If you live in Gauteng and you listen to traffic reports, you’ll know all about the Buccleuch interchange.
At the intersection of the N3, N1 and M1, it’s one of the busiest interchanges in Africa.
Now there’s something else for motorists to look at while they sit in afternoon rush hour – a billboard that’s as much a love letter to Jozi traffic as it is an ad for a brand.
VALR.com is the biggest crypto exchange headquartered in Africa, and the brand has been advertising at the Buccleuch interchange since mid May. The message on that board was previously very simple: “Got Bitcoin?”, together with the VALR logo. Having been a familiar presence for three months, the marketing team felt that the time was right to switch up the creative and bring in a positive message about spring and new growth.
The new creative was inspired by VALR’s huge 37-metre-long billboard at Cape Town International arrivals, which tells an entire story as travellers walk alongside.
There isn’t quite as much space at the Buccleuch interchange, so the focus is on telling Jozi that VALR loves the city where the company is headquartered. The design features one of the icons of a South African spring: a masked weaver building a nest, which happens to be branded with the Bitcoin logo.
The nest is suspended from a tree budding with leaves and flowers, and eagle-eyed observers might notice that there’s a special detail hidden in the foliage: the branches of the tree appear in the shape of the Buccleuch interchange, as seen from above.
A billboard can’t fix Jozi traffic – but hopefully it can make sitting in rush hour just that little bit more bearable. As VALR CEO Farzam Ehsani says, “We tried to create something beautiful. Some art for the city, plus an ode to those travelling that particular route.”
