Eskom should start charging royalties

Posted on 25. Mar, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry in Advertising

Instead of hiking the cost of electricity by whatever percentage they hit on the canteen dart board, Eskom should charge the long line of ad agencies using its brand name in vain, a small commission.

This billboard for the new Seat Cupra, which can be found on Joburg’s N1 highway, gives the national electricity monopolist another deserved bitch slap in the face.
Now if someone else could deliver a swift kick in the nuts to the Reserve Bank Governor, maybe he’ll consider easing off on his interest rate increases – making even the mere thought of buying a new car, a viable one.

[thanks to Jane for sending in]

4 Responses to “Eskom should start charging royalties”

MdW

25. Mar, 2008

Great idea. Then perhaps we wouldn’t have to suffer through a 60% price hike from a utility that can’t even deliver basic service. (Smacks of Enron.)
Darren

25. Mar, 2008

I think you’re both missing the important issue here, which is that neither the Eskom price hike nor the interest rate increases are in any way avoidable. Tito Mboweni is literally being forced to raise interest rates in a desperate attempt to slow down the steep rise in inflation. Sure, it’s hurting some people now, but it’s far less painful than seeing your savings halve in value every few years as the price of necessities reaches unaffordable levels. It is the lesser of two evils and there is no other choice.
As for Eskom’s massive price hikes (there will be another 50% hike next year), they are the inevitable consequence of a lack of capital and infrastructural investment coupled to an electricity price that, by world standards, was kept artificially low for far too long. How many times have we heard South Africans boast about our having the world’s lowest electricity prices? Did anybody ever stop to wonder why that was; only to realise it was because we were not building the necessary new power stations or adequately maintaining the existing ones? Some did, but they were ignored.
Ultimately, somebody has to pay for Eskom’s crash building project and it can only be us, either as taxpayers or as consumers. If Eskom is not permitted to raise its electricity prices, it will require the government to fund the expansion and that in turn will likely require a further tax hike to pay for it. It’s not pretty but hey, what did people expect when they tolerated (and even cheered) Eskom’s existence as a government-owned monopolist parastatal? The only real long-term solution to our woes is to have a free-market in the supply of electricity, but there’s insufficient support for such thinking in SA for me to believe that’s going to happen anytime soon.
Anon

08. Apr, 2008

Gsus! What a car! Great advert Ogilvy CT
Gregory

12. Apr, 2008

Maybe all Virgin Active gyms can feed the electicity grid.