Not even!

I think the title of this post should actually be “Why Cell C’s marketing team should consider a career in sales”. Now, I’d imagine Trevor Noah (tw) to be a pretty smart guy, but to be sold into becoming the face of a widely considered struggling brand, they must have sold him the world. Not just in payment, but in the overall strategy going forward. And well done to them.

I don’t recall Cell C (tw) getting as much exposure as they have over the past few weeks, ever. It started off with praise and applause, then the ‘it was all a scam‘ fiasco when everyone (particularly journos who felt like their little feelings were hurt for being betrayed) slated the campaign at every opportunity. Now the logo story. When will it end? It probably has. And all Cell C can do from here is improve, because they are, essentially, starting from the bottom. And I have a feeling that they will.

Why? Because what the’ve done is completely polarise themselves to the market. You get the people who love what they’ve done, and the people who absolutely hate it. Both sides have the same amount of interest in waiting for what they’ll do next, and both sides are so passionate about their standpoints that they will vehemently argue over any platform, live or online, to try and prove their point. The result: A conversation about the brand. Awesome. So now Cell C has the whole country focussing on their next move, and when you have that much pressure to perform, you work your ass off to make it happen.

On the other side though, what if they don’t? What if this all came too suddenly, they’re not prepared for it, and Cell C loses everything? What does this mean for their new CEO?

Trevor has become the face, the captain of this huge faceless ship. It’s a lot easier for us to blame individuals when things go wrong, because shouting at a large cold building never helped anydoby. It’s exactly what they wanted to achieve with the new campaign: Speak to an individual (Trevor) and he’ll sort you out. People buy in to that. But it has it’s disadvantages too.

Bottom line: If the brand you advocate goes down, you’re going down with them. It’s the captain’s duty. Let’s just hope the powers that be (unfortunately I don’t think Trevor is one of them) can steer this ship past the iceberg and sail it to greener pastures.

Text 1 (incorrect)

Text 2 (correct)

Oops! Someone fire someone (or at least give them a good spanking, then send us the video).

Reward-if-found – the honesty incentive – is a simple concept: Place a sticker on your worthy possessions, and if one of them ever gets lost, the person who finds it SMSs the number on the sticker to 33105. The back-end system then notifies the owner via SMS and email, the owner and finder are connected and make arrangements to do the swap. The name obviously implies that a reward will be given for finding, which is a small price to pay for data retrieval, buying another device, the hassle of claiming from insurance, etc.

I challenged him on a few things though:

Me: “This can’t obviously replace insurance, ‘cos not everyone is a good person.”

Steve: “It’s not an insurance replacement, it’s relying on the goodwill of your fellow South Africans. Insurance companies are interested in this because they see their customers’ claims being reduced significantly.”

Me: “So can’t I just stick something I made myself on my possessions and hope people will phone me?”

Steve: “Of course you could, people do already (like on their luggage), but the service which is easy to use by sending one SMS or logging on to the site is a guarantee to get the original owner in contact with you, and the name suggests you’ll be rewarded, which is only fair.”

Me: “But what if someone holds my laptop ransom and demands a lot more than the reward I want to offer them?”

Steve: “RICA enforces all cellphone numbers to be attached to a specific person with all of their details. Should someone want to take a chance like that, the owner can contact us and we will go the legal route, bringing in lawyers and the Police, because we have their details and they can be found.”

So they’ve done their homework. But what I want to know is:

1. Would you use it?

2. If yes, would you pay a monthly fee relying on the honesty of others?

South Africa’s most audacious television personality, Gary the Tooth Fairy, is spreading his wings into new territories. For the first time in the history of the National Grahamstown Arts Festival – and local entertainment, for that matter – a mystical phenomenon will be performing on stage in his very own, unique live comedy show.

Gary the Tooth Fairy will be sharing his distinctive magical view on the world with audiences at the St. Andrew’s Hall in Grahamstown, daily from 22 June until 2 July.

M-Net viewers have seen the master illusionist, who unsurprisingly is the local individual with the most fans on Facebook (90 000), walk on water, communicate with birds and do all things fantastic to steal the limelight away from the country’s number one general entertainment channel.

