Old Khaki : S.A. Homegrown

Cape Town startup FoxP2, whose weird Magnetic Wonderbra ad we recently featured, is back with more interesting work, this time for South African clothing brand Old Khaki. Enlisting the photographic services of fellow South African Sacha Waldman (www.sachawaldman.com), FoxP2 has created "a tongue-in-cheek, South African slant on fashion advertising," says CD Noel Cottrell. As for the seemingly politically charged ad we open with, "it's just a sexy twist on the old apartheid scenario, where black people were harassed by the police," he explains. "In fact, almost all of the yellow 'cheese wagons' have been burned, since they symbolize the old South Africa. We struggled to find the one we shot. The old blue police uniforms are also symbolic of the old S.A., and seeing a sexy black woman in the uniform harassing two young white guys is just a cool and funny twist."

Cottrell insists there's nothing risky about the ad. "It's aimed at people 18-35, who earn a decent salary and read magazines like Men's Health and Cosmopolitan." Elsewhere in the campaign (see the PDF), the "biltong spanking" ad is "fairly risky" for this client, from a strictly pushing-the-fashion-envelope perspective, Cottrell says, and it will run only internationally. "In this ad, we've turned fashion S&M on its head, as our hot guy is spanking the girl, who is obviously enjoying it, with biltong." Come again? "Biltong is a dried meat delicacy unique to South Africa." Similarly, "Inkomasi is a thick, sour South African milk," he explains, and it's presumably the last liquid you'd pour on yourself in an effort to be sensual, even if you're a Pam Anderson clone. Finally, in a fairly straightforward fashion parody, "the 'Guess guy' on a horse is now our Old Khaki guy on an ostrich."