Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The Art of (re)naming

South Africans have a unique way of showing their appreciation for things that they are fond of, things that they interact with on daily basis and ultimately fall in love with. When they really appreciate a product/brand, they baptize it by giving it a name of their own. This is obvious in sports where almost all popular soccer stars have nicknames given to them by supporters/fans, to name just a few: Six Mabone, Computer, 16V, Spiderman, Mokoko, Ngwana wa tshwenya / Troublemaker, Safe Hands, 10111, Slim Kat etc. and the list goes on.

But it doesn’t only end up in sport, products used on daily basis or occasionally that are appreciated have got a fair share in the naming stakes as shown in these samples attached here. This fascination story with brands had to be told, and I have done that the only way I know how: through art. Shown here are examples of some brands that have been converted into works of art as well as t-shirts.


Nowhere in the world have I ever seen such an approval for a brand. This is true ownership, a marketer’s dream, or nightmare!

4 comments:

  1. Heeeyyyy dude, welcome to the blogosphere! I was wondering how long it would take you to get here!
    Damn pity your last batch of images ended up nowhere, we should have removed them when we had the chance. I'm still angry about that nonsense. Bad karma to all those who participated in the scam, may their life savings get raided by rats and mice.
    PS - if you didn't have flaws no-one would love you. It's what makes us human. Even Tiger's confirmed his status as a human being now!

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  2. Hear! Hear!
    A perceptive demonstration of the crucial point that "the masses" are not docile recipients of advertising images but often push back;reappropriating these images on their own terms. To the advertisers: Embrace the masses and let their resourcefulness work for and not against your brands.
    Big up, Sam.

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  3. This so so cool and fresh. Great stuff Sam!

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