The television commercials depict upwardly mobile South Africans in social settings, with the comedy provided by fish-out-of-water characters who are not only socially inept, they’re embarrassingly ignorant – and will go to any lengths to try and fit in. These, clearly, are not readers of Destiny and Destiny Man!

The key insight was that this target market likes to be constantly informed of what’s going on, be it professionally, financially or socially. The campaign’s inference is that if they don’t read Destiny and/or Destiny Man, they will miss out on some key pointers that will keep them in the know.

In the three Destiny ads, groups of women are standing around chatting about serious stuff – such as gender roles, start-up businesses and effective presentation methods. Our uninformed anti-heroine, Lynda, finds herself with a mouth full of teeth when asked for her opinion on these weighty issues, and tries to duck the questions in a variety of amusing and inventive ways.

The commercials share the same tagline at the end: “Don’t get caught out. Stay informed, in style and in touch with Destiny. Beautiful, Powerful You.”

For Destiny Man, we are introduced to a slightly different character – not as bumbling as Lynda but equally as clueless, and blissfully oblivious to the fact that his pretentious utterings are downright idiotic.

Obviously not a Destiny Man reader, he is trying very hard to fit in but keeps making cringe worthy faux pas at parties, eliciting much eye-rolling and disbelief from the clued-up bystanders. One of these gaffes involves this hapless git casually asking a barman for a single malt on the rocks – but with no ice.

“Don’t be that guy,” implores the tagline. “Stay informed, in style and in touch with Destiny Man. Bold, Distinguished You.”

Deputy executive creative director for Net#work BBDO, Graeme Jenner, explains: “Just because you’re a smooth dressing upwardly mobile business cat, doesn’t mean you don’t have a sense of humour. In the TV ads, we aimed to have really high production values but make sure they were just really funny and entertaining, and I think, thanks to the genius cast and production house (Team Best), that we just may have achieved that”.

Watch the TVC’s here:
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhNwLrqJqAo;
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTw0bLqc6Mc;
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7GOHXYGTms;
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ-b8SiIf6E;
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARw3V6vtpc; and
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=72v-iBhrHHM.