The Legend of Big John
Chicken Licken2018
The Legend of Big John is a 2018 60-second television commercial (plus a longer online cut) for Chicken Licken, created by Joe Public United.
Why it works
A young man named Big Mjohnana sails from his village in 1650, shrugs off a jaguar, a whale, a shark and a giant squid, and lands in Holland in 1651, where he greets two startled Dutchmen in South African slang and decides to call the place Europe. Joe Public's 60-second spot for Chicken Licken's Big John burger flips the Jan van Riebeeck landing that began South Africa's colonisation into a tall-tale origin myth. It is studied as a test case for how far humour can go in post-colonial advertising. After one viewer complained, the Advertising Regulatory Board ordered it off television in December 2018, ruling that colonisation was not open to humorous exploitation. Two appeals failed; the final panel, chaired by Judge Bernard Ngoepe, found it offensive for omitting colonialism's suffering. The ban made international news, yet at the 2019 Loeries the work still won a Gold for online film plus Craft Golds for production design and visual effects.
Techniques
- Humour Recasts a colonial landing in reverse as an absurd tall tale, with a village hero shrugging off beasts and greeting startled Dutchmen in local slang.
- Storytelling Follows Big John from his village across a perilous ocean voyage to a payoff in which he lands in Holland and decides to call it Europe.
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