With the arrival of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, kulula.com challenged all other airlines to match their low airfares, and questioned why other airlines were trying to make a quick buck during this time. So instead of cashing in, kulula added 28 000 seats to be able to cater for the World Cup rush. Kulula then launched a national pricing advertising campaign for the World Cup with a series of cheeky tactical newspaper ads.

When FIFA objected to the first of these ads over apparent trademark infringements, it sparked a frenzy, with local and international newspapers picking up the story resulting in many blogs, twitter commentators, facebook and other social media criticizing the soccer body for being too restrictive. As such, it was great publicity for kulula, but not so good for FIFA.

The first newspaper ad in the series which not only showed off kulula’s low airfares but poked fun at FIFA’s trademark restrictions. FIFA objected to this ad and it sparked off a massive local and international debate criticizing the soccer

body for being too restrictive.

Kulula Unofficial National Carrier Print

The second ad, in response to the complaints about the first ad, kept the debate alive, by poking even more fun at FIFA with

a tongue in cheek headline avoiding “any reference” to “2010” and showing completely soccer unrelated “sports paraphernalia”. Once again, the newspapers and social media lapped it up.

The Daily Sun, a tabloid newspaper in the UK, published a story in their newspaper about a potential earthquake set to hit

South Africa during the Soccer World Cup. kulula.com responded by creating a press ad which appeared in the Daily Sun warning tourists of other ridiculous things to watch out for while visiting South Africa. Like the Tokoloshe and animals like lions and elephants roaming the streets freely.

This fourth ad in the series showed kulula’s support for our country by not only continuing to offer cheap flights to everyone who wanted to see World Cup games but also, as a gesture of goodwill to FIFA itself – offering the airline’s services free of charge to its chairman, Sepp Blatter, or in fact, anyone called “Sepp Blatter” for the duration of the World Cup.

Imagine the agency’s surprise when “out of the blue” a cute Boston Terrier named Sepp Blatter emerged to claim his prize.

This press ad was placed and resulted in an explosion on social media blogs, Facebook and free publicity in national, regional and even international newspapers. Sepp the dog even became a bit of a celebrity overseas with blogs and websites picking up on the story –as far adrift as India.

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