Watch: Clicks Logo Leaves South Africans Shocked After Viral Cape Town Discovery

A Monday Glitch: One Reel, Eight Million Eyes

On 2 June, actress Nicolette Fernandes was inching toward the CBD along the N2. While stationary at the red light opposite Observatory’s Clicks, the store’s familiar red sign finally unglued itself from the mental wallpaper. For the first time - after decades of passing it - she noticed the horse also brandished a horn. The realisation made her laugh; she filmed a thirty-eight-second Reel captioned, “Have I been Mandela-effecting myself since 1998?” and posted it before the robot turned green.

By dusk the clip had clocked 1.2 million local views. Overnight it hopped platforms: Twitter threads, TikTok stitches, WhatsApp auntie groups from Mdantsane to Eshowe. Comment boxes overflowed: “I thought seahorse,” “Sure it was a springbok in rehearsal,” “I only saw red blobs till today.” A 56-year-old emblem had become the country’s favourite visual prank.

Psychologists have a label - inattentional blindness - while marketers call it the “wallpaper effect.” Once a symbol blends into the streetscape like traffic lights or potholes, the brain relegates it to background noise. The University of Johannesburg’s 2023 eye-tracking survey found 72 % of shoppers “looked at but did not register” peripheral logos inside malls. Fernandes simply flipped our perceptual switch back to “on.”

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Drivers moving 60 km/h process thirty-six visual frames per second; city driving squeezes that bandwidth by 40 % because hazard monitoring eats processing power. The red square sat in the “low-priority foveal sweep” until Fernandes’s car stopped, dopamine dipped, and curiosity rebooted. Ophthalmologists call this the “grid-lock gaze” - the same mechanism behind noticing cracks in the ceiling only when the dentist’s chair reclines.

Brand-recall studies reveal fewer than three in ten consumers can redraw a logo they pass daily. Clicks’s square was always present, but the mind filed it beside “toothpaste aisle” rather than “mythical creature deserving inspection.” Once South Africans finally looked , collective bewilderment was inevitable.

The incident exposes a broader South African blind spot. The same week, Twitter threads unearthed other vanishing acts: 61 % of SPAR shoppers never realised the green blob between red letters is a tree; KFC’s Colonel bowtie is routinely mistaken for a stick-figure torso; Pick n Pay’s asterisk is written off as “superhero sparkle.” Brand recognition, it turns out, does not equal brand awareness.

From Fairy Tale to Pharmacy Counter: Birth of an Emblem

The unicorn is no last-minute marketing gimmick. It debuted in 1968 above the first Clicks at the Parade Centre in central Cape Town. Founder Jack Goldin, a pharmacist who had toured American drug chains, wanted an icon that said “pharmacy” without mortar-and-pestle clichés. Inspiration struck over Sunday lunch when his six-year-old daughter Lisa was lost in the picture-book The Last Unicorn. Goldin sketched the creature on a napkin and passed it to designer Theo Kleynhans - later famous for Sanlam’s man-in-the-circle.

Kleynhans distilled the doodle into a sleek silhouette: forward-tilted horn, raised foreleg, tail curling into a perfect “C.” The colour scheme - Pantone 485 red on white - echoed the medical cross, while the spiral horn nodded to Mercury’s staff. Goldin capped it with a red square, declaring he wanted “a postage stamp on every corner,” promising trust and affordability.

Legal paperwork from the 1973 merger between Clicks and Cape Western Drug Distributors reveals the icon survived untouched. A subsidiary of the wholesaler, fortuitously named Unicorn Pharmaceuticals, fuelled employee folklore that the emblem “came over in the deal” like a lucky charm. By the 1980s, new cashiers were sworn in with tales of the merger-born mascot.

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Once unleashed, the unicorn proved endlessly adaptable.

1981: Miniature unicorns on till slips were printed in heat-sensitive ink; rub the paper and the horn “appeared.”
1993: ClubCard launch embossed silver unicorns that threw sparks under supermarket lights, subconsciously rewarding shoppers each time they opened a wallet.
2014: The smartphone app icon trimmed the square, distilling the brand to a white silhouette on red - perfect for a 60-pixel home screen.
2022: Limited-edition shopping bags paired the 1968 sketch with a 2022 flat-line refresh, letting Gen-Z spot the retro horn at a glance.

