Scam? Something dodgy about National Braai Day

There's something faintly fishy about this whole National Braai Day thing. Look, I'm not looking to burger up anyone's creative stab at nation building, but where there's smoke, there tends to be fire (or at the very least thousands of sizzling braais).

Who's behind this 'official' National Braai Day? Who is the 'Tongmaster'? Who consulted whom? Who is benefiting? Are we dealing with a secret sosatie here?

By what stroke of marketing wizardry does a hitherto unknown organisation manage to rope in such luminaries as Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, achieve massive media coverage, (including a mention on the BBC) and persuade so many thousands of citizens, retailers and bloggers ecstatically to embrace the idea, with open tongs (and wallets)?

Among the heavyweight sponsors are Pick 'n Pay and Klipdrift Brandy; the newspapers on the weekend were crammed with supermarket promotions for meat, utensils and other braaing goetes. Reading the press reports, I'm rather intrigued - and dismayed - by the gushy tone of journalists swept up in the idea.

And, apart from a huffy press release - justified, I now think, under the circumstances - from the National Heritage Council and objections from animal-rights activists, how come no one has asked, 'Who thought this up? Why?'

The answer is, I haven't a clue. And if anyone in the Blogosphere or the press knows, they're not saying.

Why?

Now, before you throw me with a wet wors, please note that I'm not dissing the idea, or casting any aspersies on the organisers. I'm just asking.

I wouldn't have given the matter a second thought if I hadn't chanced, via Tertia's blog, on the website of National Braai Day. The site invited all braaiers on the big day to show their support by sending an SMS 'with the number of people attending your braai.' In the pre-event publicity and on the site, the 'CEO/Chief Executive' of National Braai Day - one Jan Scannell - said, 'We will release numbers to the press on a real time basis, and there will be a live counter on this web site.'

Well, when the big day arrived, I was surprised to see that there was no live counter on the site (and neither was there the day after**). But what really got my nose hairs twitching was the section of the site called 'Ask The Tongmaster'. Questions apparently submitted to the site are featured, along with the Tongmaster's replies.

Someone asks, "I really would like to know where all the money is going to for all the R2 sms’s. Please advise."

A fair enough question, I reckon. Now read the curiously enraged reply:

"Mark, why don't you just scroll down and read the parts where I have answered this question? SABC mobile. I have strongly considered being offended by your mistrust of our pure motives but then I decided that you should be excused. This absolute lack of cerebral functioning is surely not by choice. Please go through the trouble of using your brain to a limited extent: If we wanted to make money with the SMS count thing, then surely we would have asked every person around a braai fire to send an SMS? The main reason why we say one SMS from a fire, with the total number of people around that fire, is because we do not want to have unnecessary money spent on SMS's by braaiers. Do you understand this? Does it make sense to you? I thought that it is so logical that there could be no doubt by any person in the country, but there are still people like you, and that does not cease to amaze. Good luck with tying your shoe laces mate."

Attempts at wittiness aside, does that answer strike you as a little defensive and, er, over the top? And what's with the insults? I scrolled down and took a look at the earlier question to which the Tongmaster referred. Here's the question and a similarly hostile answer:

"Hi The Statement - National Braai Day is a non-profit initiative, however to measure the success we need the help of the nation, and this is where you come in. 34 is charged at R2.50 and you share costs. To who will you then donate the provit. Chris"

"Chris, your spelling is horrendous. From your email address I assume that you work for Telkom? Well, I have documents from SABC mobile that states very clearly that the number is charged at R2 so maybe you should go and check your sources. (But being one of the worst service providers in the world, maybe we could just assume that the Telkom information is wrong. National Braai Day is a non-profit initiative but it is very definitely not a charity organisation. No money will be donated to anyone. Have you noticed the ads on National Radio and in the printed media? Do you think these types of things come for free? We pay for them. From private philanthropic money. Don't quit your day job to become an analyst."

Private philanthropic money? Non-profit initiative? Not a charity organisation? Intrigued, I nipped over to smscode.co.za and looked up the SMS number 34761, which resolves to foneworx.co.za, not 'SABC Mobile' as claimed in the first answer I quoted.

Now, I don't really give a tinker's cuss about who makes a couple of bucks out of the SMS thing - good luck to him. But why the smoke and mirrors? And, if you're wondering what the final braai 'count' was, in the absence of the 'real-time' SMS results, the same 'Ask The Tongmaster' section carried the following the following Q & A today:

"So how many SAfricans had a braai yesterday? What was the total figure on 34761?
The system stopped at 79374. I think we can assume that in all reality there were probably one or two additional braaiers. "

Hmm. 79374 x R2 =

Do the maths.

Another thing. The website www.braaiday.co.za is registered to the aforementioned 'Chief Executive Officer', Jan Scannell, of Stellenbosch.

I googled Scannell, and came up with two people of the same name. Here's one, and here's the other. Without drawing any conclusions , I can't help noting a striking coincidence: the latter Jan Scannell is - or was - the CEO of Distell, makers of Klipdrift Brandy, who - how weird is this? - are one of the chief sponsors of National Braai Day.

Finally, I say this: while I think the notion of a reconciling, nation-building Braai Day is a brilliant one, I have a deep aversion to invented holidays and festivals whose only purpose is to get cash registers chinging in malls across the land (Mother's Day and Father's Day are excellent examples).

If NBD is indeed a genuine philanthropic gesture: cool. But to my mind, 'philanthropic' means a little more than persuading hundreds of thousands of people to make a braai. How about, next year, each braaier throwing a couple of ront, via SMS, to a fund to buy foodstuffs for people to whom a scrap of meat is an unimaginable luxury?

And how about us consumers showing a bit of healthy cynicism?

**Postscript: The National Braai Day website now features a counter titled, 'There are currently [blank black strip] South Africans around braai fires!