Kulula.com has always been South Africa’s cheekiest low-fare airline. During the run up to the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup kulula.com noticed that all other domestic airlines were hiking their prices up to unaffordable levels. So kulula took out a full page newspaper ad offering extremely low airfares over that time. Alluding to, but never infringing on FIFA’s strict trademark and marketing regulations. FIFA disagreed and instantly ordered kulula to cease and desist. This sparked off a massive national debate in the newspapers, news sites, bloggers and twitterers both locally and around the world. This was followed up by another cheeky full page newspaper ad poking fun at FIFA’s draconian regulations and was followed up by cheeky radio stings, the trademarking of “the sky” on April Fool’s Day, web banners and billboards.

A full page newspaper ad appeared first, then a follow up full page newspaper ran in response to FIFA’s complaint. Then the newspapers, news sites, bloggers and twitterers began to talk about the campaign and FIFA’s strict regulations. Then cheeky 5 second radio stings were flighted on national radio, web banners, followed by kulula trademarking “the sky” on April Fool’s Day with it’s own set of draconian rules and infringements. Once again, massive press coverage of the campaign and sustained presence on blogs, facebook and twitter. This was followed by an outdoor campaign in all major cities in South Africa, once again alluding to the national conversation that this campaign created.

Massive free publicity that transcended mere advertising and it became a popular topic of debate for South Africans and many other people around the world. Of course, ticket sales increased by a whopping 33% during the period which the campaign ran.