Wednesday 18 August 2010

What did YOU do for the World Cup?

First off... I'd like to as FIFA not to sue me for this.

Simply because I don't actually know how the whole copyright issue around using 'FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa' thing works. So I'll just say this here and now: FIFA­™ World™ Cup™ 2010™ South™ Africa™.

There.

Now that we got that out the way...

On to the topic at hand...

The World Cup came and went and the main issue was that only a very few people would benefit from it.

So what did most people do? Try milk it for all it's worth. Coming up with innovative ways of getting a slice off this FIFA pie!

Most black people shipped their family members off to nursing homes and orphanages to make room for opening B&B's and such.

Needless to say, that whole plan never worked coz FIFA had specifically said that they wanted top-notch accommodation facilities and handed out a long list of 'recommended' accommodation providers. And none of the regular black people cum B&B owners saw this one coming and got nothing! All that time and money spent on renovating their houses was wasted.

So what did the youth of this beautiful country do? They came up with something else...

T-shirts! YAY! Now there's a brilliant idea. A t-shirt to ride on this WC wave with!

Although many well established t-shirt brands did get some milk out of this FIFA cow (wow, I'm on a roll with these metaphors!!! FAYAH!!)... anyway... Although some brands did manage to squeeze out some rands out of this whole endeavor, there were those who thought they were onto something major and wanted to see if they could catch a ride on this metaphorical Gravy Train (OK, that's the last one for today).

Many tried, and just as many failed.


Where am I going with all this? Well, the question I'm asking myself is... where are all these brand now, today, this very minute, right this second? I really wonder.

I can understand if some lost hope because the World Cup sales weren't as crazy as expected, but what of those that are still around?

It's all good an well to come up with a great idea and link it to an event (without getting sued). But don't just come up with the great idea then disappear into the unknown as soon as the event ends.

In fact the event must have been the perfect foundation for you to see if this is really something you are willing to get into for the long haul?

Think of all these start-ups that popped-up everywhere during the World Cup. Where are they now? What are they doing now?

All those 113 companies that named themselves Something-Something 2010 and even went as far as registering that name; what of them? Did they not expect their company to go beyond this year? How many of the 113 will still be around come next year, come 2014? Or maybe they planned this all along... that come 2010 they're gonna register their company and rake in MILLIONS!!!

Maybe they didn't plan pas the 30 odd days of the FIFA World Cup.

Look at how the flag business boomed during this short period. The flag business what the business to go for if you wanted to make money throughout the duration of the world cup! But as soon as South Africa was out of the tournament, one-by-one, South Africans started removing the flags from their car mirrors. As if the flags were a symbol of the World Cup somehow. Like being South African and proud was only temporary.

What a shame.

Let me know if you have answers to these questions. I'll wait.
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