Lisbon, Portugal – It’s a very strange job description indeed: Duties – to wear a ridiculous outfit and look even more ridiculous while travelling the world in the lap of luxury, all expenses paid and pretending to be a happy, green coloured leopard who loves football.
Requirements: No skills or qualifications needed, must be willing to travel and get hot and uncomfortable, have zero self-image and believe blithely in everything Danny Jordaan tells you about the 2010 World Cup.
Yes, brothers and sisters of the tourism world -Zakumi – the doff-looking green-maned mascot for that rather large soccer tournament we’re hosting next year commenced his official globetrotting with his “handler” Jordaan in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon.
According to Fifa’s marketing director Thierry Weil, Zakumi – whose name is a combination of ZA (for Zuid Afrika, you formerly Dutch ouens) and the word “kumi” which means the number 10 in a number of African languages – the mascot is a key element who represents the spirit of soccer and will play an ambassadorial role at the 2010 World Cup.
Jordaan is even more gushing about the ou in a furry suit: “Zakumi is a proud South African, and as such, an ideal ambassador for the first African World Cup. He is young, energetic and ambitious, a real inspiration for the young and the old, not only in our country, but also across our continent,” he said.
Really? Is that so? Excuse me for being completely uninspired and for the average African to be rather less than non-plussed. And pardon my sniggers but I take exception to these idiots using a leopard as a mascot, not because I don’t like leopards – I love ‘em – but because a leopard’s traits are hardly something we should be getting all frothy over. Let me explain… I happen to know a thing or two about leopards, you see.
First off, Leopards are largely nocturnal predators (meaning they hunt at night, for all of you ouens who don’t do the Animal Planet thing). In addition, leopards are complete loners, prefering their own company except when they have to do the reproduction thing to further the species.
In temperament they are supremely stealthy, sly, and generally ambush their prey. They are also very dangerous, being powerful enough to carry almost twice their own body weight in their mouths up a vertical tree trunk.
Does that sound about right for the average, proud South African? Or more like the average South African tsotsi, looting and pillaging the average suburban home in the wee hours of the morning and carrying his ill-gotten gains to a waiting Kombi?
Leopards are lekker big cats. But not exactly the stuff of Disney, which is why we had the Lion King, not the Leopard King.
And quite why they went and put a green mane on a leopard mascot is completely beyond me (again, for all you chaps and chapesses who don’t know how to spell National Geographic, lions have manes, not leopards).
So, what I want to know is this – who, exactly, dishes out this utter crap and spends untold millions putting it out there?
Why the hell does the world need a silly sod in a cartoon character suit to promote the game of soccer, which is already the planet’s most popular sport?
I don’t blame the guy that created Zakumi – one Kaapie called Andries Odendaal. He took the money and delivered the goods. But I do blame the completely brain dead morons who come up with this pathetic, purile clap-trap and force it on a world which has slightly more on its plate than being forced to gawp at a bloke dressed as a stuffed toy.
Can someone tell me why we need a mascot? What does it do? What role does it fulfil? And how many of the official World Cup mascots can anyone actually remember? (I’ll give you a clue, they’ve been going since the 1966 World Cup!)
According to Fifa’s Weil, official mascots usually play an important role in the world cup and with their “extremely positive attitude”, they have over the years added to the atmosphere of each competition in their own way.
Yes dear. It’s a very positive thing to be dressing up as a child’s plaything while travelling First Class around the world, staying in larny hotels, eating gourmet food and poncing around at official functions.
Imagine putting that one on your CV!
But seriously, my chommies, what is the point of all this other than to spend some more of our hard-earned rands?
I’m all for branding and corporate identities but they need to be representative of what they are trying to sell to really work properly, and most of the biggest sellers have been the simplest of designs – the Nike “swoosh” for example and the immortal words “just do it”.
Now, imagine Nike had opted, instead, for a chap in costume shaped like a cartoon running shoe. Would they have taken the world by storm or had it in stitches? My money’s on the hysterical laughter.
So I ask, once more, if someone can please explain to me what the hell Zakumi is, if anyone honestly takes him seriously and why he’s got such a lekker job while we are busy looking into crystal balls to see where our next arrivals are coming from…?
