The Connection between Racism and Advertising in South Africa

Across the world, when racial prejudice is supported by institutions and laws, racism is present. The links between these elements have never felt stronger.

Recent evidence of systemic racism in the US and beyond has been sharp reminders of its corrosive power and deadly impact, especially when allied to entrenched discrimination.

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Adverts like this for Pear’s soap, exploiting the differences between Black and White, are seen as explicitly racist today. They reinforce the stereotype of Black skin as dark and undesirable, while White is superior and pure. This British advert dates from the early 19th century. The question remains what the intention of the advert?

Confronting racism and intolerance in its many guises is one of this generation’s great challenges. Multiculturalism and anti-racism efforts attempt to counter the racist practices; yet, the impacts of these efforts are unclear.

The concept of apartheid (‘separateness’ in Afrikaans) was developed in the 1930s as a rallying cry of the National Party. Later known as ‘separate development’, it became a central tool of White minority rule in South Africa after the 1948 electoral victory of the Afrikaner Nationalists, and was actively enforced by successive White minority governments in the Republic of South Africa until 1994.

Less than 30 years ago, South Africa was a global pariah. Racism was not only legal, but entrenched in its system of apartheid. When that system ended, a process began in an attempt to unite a deeply divided nation, and the country took some very public steps to overcome the trauma.

Under apartheid, the 75% of the population who were Black Africans were to be separated from the White and (people of mixed black, Malayan, White, Indian and/or East Asian backgrounds) as well as from each other in terms of their ethnic groups.

The country has a horrible history of colonialism and racism and the country’s citizens are still grappling with identity politics and social inequity.

The way in which South African mass media markets itself and the media research process their support is unquestionably racist. The lack of will by the advertising industry to accelerate the development of blacks. White media buyers are forced to resort to racism by having little alternative but to use research tools to select media in which to place advertising.

The dimension of Hofstede’s Power Distance Index (PDI) indicates that South Africa scored 49 on PDI. This score means that people accept a hierarchical order and the centralization of power.

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In 2014, Ogilvy & Mather South Africa created the ad for Feed a Child, which showed a white woman feeding a black child scraps as she watched television, relaxed in bed and ate dinner. At the end of the spot, words appeared on screen, reading: “The average domestic dog eats better than millions of children”.

Similarly, on Monday, September 7, 2020, Beauty store Clicks raided by protesters after a controversial “racist” hair advertisement provoked widespread outrage. Its a wrong notion to say advertising agencies changed their advertisements to reflect on changes in raided Moreover, they changed because their target market changed.

So what market are the advertisers following in South Africa? Is the market racist? Who has the most disposable income and how do they get these people to part with this money?

South African parliamentary committee on communications in 2001, held hearings into racism in the advertising industry. They asked questions such as “what is non-racialism and anti-racism?” and the chair said that “a probable solution could only be arrived at once the industry took cognisance of the fact that it was not immune to racism”.

The Government’s Communication and Information System (GCIS) recommended an advertising and industry indaba, the strengthening of regulatory bodies and “self-regulation by agencies to celebrate diversity in society”.

Racial prejudice and racism feed on each other. If racial prejudice is not reduced, it could lead to racism, and if racism is not addressed, it could lead to more prejudice. This is why strategies to address discrimination on the basis of race should be thorough and multifaceted, so that both individual attitudes and institutionalized practices are affected.

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