[Orchids & Onions] Dulux shows true colours with ad

I remember coming home on R and R from the army and thinking the aliens had stolen our house and left a lime or neon-green monstrosity in its place. Paddy had decided to paint – and no one paid much attention. Until it was too late.

© Denys Rudyi – 123RF.com

My sister’s friends at school thought it was hilarious, and made up a little ditty about it, to the tune of the theme from The Addams Family: “Their house is a museum, it’s painted sickly gree-um…”

In his defence, perhaps my father was misled by the little colour patch in the paint brochure – and let’s face it, who hasn’t been disappointed when the shade you’ve chosen from the catalogue doesn’t quite look the same when it’s on the wall? And, how many of us haven’t had a little bit of family tension arising out of colour decorating disputes?

Dulux, the paint maker, has the solution: a clever cell phone app that allows you to photograph the place you want to paint – and then select the colour. The app shows you what it will look like. It’s clever. It’s potentially relationship-saving.

And the TV ad to promote it showcases it very well. So an Orchid to Dulux for a really useful innovation and for promoting it well. Sadly, no app to turn back the hands of time to the days of the Addams-Seery family.

I’ve been thinking a bit about SABC’s Propaganda Commissar, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, and his decision to stop showing footage of scenes of violence at service delivery protests.

If I were in his shoes, I would have done exactly the same thing. The only thing that surprises me is that it took the ANC and HMV (His Master’s Voice) Hlaudi so long to do it. (By being in his shoes, I mean as a party apparatchik charged with playing down dissent and playing up whatever else he is asked to…)

No matter the patronising tone that critics say there is in Motsoeneng’s reasoning, there is no doubt in my mind that SABC’s TV broadcasts have been the vector through which countrywide anger has blossomed.

I hear the argument that people don’t have to see scenes of violence to want to protest; if they have genuine grievances and their anger level is high enough, it will out.

What most commentators have failed to notice, though, is that it is not necessarily the scenes of violence that have spawned so many copycat actions, it is what follows such demonstrations.

First, no one ever seems to be charged or brought to book when there is damage or there are assaults or even killings. And, almost without exception, people have seen protest does work.

The government rushes some factotum out to the spot and promises things will get better.

That is why the culture of protest has spread and the ANC has perhaps belatedly realised the power of an organisation like SABC – which has more reporters in more places than the rest of the media – to create and change perceptions.

It was the ANC that let the genie of Anarchy out of the bottle.

Sadly, though, I think it’s going to be almost impossible to get it back in.

The SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) – whose members are in charge of the futures of the majority of the children – said this week it was “pleased with the progressive work (Motsoeneng) is doing for the nation”.

Then misspelled Motsoeneng’s name. A statement from the Sadtu secretariat – which presumably handles its communication – went on to say that Motsoeneng’s “commitment to indigenous knowledge and support to local artists are some the milestones he has achieved in a hostile environment that seek to undermine anyone who is African”. Comrades. Comrades. Comrades. An Injury to Grammar is an Injury to All.

Because you are the secretariat and because communication (in broad strokes, the marketing of your brand) is being done in such a sloppy manner, you get an Onion.

Mind you, I suppose I would say such capitalist, imperialist and colonialist things, wouldn’t I? It’s what journalists and writers do, Comrades, so don’t be too upset.

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