Three young creatives from film production house Senses have witnessed huge success with KFC South Africa’s latest Mother’s Day advert. This comes after recently winning the pitch for the advert through Filmer.tv.
The creatives have been given a platform to showcase their talent and work with a brand that small production houses, traditionally, would not easily access. What is more, since its launch on Saturday morning, 8 May 2021, the advert has generated over 1.1 million views and over 3 million impressions across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Mo Matli, director, cinematographer and editor at Senses said, ‘Our vision is to be at the forefront of showcasing South Africa from a relatable, graceful and heartwarming perspective and this advert offered us the perfect opportunity to do just this. The ad set out to celebrate South Africa’s diverse culture of multiple mother figures – from grannies to sisters and even the lady down the road that you buy your lunch from.
We’ve enjoyed the journey and seeing our vision come to life as beautifully as it has. The reception it has received has been overwhelming.’
This film was based on the cultural collective that South Africans have many mother figures in their lives and the narrative was developed around a young man living in the city, far from his own mother, yet takes the time to show appreciation to the women who support him and ‘always choose him’, by gifting them something special – a KFC bucket.
‘Having been in South Africa for 50 years, we have always aimed to truly drive the spirit of youth development at many levels – be it on the cricket field, through our Add Hope programme, or even internally through our bursary programme for our team member’s children,’ said Suhayl Limbada, Marketing Director at KFC South Africa.
‘So we are extremely excited about this additional avenue to our marketing approach and efforts. This advert has not only performed extremely well and hit home for South African audiences, more importantly, it has given this amazing group of young, talented and energetic South African creatives an opportunity to shine with a global brand.’
Senses is a South African content creation team made up of copywriter Mandla Phakathi, voice over artist and soon-to-be director Bonko Khoza and Mo Matli, who – after meeting a few years ago through a learnership programme – started collaborating on different passion projects and decided to launch their own short films. The first one created in 2020 titled ‘To whom it may concern’ is a tale of an aspiring fitness trainer in search of a fitness bursary. The team work strongly together to share ideas, collectively decide on insight to work from and work hard at bringing the story to life.
‘Filmer.tv and KFC South Africa have both been highly supportive throughout the project. It’s been a learning curve that’s stretched our creativity and our ability to independently execute brand briefs and we are truly excited at the journey that this has set us on,’ said Matli.
‘This is just the start of the type of content we will be creating, and the impact we are hoping to make in young entrepreneurs’ lives, so watch this space,’ added Limbada.
‘Coming from a long career in the advertising and film industry and being exposed to the wealth of filmmaking talent across South Africa, we knew that only a small percentage of this talent is landing on the radars of big brands. This model was outdated and with so much talent out there we felt our industry needed access to a community of creators who understand the tastes, nuances and styles of the audience that brands want to speak to. This campaign brought this to life and it was truly a rewarding experience to see a young filmmaking team, who never would have had the chance to land on KFC’s radar before, win the job and execute a film that the public are responding so well to,’ said Peri vp, Chief Creative at Filmer.tv.
To view the full advert click here.
FILMER.TV
https://filmer.tv