Gary’s show will be gutsy, daring and different, with all the ingredients to boost his cult status. But will he take a dig at the broadcaster? Will the phenomenon in the tutu-shaped pantaloon pant peel back mysteries like why the Tokoloshe still owes him money and what the real colour of Santa Claus’ suit is. What is his comedy show all about?

All Gary the Tooth Fairy wants to – and can – reveal at this stage is “that … uhm … it’s a masterpiece … it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to laugh your molars out … if you miss it, you will want to rip your wings off … It’s CLEVA.”

The show is directed by veteran comedian Rob van Vuuren, produced by Whacked Entertainment Management and sponsored by M-Net. Tickets are available at Computicket.

Watch the TV promo here.

If you don’t have it, just tell me.

I was up wide awake at 2am plotting all the miserable things I wanted to do to you. You’re lucky I’m feeling more rational, if not a little tired, today.

Still, next time I come there I’m gonna poke you in the eye…!

Last year the pool features on display wouldn’t interest most people. But, if you’ve recently bought a house, with a pool, the display is now suddenly something you’d consider looking at. This is only one silly example, but you get my point.

As the years go by, and we grow up, we appreciate more and more. As another Fathers Day has come and gone, I’ve grown a new respect for fathers other than my own. Fathers who are also my friends. I’ve realised that as time goes on I’m lucky and privileged to be able to see how my mates are raising their kids. I’m silently and unknowingly learning from them, subconsciously formulating some sort of strategy as to how I will one day raise my own little army of handsome devils that will see me as their hero.

This post is really just to commend all the fathers in the world, especially my mates Rich, Mike and Simon, and for letting me steal their ideas on daddyhood. If I can take all the awesomeness from each of them, my children will take over the world. I can’t fucking wait.

The services range from promising more Facebook fans to positively reviewing products to listening to your life story on Skype, the list goes on and on and they range from very normal to very, very bizarre. To date I’ve only used it for small translations for work, but then I found this guy: The young, Canadian Alex Buckingham. He said that he’d write and record a song all about YOU for a mere $5. So I thought “Fuck it, why not?”

With the brief “Have a look at my website and some of my vids to get a sense of what I’m like”, I paid the 5 bucks and this is the fun (auto-tuned) result I got the next day, too awesome. Thanks Al.

Now go and get yours done! Tell him Don sent you.

The idea and design of the shirt was a collaborative effort by Rich…! and myself for a (hopefully) ongoing project for Thunk!, but ideas without execution is nothing. Enter Trevor Mey.

Trev came up with the idea of how to package it, and he made it happen. We got some really rad exposure from guys like Mike Stopforth, Marc Forrest, Erik Vermeulen, Craig Rodney, Justin Spratt and mad props from some very influential people in the online space. Awesome. They thanked Rich…! and myself, but the real rockstar is Trev for the tough task of making it happen. He’s a legend, and you can’t have him, ‘cos he’s ours. Get your own.

When I started doing stand-up comedy, I enjoyed the shock-effect comedy style through stories about penises, vajayjays, anal leakage, giving birth, fingers in orifices, faeces, the list goes on. It’s easy comedy. Farts are funny – fact. I have now, somehow, started to steer away from the ‘dirty’ comedy and more toward a more informed, cleaner way of making people laugh. It wasn’t really my intention, it just seems to have happened that way.

From the beginning, I asked my mother very, very nicely to not be tempted to click on any of my vids, as the thought of her listening to the tripe that spewed out of my mouth was devastating enough, never mind should she actually have seen any of it. She’d always say: “But Don, we’ve seen lots of comedians who swear and talk about sex.” To which I would always reply: “True, but you haven’t birthed or raised any of them, there’s a difference.”

Another goal I set out to achieve was to use new material every time I performed at my comedy haven, and where it all began, The Comedy Underground at Cool Runnings in Melville. Not only does it keep my sets fresh, should people have seen me before, but it also forces me to build material for the World Tour one day. Or at least a one man show to start.

Today, I think I have a set that I can proudly send to my mother to watch. It happened on Sunday 14 March, and consisted of no material that could possibly get you to imagine me or other people in compromising positions, sexual or otherwise.

So mom, it wasn’t my initial intention, but this set was for you. P.S. The swearing is for effect, I’m normally much more subtle.

“While the 4 little piggies were engrossed in foosball, the big bad wolf huffed and puffed and blew down the plane.”