Racism rife in SA advertising, says adman. No, it’s been klapped out, says IRR

An advertising executive with more than 20 years’ experience said there was no transformation in the advertising industry.

Louis Seeco, founder of adverting agency elements, made this observation at the SA Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) inquiry into alleged racism in the industry.

In its terms of reference, the commission said it wished to investigate the existing landscape within which the advertising industry operates. It said it wanted to establish whether opportunities existed for proactive mechanisms to be introduced to sensitise and align the productions of the industry to the standards of the constitution and associated laws aimed at respect for all of SA’s people.

When asked by commissioner Buang Jones about racism in the industry, Seeco said the people who were running the industry were those who oppressed black people in SA for years.

“So the messages that you see in advertising, communications, marketing are informed by how they view black people as inferior, less human.  

“Therefore we cannot expect that representation that they design for brands in advertising would be different to the views and the values they hold about black people in this country. What we see as racism in advertising is a reflection of the beliefs of the people that run these agencies,” Seeco said.

This put him in direct opposition to the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), which said a day earlier that there was no racism in SA’s advertising space.

We found there was a huge resistance from the powers that be, the owners of big agencies. They did not appreciate there could be eloquent voices from black Africans who would speak about what this industry should achieve.

—  Louis Seeco, elements founder

IRR head of campaigns Gabriel Crouse told the commission South Africans  should never be afraid to claim success where good work had been done.

“We have klapped racism out of our advertising airspace and if we build on that we can get rid of race-nationalist and race-Marxist politics too.”

Crouse added that no evaluation of the extent of racism in South African advertising products was possible without first knowing the massive extent of the industry.

He said adverts flighted between January 21 and December 31 2021 included  more than 7-million TV adverts, 1.8-million radio adverts and about 58,153 print adverts. 

He said of those, none was referred to the commission for alleged racist content.

Crouse said this indicated that the industry had done exceedingly well. He added that going back to 2013, the commission’s terms of reference mentioned only five allegedly racist adverts.

Extrapolating from the 2021 numbers, on the assumption they represented an average number of ads per year, there had been about 80-million flightings in the period in which the commission referred to only five allegedly racist adverts.

The IRR said the remaining adverts in the commission’s terms of reference did not appear to be racist, leading to the conclusion that out of tens of millions of adverts since 2013, none had been racist.

But Seeco said when he formed his advertising agency in 1998 there were many educated and talented young people who believed they could play a meaningful role in transforming the industry.

He said they believed the messaging and images portrayed by advertising at the time were incorrect, offensive or stereotyped black African people.

Seeco said at the time they believed that instead of complaining about lack of transformation, black people should establish their own agencies to show what type of messages or advertising should be generated to speak to all the people of the country.

“We found there was a huge resistance from the powers that be, the owners of big agencies. They did not appreciate there could be eloquent voices from black Africans who would speak about what this industry should achieve.”

Seeco said instead of transforming the agencies they owned,  owners of the big agencies formed subsidiary agencies, bringing in black partners in hopes of creating the impression there was transformation.

He said when these black partners began to demand transformation in a number of areas, such as employment of Africans and the messages and imagery portraying the market, the resistance was such that these black partners would be told their shareholding had not been paid for. As a result, these voices were silenced.

Seeco said many talented black people refused to endorse this environment. They were left frustrated, cut off and some left the industry permanently to explore alternatives.

The organisation in charge of advertising was led by black leaders. “However, there is very little that we see of the work they do to transform the industry because this industry remains in predominantly white hands.

“Those who have done economic research tell us that more than 80% of this industry is owned by foreign big agencies.”

Seeco said among the big agencies in this country, none had a meagre 40% compliment of black people in their effective structures.

“You can go to their websites and see the composition of their executive teams, mainly and purely white. There is no transformation in the advertising industry.”

The hearings continue on Thursday.