greyling
Flame (Content): Darian Simon
Grade: Nic Apostoli
SFX: Sinister
Sound Design: The Workroom
Sound Engineer: Stephen Webster, Michael Botha
Score/Music: Audio Militia, Pressure Cooker and Daniel Caleb
Photographer: Jodi Windvogel
PR: Bonfire