You have to feel for the folks at South Africa’s Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB), because it appears that we’ll find fault with just about anything these days.

Outrage is a popular state of mind, but you have to wonder what a certain Piet Nienaber was thinking when he laid a complaint against the popular Showmax advert from late last year.

Clearly, he believes that South Africans are incapable of thinking for themselves, and will simply parrot whatever behaviour they see on TV, and clearly he is bereft of a sense of humour.

The viral hit now has close to 430 000 views, and it’s easy to see why:

Just a bit of fun, and it also informs you of Showmax’s excellent free data deal with Vodacom.

Enter Piet, who laid a complaint with the ARB. Business Insider reporting below:

He said it portrays “a complete disrespect for the employee’s work environment and fellow workers”. Also, Nienaber said, young people will “get the wrong impression of how to behave at work”.

Sorry, boss, I was going to work today but then I saw this advert, and next thing I know I’m eating Janet’s lunch and watching series at work.

Piet, that’s not it, man.

Thankfully, the ARB agreed, with this from their ruling on the complaint:

It is a reality that some employees tend to neglect their work duties by chatting on social media on their cellular phones or playing computer games at work. This is used in an exaggerated manner in the commercial to humorous effect. It is clear that the conduct of the star performer is highly exaggerated and humorous.

He does a number of things that no employee would do, no matter how distracted. The commercial communicates how distracting the Showmax offer is in a totally over the top way, and the hypothetical reasonable consumer would not take it as a suggestion of what is normal and acceptable behaviour in a workplace – at least not by a person who meant to keep their job…

The Directorate is of the opinion that the hypothetical reasonable person will understand that they cannot behave like this in the workplace.

In short, sanity prevailed.

Piet, for the love of all that is good in this world, take a break. Read a book in the garden, go for a hike in the great outdoors, feel the touch of a fellow human’s skin against yours – whatever it takes to get you off the ARB’s back.

To the rest of you, we say happy binging. If you’re looking for a new show to distract you (preferably at home, but we don’t judge), Showmax’s original series, The Girl From St. Agnes, is currently shattering records.

Channel24 reports that the number of unique viewers in the first 24 hours far exceeded that of Showmax’s previous record-holder, Tali’s Wedding Diary, which was a massive hit back in 2017.

In case you haven’t seen the trailer yet…

Candice Fangueiro, Head of Content for the Connected Video division of MultiChoice, which houses Showmax, was pretty stoked:

“We’re over the moon. This shows without a shadow of a doubt that local content is a major differentiator, and it also shows that African productions can not only hold their own against the best in the world but they can actually come out on top.”

“We’d, of course, hoped that The Girl from St Agnes would get loads of views, but what we didn’t expect was how many people have already watched the entire series. That’s eight one-hour episodes in less than 24 hours – a serious testament to how binge-worthy the show is.”

Here’s the good news – if you’re keen to check out The Girl from St Agnes, you can sign up for a FREE two-week Showmax trial here. Better still, if you’re an existing DStv subscriber, you can add Showmax to your bouquet for free.

For the rest, the month-to-month subscription costs R99, which gets you all-you-can-eat access to their extensive online catalogue of TV shows, movies, kids’ shows and documentaries.

You’ll find plenty of binge-worthy content (some of it’s racy – sorry, Piet) to keep you distracted, whether you’re at work or at home.

[source:businsider&arb&channel24]