Blogger Sharon van Wyk
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Sharon, you're a breath of air-freshener! I had my picture taken with Zakumi at Soccerex and brought it home (proudly) to my kids. It went straight into a drawer. I was hurt: I would have expected at least a week on the fridge door. But my sangoma quickly put me right: it was, she said, not me they were trying to hide, it was the cheetah.
Cheetah?
Oh, no no, she said – the cheater. The animal that cheetahd me into believeing that I was being all hip and young by posing for a photograph with him.
But the sangoma was kind enough to explain, too, that the reason we have mascots is so that the owners of the brand can make gazillions from selling soft-and-fluffies as well as coffee mugs, drinking bottles, pencil cases, T-shirts and stickers.
Ms Sangoma was right. Somebody at Soccerex offered me a Zakumi for R450.00, but even I wasn't dumb enough to pay that for a green leopard. It would have clashed horribly with all the other, funner toys in my grandson's cot…
Sharon, you’re a breath of air-freshener! I had my picture taken with Zakumi at Soccerex and brought it home (proudly) to my kids. It went straight into a drawer. I was hurt: I would have expected at least a week on the fridge door. But my sangoma quickly put me right: it was, she said, not me they were trying to hide, it was the cheetah.
Cheetah?
Oh, no no, she said – the cheater. The animal that cheetahd me into believeing that I was being all hip and young by posing for a photograph with him.
But the sangoma was kind enough to explain, too, that the reason we have mascots is so that the owners of the brand can make gazillions from selling soft-and-fluffies as well as coffee mugs, drinking bottles, pencil cases, T-shirts and stickers.
Ms Sangoma was right. Somebody at Soccerex offered me a Zakumi for R450.00, but even I wasn’t dumb enough to pay that for a green leopard. It would have clashed horribly with all the other, funner toys in my grandson’s cot…
We have several strong feelings on it. There's even a Facebook group (because, you know, that means everyone's really cross). Okay, Facebook groups don't really mean anything, but it's interesting to see the number of people who are against it.
We have several strong feelings on it. There’s even a Facebook group (because, you know, that means everyone’s really cross). Okay, Facebook groups don’t really mean anything, but it’s interesting to see the number of people who are against it.
Hi Sharon, i do not think you really know enough about the benifits of a Mascot to write such rubbish about it. The Zakumi did not travel around in luxurym but a small 1300 engin car, He lives in self catering venues or if the luxury alows it in a Bed & bedfrast. Fine, it was one man we drew the liitle pictures, but we provided jobs for grannies, youngsters etc, & taught skills at the same time in the manufacturing of the Mascots. We (Cora's Costumes cc) did not get paid an astrenomincal amount, but exactly what you pay for a normal mascot manufactured by a Proudly South African company. People have a choice if they want to buy fluffy toys, t-shirts etc. Please have a look at the paragraphs below.
The importance of branding was emphasized in the Sunday Times newspaper by Glen Gill (quoted phrase) “Brand is a word you hear a lot these days … it is no longer what you do to a cow to prove ownership. It’s the recognition a product gets from customers…”
A product is something made in a factory; a Mascot & Brand is something that is seen & bought by the customer. A product can be copied by a competitor; a Mascot & brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful Mascot & brand is timeless." – Stephen King, WPP Group, LONDON
Hi Sharon, i do not think you really know enough about the benifits of a Mascot to write such rubbish about it. The Zakumi did not travel around in luxurym but a small 1300 engin car, He lives in self catering venues or if the luxury alows it in a Bed & bedfrast. Fine, it was one man we drew the liitle pictures, but we provided jobs for grannies, youngsters etc, & taught skills at the same time in the manufacturing of the Mascots. We (Cora’s Costumes cc) did not get paid an astrenomincal amount, but exactly what you pay for a normal mascot manufactured by a Proudly South African company. People have a choice if they want to buy fluffy toys, t-shirts etc. Please have a look at the paragraphs below.
The importance of branding was emphasized in the Sunday Times newspaper by Glen Gill (quoted phrase) “Brand is a word you hear a lot these days … it is no longer what you do to a cow to prove ownership. It’s the recognition a product gets from customers…”
A product is something made in a factory; a Mascot & Brand is something that is seen & bought by the customer. A product can be copied by a competitor; a Mascot & brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful Mascot & brand is timeless.” – Stephen King, WPP Group, LONDON
I know there a lot of people that feel negative about a mascot. I think it’s great.It catches the people’s eye. It makes me take a second look.