Biography
In 1988 Castrol launched a new advertising campaign involving two characters, “Boet” and “Swaer”, sitting on their tatty stoep at the Kalahari Oasis petrol station discussing motor oil and life. In the “new South Africa” of the 90’s a third character, that of Moegae, was introduced with great success and much integrity as all the hoary questions of the day were dealt with on screen. They are now part of South Africa’s collective conscious and everyday language. In 2003 Castrol realised that they had in fact become bigger than the brand itself and ended the 15 year campaign. They gave the actors Norman Anstey (Boet) Ian Roberts (Swaer) and Fats Bookholane (Moegae) long service awards in acknowledgment of the role they played in developing and maintaining the characters and relinquished Castrol’s “ownership” of the characters to the actors themselves. Characters that are know and loved by almost all living South Africans, teens to toppies!
The three actors have gone on to use the characters in a numbers of mediums but have never released the full potential of the phenomenal affection and loyalty the South African public have for them. This proposal aims to do just that.
The “Campaign”
We are at present developing a number of innovative Boet, Swaer and Moegae products. Foremost on the agenda was to reinvent them for a contemporary South Africa. Whilst they have always been inclusive and extremely popular we are aiming for a retro trendy approach (see “Oh Brother where art thou” and the enclosed) to plant them firmly in centre of the contemporary South African parade where they can comment on and gently satirize the topical issues of the day. Naturally we would like to avoid TV commercials because of their past association with Castrol but see many other possibilities.
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