My night shift

The inspiration behind the campaign was to bring back some brand love and restore brand affinity with the South African market, both customers and non-customers.
As MTN is all about bringing people together through technology, we wanted to create a feel-good ad that brought this to life. And it didn’t hurt to throw in a nostalgic track while we were at it.
Using The Commodore’s 80s hit, ‘Nightshift’, we created an ode to all those who are on nightshift duty, from the nightshift workers that keep our city ticking while the rest of us are snuggled up in bed, to the family setting off on an early road trip, and the mother who is rocking her baby back to sleep.
The ad begins at 2:31am and tells the story of an air traffic control officer, who is working the graveyard shift at the Cape Town International Airport. He downloads a song off the MTN Network that resonates with how he is feeling at that very moment, that being ‘Nightshift’ and decides to Skype his friend and fellow air traffic controller in Joburg, Marvin, who he then begins to sing to. And so, despite the thousands of kilometers between these two, the friends connect with each other, in the middle of the night, in a humorous and light-hearted way. And from there, the song keeps travelling, connecting an entire community of ‘nightshifters’.
The ad is authentically South African, and it shows how we can work together as a nation while still having fun.