Viral video alert: President Zuma gets the ‘Old Spice Guy’ treatment

Barely a week ago, the youth league of the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s ruling party, took issue with the social media world following the recent Malema vs Twitter brouhaha. Now there’s a new video doing the rounds on YouTube that is bound to get tongues wagging. It’s by the satirical ZANews team entitled “Old Spin: The Mshini your man could smell like” — a uniquely South African spoof on the “Old Spice Guy” viral video campaign.

In case you missed it, “Old Spice Guy” was an advertising campaign created by the celebrated Wieden+Kennedy agency in Portland, Oregon to re-invent the Old Spice brand. It started as a television campaign before exploding on the web. Read this piece for a full analysis of the impact of the campaign.

With the ad as its starting point, ZANews has created a controversial minute-long spoof crammed full of political satire, from the infamous shower head to the New Age newspaper, Zuma’s multiple wives and a well-timed dig at Western Cape Premier and opposition leader Helen Zille.

ZANews was created by producer Thierry Cassuto and award-winning newspaper cartoonist Zapiro. It takes a satirical tongue-in-cheek look at the politics of South Africa. It was supposed to be a TV show but, after the SABC backed out of a deal, it has been trying to establish itself as online brand — with some success.

Take a look at ZANews’ Old Spin Guy, and judge for yourself:

And where will it go from here?

In the tradition of Old Spice, Old Spin Guy will be answering questions and comments posted to him via Twitter. You can make contact with Old Spin at @zanews, or use the hashtag #oldspinguy.

Rumour has it that the team are shooting new clips this week, and will be posting them live via YouTube on Friday.

For you reference, this was the original Old Spice Guy commercial that ignited the campaign.