After Fernandes’s Reel went viral, Cape Town illustrator Anwar Davids released a free phone wallpaper: the unicorn wearing a Springbok jersey above the caption “Eyes Wide Open 2024.” Etsy South Africa flooded with red-square unicorn stickers reading “Trust Me, It’s Not a Horse.” Zeitz MOCAA prototyped enamel pins, donating proceeds to Reach for a Dream. Clicks HQ leaned in - by 6 June every in-mall screen flashed a ten-second bumper of the creature galloping, horn blinking like a heartbeat, ending on “We’ve been magical since 1968.”

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Stand outside the Claremont branch at sunset and the logo resolves into a coat of arms:

• Red square border = stability, the promise of fixed low prices.
• White field = purity, pharmaceutical integrity.
• Unicorn rampant = forward motion, health solutions on the go.
• Horn pointing right = eastward optimism, an arrow toward tomorrow.

Read it like that, and the viral moment becomes a nationwide heraldic re-crowning.

Future Gallop: What Happens After the Buzz Fades

Brand-consistency studies show logos older than the median citizen enjoy “heritage immunity.” Radical redesign risks consumer betrayal, so Clicks will likely tweak rather than torch. Expect subtler horn embossing, softer hind-quarter curves, perhaps a gradient sparkle - yet the square and the prance will survive. Marketers whisper of augmented-reality Easter eggs: scan the logo and watch the unicorn trot across your phone, dispensing digital coupons. Others predict 1968-theme pop-up aisles stocked with retro packaging and unicorn-striped paper bags.

In five years a new driver will idle at the same Observatory light, glance at the store and mutter, “Hold on - has that always been a unicorn?” The cycle will begin again, proving the most extraordinary trick a mythical beast can pull is simply hiding in plain sight for half a century - and letting a nation rediscover it at the speed of a traffic light.

What is the 'inattentional blindness' phenomenon?

'Inattentional blindness', also known as the 'wallpaper effect', is a psychological phenomenon where people fail to notice an unexpected stimulus that is in plain sight, simply because their attention is focused elsewhere. This often happens with familiar objects or symbols that blend into the background of our everyday lives, making them seem invisible until something explicitly draws our attention to them.

How did the Clicks unicorn go viral?

Actress Nicolette Fernandes noticed the unicorn in the Clicks logo while stopped at a red light in Cape Town. She filmed a 38-second Reel, asking if she had been 'Mandela-effecting' herself since 1998. The video quickly gained traction, accumulating 1.2 million local views by dusk and then spreading across various social media platforms and messaging groups, making the hidden unicorn a country-wide talking point.

When and how was the Clicks unicorn logo originally designed?

The unicorn logo debuted in 1968, above the first Clicks store in Cape Town. Founder Jack Goldin, inspired by his six-year-old daughter Lisa reading The Last Unicorn, sketched the creature on a napkin. He then passed it to designer Theo Kleynhans, who refined it into the sleek silhouette known today, incorporating elements like a forward-tilted horn, raised foreleg, and a tail curling into a 'C'.

What are some hidden details in other South African brand logos?

The viral Clicks unicorn moment also brought attention to other overlooked logo details. For instance, 61% of SPAR shoppers reportedly don't realize the green blob between the red letters is a tree. Similarly, KFC's Colonel's bowtie is often mistaken for a stick-figure torso, and Pick n Pay's asterisk is frequently dismissed as a 'superhero sparkle'.

What do the elements of the Clicks logo represent?

Analyzing the Clicks logo like a coat of arms reveals specific meanings: the red square border signifies stability and the promise of fixed low prices; the white field represents purity and pharmaceutical integrity; the unicorn rampant symbolizes forward motion and health solutions on the go; and the horn pointing right suggests eastward optimism, an arrow toward tomorrow. This interpretation turns the viral moment into a 'nationwide heraldic re-crowning'.

What future plans might Clicks have for its iconic unicorn logo?

Given its 'heritage immunity', Clicks is unlikely to radically redesign the logo. Instead, future changes are expected to be subtle, such as softer horn embossing, gentler hind-quarter curves, or perhaps a gradient sparkle, while maintaining the core square and prancing unicorn. Marketers also anticipate augmented-reality Easter eggs where scanning the logo could make the unicorn animate and dispense digital coupons, or 1968-themed pop-up aisles with retro packaging and unicorn-striped bags.