In 2014, approaching Christmas time, we were briefed to get into the festive spirit and spread some holiday cheer with Comedy Central’s first billboard in South Africa. We decided to go with this instead:

We thought that if kids were old enough to read, they were old enough to know the truth.

Some mothers disagreed…in a big way.

Immediately after that, word started spreading in newspapers (where they even called us liars – LOL), on Facebook and on Twitter, where it also became a meme.

And even CNN’s Chris Cuomo had something to say from overseas.

But all good things have to come to an end. After just four days, we were told to stop making little children (and their moms) upset, and we were forced to pull it down…

…So, we replaced it with this:

In 2016, after two years, the biggest reward is still seeing the Santa billboard show up at the top of the results page of Google images when you simply search “Comedy Central billboard”. 

Agency: OgilvyOne Johannesburg
Client: Comedy Central
Copywriter: Tiffany Morris
Art Director: Thandolwethu Silimela, Michele De Iuliis