Partnering with Savanna Premium Cider and the creative team at TBWA\Hunt Lascaris, Noah has helped bring 'Bafunny Bafunny' to life, a new platform that celebrates South African comedy while creating new opportunities for the country's next generation of comedians, says the TBWA collective. 

The collaboration brings together one of the world's recognised comedians, a brand that has championed comedy for decades and the creative minds behind the idea. But rather than creating another celebrity campaign, the shared ambition was to build something rooted in South African culture, a platform that celebrates local comedy in a way only South Africans would recognise.

"South Africa has never had a shortage of funny people. We've just always needed more places for them to be seen. That's what the 'Bafunny Bafunny' Tour is about. What I love is seeing a brand that's genuinely committed to comedy, working with a creative team, that's prepared to match that ambition. That's usually when the interesting stuff happens," says Ryan Harduth, Trevor Noah Management & Creative Director. 

For TBWA\Hunt Lascaris, the starting point wasn't a script or a celebrity endorsement. It was a simple observation about South Africans.

We're a country that knows how to get behind the people who represent us. Whether it's on a stage, on a field or on a screen, we celebrate those who make us laugh, make us think and make us proud. The creative challenge was to channel that same spirit into a platform that celebrates local comedians in a way that feels unmistakably South African, adds the collective.

That thinking became 'Bafunny Bafunny', a world where comedy is celebrated with the same excitement, anticipation and sense of occasion that South Africans naturally bring to the things they love.

"There's never a dull moment when you're working with TBWA\Hunt Lascaris. One minute you're talking about backing South African comedy, and the next you're building an idea with Trevor Noah that has the potential to become part of South African culture. That's what I love most about this partnership, they're never afraid to make an idea a little bigger.

This project has been a great reminder that when you tap into something South Africans genuinely care about, people don't just watch from the sidelines, they get behind it, own it and help make it something special," says Mathew Walton, Marketing Manager at Savanna Premium Cider. 

Turning that vision into reality meant breaking away from the traditional celebrity campaign playbook.

Instead of handing Trevor Noah a finished script, the creative team at TBWA\Hunt Lascaris invited him and his team into the process from the very beginning. The campaign was shaped in a collaborative writers’ room, where ideas were challenged, refined and often improved through improvisation, adds the collective.

The production itself was just as ambitious.

With only eight hours available with Noah, the team filmed all three hero commercials in a single day. Most scenes were completed in just two takes, leaving little room for second-guessing. Many of the campaign's sharpest moments came not from the script, but from spontaneous exchanges and ad-libs between the comedians, says the collective.

"It's not every day you get to sit in a writers' room with Trevor Noah, but that's exactly what my team and I did. We came in with a strong strategic idea, but the magic happened when everyone started building on each other's thinking. Some of the funniest moments weren't written, they happened naturally on set. Shooting three films in just eight hours meant we had to trust the process, trust each other and trust the comedy. I think that's what makes the work feel authentic," says Steph van Niekerk, Executive Creative Director at TBWA\Hunt Lascaris.

As 'Bafunny Bafunny' rolls out in the lead-up to the South African Festival of Comedy, the ambition is for the platform to become more than a campaign.

The hope is that it inspires South Africans to celebrate homegrown comedy, discover new voices and continue backing an industry that has long been one of the country's richest sources of storytelling, satire and cultural reflection, concludes the collective.

For more information, visit www.tbwa.com. You can also follow TBWA\South Africa on LinkedIn, or on Instagram.

*Image courtesy of contributor