One of my favourite things to do in Joburg is to peruse the Arts On Main market in Maboneng Precinct on a Sunday.
The last time I was there I stumbled upon a group of girls sticking Chappies onto the wall outside.
I wasn’t too sure why they were doing what they were doing, but I found it inexplicably fascinating watching them sticks hundreds upon hundreds of Chappies onto the brick wall.
When I left the market the girls were about halfway done and a crowd of wide-eyed children had gathered around them no doubt thinking, “Turn your back for a moment girls, and those Chappies, are OURS.”
Then yesterday I got an email from Kraft foods instructing me on the Chappies Edible Street Art initiative – the online marketing campaign of which I somehow managed to miss entirely, but stumble upon anyway at Arts On Main.
Last year Chappies gave fans the chance to submit their own “Did You Know?” facts and after over 50 000 entries were submitted through Facebook and over 47 000 votes on Mxit, Chappies validated and selected the top 170 facts.
The Edible Street Art that the Chappies team created represented six user-submitted facts and were each created out of thousands of real Chappies pieces. The largest of the six murals took 177 681 pieces of Chappies to create, about 15 hours to complete – and approximately 15 minutes to disassemble, with the help of the public. Those kids in Maboneng probably did it in 5 minutes.
I’ve been feeling super depro today after reading a few awful stories in the news this morning, but this video below made me smile.
Sometimes, it’s the simplest of initiatives which are the most effective.
Follow Chappies on Facebook, Twitter and check out all 6 of the Edible Street Art murals on YouTube.
