The World Cup has always been said to have the benefit of showcasing South Africa, and the world’s media are descending on the country to prepare profiles of South Africa. Some of it is negative, but much so far has been positive, especially in showing off the beauty of Cape Town.
A South Africa-based correspondent for SkyNEWS seems to be in the townships every day, negatively reporting about the poverty of these residents, while the ‘rich’ sector of the country benefits from the World Cup, it is highlighted continuously.
Much more positive reporting is coming from ZDF, Germany’s largest TV station, which is pulling out all the stops to showcase South Africa. Yesterday, for example, the station did a 24 hour broadcast on its online channel, about our country, a conglomeration of various documentaries the station had produced on previous occasions. Unfortunately an on-line broadcast is not as powerful as a television broadcast, but it will have attracted a young audience. ZDF put a lot of advertising muscle behind the 24-hour broadcast, so it created strong awareness amongst ZDF viewers. The country brand ‘Suedafrika’ is definitely top of mind.
However, 90 minutes of the on-line broadcast was broadcast on ZDF TV throughout the day, in three sets of 30 minutes each. The programme started with beautiful shots of Table Mountain, and then of Cape Town filmed from Table Mountain. It was said that a trip up the mountain by cable car is a must for every visitor. Then the documentary jumped in contrast to a school in Wuppertal, showing children in a boarding school having to brush their teeth in an irrigation canal, because there are not enough facilities in the hostel for all the children. Then it moved to showing burning tyres, set alight by taxi drivers protesting against the new BRT bus system to be introduced. A township resident was interviewed, who positively stated that he would never leave his township : ‘I do not want to change my life for anything’, despite the poor facilities in the township. Children receiving a swimming lesson in Khayelitsha were filmed, and a sangoma throwing the bones interviewed. Then the production team interviewed Pieter-Dirk Uys, who initially spoke in German, but switched to English when he spoke about how dangerous it was for him to have mocked the Government when he first started, and melodramatically stated that had he been black, he would have been imprisoned! (He did not tell the interviewer that he has declared Evita se Perron in Darling soccer-free during the World Cup!).
Then the action moved to Captain Crash, who chases after stolen cars and minibus taxis in his helicopter (I have seen this insert twice already), and then to a Soweto-based Event Manager Tshepiso Mohlala, who is involved in the organisation of the World Cup Concert on 10 June. A lot of airtime was given to a German wedding co-ordinator from Wedding Concepts, who was organising a wedding at Allee Bleue outside Franschhoek.
Capetonian and ex-Miss South Jo-Ann Strauss features regularly in a ZDF TV advert for the World Cup Concert, from which Strauss and revered ZDF talk-show host Thomas Gottschalk will be presenting for ZDF. She speaks near-perfect German, her partner being from Munich, saying: ‘Suedafrika begruesst die Fussballwelt’ (South Africa welcomes the football nations).
Other programmes, like ‘Traumstaedte’ (Dream Cities), start off positively, with beautiful views of Camps Bay beach, the Promenade, the Bay Hotel, the Waterfront, but soon move to the townships, and interviews are conducted with extremely negative residents, talking about the crime and drug situation in the townships. The ZDF reporters talk about Cape Town’s ‘Hell and Paradise’ not the lasting impression we would like to create marketing-wise amongst international viewers.
‘Traumflug durch Afrika: Von Kapstadt nach Kenia’ (Dream flight through Africa: from Cape Town to Kenya) was far more positive, documenting a Eurocopter pilot flying over beautiful Cape Town (Table Mountain and Cape Point), flying 3 meters above the sea, the Garden Route to George and Knysna for some golf and oysters at the Dry Dock restaurant, to the Addo Park for a safari, to St Francis, Coffee Bay, the Hole in the Wall, and then off to Lesotho, reaching his end destination of Kenya.
In a cooking program with some of Germany’s top chefs, the cooking stars all wore German soccer jerseys, to show their pride in and support for the German team, indirectly attracting attention to the World Cup.
Given that Cape Town Tourism has appointed PR companies in Germany and the U K, and in other European countries, we trust that the city’s tourism body will help influence the content of documentaries of our city, and that they show the tourist side of Cape Town, without having to focus so much on the townships.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com