Branded Blog

One of the Barefoot daughters’ (i.e. The two little blonde girls who call the barefoot man “Daddy” and who are happily continuing his barefoot legacy) most favourite Saturday adventures in Kommetjie is the beach Treasure Hunt. It’s kept to a respectable 2 or 3 times a year so as to preserve the allure and intrigue, and so it was with great squeals of delight that the Barefoot man announced two weekends ago that he thought there might be new treasure out at the wreck, and maybe we should go and hunt some treasure.

The first step in a treasure hunt is, I’m told, obviously to have a treasure map. So two pieces of (recycled office) paper are duly laid out and then with much questioning as to what comes next, a map is drawn marking all the highlights from our house, down the road, up the beach, over the little smelly river, across the salty flats of the lagoon and finally reaching the wreck of the Kakapo on Noordhoek Beach.

The Kakapo wreck (yes, that really is it’s name – you can find the story here) is a dramatic and exciting destination for a treasure hunt since it is easily reachable for 3 year old legs, and makes for a visible target across the very long beach of the imaginatively named Long Beach between Kommetjie and Noordhoek.

Along the way you get to clamber over rocks and an enormous tree-trunk that also washed up on the beach at some stage,

and then tip-toe over the smelly (read: polluted) rivulet about mid-way from Kommetjie to the wreck and then all the way down the long section, past the lagoon which hosts hundreds of sea birds whom Phoebe the Fox Terrier delights in scaring up in large protesting flutters.

And then, finally, you are almost at the Kakapo. And then you can look for your treasure which **someone** both mysterious and brilliantly informed hides in an easy-to-find spot on the wreck at exactly the right time. Incredible isn’t it?

As we near the wreck there is a flurry of bare doggy and little girl feet, a rush for the rusted ribs and boiler of the wreck, and much excited squealing as they all rush around the ship trying to find the very exciting treasure which today consists of a chocolate bar and a little perfume sample in a little bag for each Barefoot daughter.

And then the enjoyment of the trip sinks in while everyone has a rest on the wreck and while the 7-year old muses with an angelic look on her face: “I wonder how they always know just when we’re going to be here…”. Magic is easy when you’re 7.

And later on the (slower) walk back down the beach towards home there is much discussion about hunting treasure and who could possibly be behind the exciting finds. The hunt is, on reflection, much more exciting than the treasure ever is.

And that’s the secret, isn’t it?

Most of us don’t have anyone mysterious and brilliantly informed to mastermind what we find as we hunt treasure day to day with only our brands to defend us from the oblivion of futile searching and an empty treasure chest at the end of the beach. So it’s up to us to do two things for ourselves and our brands:

1. Be brilliant, informed and mysterious:

If we’re not always thinking, always learning and always making our brands irresistible and intriguing to our target market, there is little hope of finding that treasure we’re all hunting. But for most of us it takes daily work – there are no other mysterious people to magic it all up for us – we have to be our own brilliant, informed and mysterious people. Isn’t that a cool way of thinking about the stuff we have to do everyday?

2. Enjoy drawing the map, the chatting  and the walking down the beach as much as you enjoy the Kakapo:

The cliché rocks, take it to heart. If you’re not enjoying the planning, the discussions along the way, the work that goes into finding the right route and the learning from what you find under a rock, then you’re missing half the fun. Not only does it make every day more exciting and more happy, but it also makes the treasure seem more valuable at the end.

The treasure is made more exciting by the treasure hunt, don’t miss out that part – it’s often where the best memories are.