Prowess, power, grace, style, heart, spirit and passion. Admit One Productions
invoked these qualities in their response to a brief from pay-TV sports broadcast
giant, SuperSport, to create a promo for the launch of the UEFA Champions League
in 2014.
If the results of the 2014 PromaxBDA Awards are anything to go by, the production
house exercised these very qualities in executing the project: the promo, titled
“Football Forever’ won them the Most Outstanding Promo Award at the annual
gathering of South Africa’s on-air promo specialists.
The promo combines exciting football action shots and a stirring music track with
original footage showing a succession of performers embodying the qualities being
called out – a ballet dancer for grace, a bodybuilder for power, an African warrior
for spirit and so on. The simple, punchy and effective copy includes a series of
slogans such as “Flaunt your prowess’, “Show your power’, “Move with grace’, Attack
with style’ and “Defend with heart’. The promo is proof that, in this business, the
most effective piece – especially when it comes to sport – is the simplest concept
with the most visceral execution.
According to Henre Pretorius, Admit One’s creative director and co-owner, a large
part of the promo’s success is due to the client SuperSport. “They always give us
room to be creative and push the boundaries. It gives the team the opportunity to
really showcase what we can do,’ he says. The concept had originally been
generated for a different project, which ultimately was not completed, but it was
easily repurposed for the Champions League.
The concept highlights the characters and dramatic conflicts inherent in the highly
emotional world of football: “the heroes and the villains, the stars and the
underdogs, the rich and the poor,’ the blending of grace and skill with passion and
aggression. The design cleverly plays with team colours to create associations with
the various qualities cited in the copy.
The “Football Forever’ promo is just one project in the now eight-year-old company’s
highly varied portfolio that includes various short-form brand activations as well as
long-form entertainment projects. “We don’t like to think of ourselves as a
production company,’ Pretorius says. “We are a creative content agency. We’re not
TV producers, we’re content creators and this, in my opinion, is the way things are
going. TV is not the only platform to work on anymore. We create content and
activate brands in any way, shape or form may be called for. It’s about the content,
the platform doesn’t matter.’
One of Admit One’s focuses is on talent development and mentoring. The agency,
which is co-owned by Pretorius and producer Ruette Steyn, actively recruits interns
from the various tertiary institutions that feed the industry. “We are always eager
to take these youngsters on and show them how the industry works,’ Pretorius
says.
Ultimately, Admit One’s work involves applying its resources to a wide array of
creative challenges. “We’re creative problem solvers,’ Pretorius says. “The clients’
needs are key. What we do is come up with creative solutions to clients’ challenge
of activating their brand, whether it’s through a 30-second spot to promote a
particular event or programme, or a long-form series that maintains and grows a
channel’s identity.’
Admit One took one other award at PromaxBDA Africa 2014. Its Vodacom Super
Rugby launch promo, created in collaboration with Birthmark, won the silver trophy
for Best Visual Effects and Compositing.
As far as long-form work goes, Admit One is currently in production on a new
competition show for kykNet: AfriVisie, a search for new Afrikaans songwriting
talent.
For more information on Admit One and their work, click here.
