Castrol recently launched a new ad campaign and the characters of Boet, Swaer and Moegai, who’ve been part of South African popular culture since 1988, will sing the praises of “a can of the best” no more.
Castrol recently launched a new ad campaign and the characters of Boet, Swaer and Moegai, who’ve been part of South African popular culture since 1988, will sing the praises of “a can of the best” no more.
Actors Ian Roberts, who played Boet, Norman Anstey (better known as Swaer), and Fats Bookholane (Moegai) have starred in a series of memorable commercials on South African television. The first Boet and Swaer commercial was shot 15 years ago for the launch of Castrol GTX, and were developed over the years by various advertising agencies, winning several design and production awards along the way.
The characters of Boet and Swaer featured in a play about the people living in the Lower Albany region of the Eastern Cape. The region, inhabited by many descendants of 1820 settler families, is renowned for the quirky dialect used by English-speaking folk.
Earlier this week, Castrol’s general manager for marketing and technology Robert Dann said the TV characters played a big role in building Castrol’s overall brand awareness “of more than 95 per cent in the South African market”.
“Good things do come to an end and we want to acknowledge the role the actors played in developing and maintaining the characters over the years,” Dann said, adding that new consumer research had shown that there was low direct product association with the “Boet and Swaer” advertising.
“There was a need to drive a new, differentiated awareness for the brand. The new campaign theme, ‘Mad about Oil’, emphasises Castrol’s specialist approach to lubrication,” he added.
The first television advertisement, depicting a group of purportedly “fastidious Castrol researchers” vying to find the slickest oil by running their formulae down the bonnet of a car, aired on SABC 2, 3 and eTV on last week.
“On one hand, we have a brand that has single-mindedly pursued leading edge lubrication technology since its inception. On the other, you have a target market that has an above average interest in cars, performance, and engines. There’s a natural fit between Castrol’s obsession with lubrication and the target market’s obsession with cars,” said Dann.