(By Sarah Britten, former Strategic Planner with TBWA Hunt Lascaris, Johannesburg, South Africa)
(This article was published in 2002 in the book ‘Thuis in Nederland, Praktisch handboek voor diversity marketing’ in a Dutch translation)
On the morning of February 2 1990, South Africa became a new country. In one speech, then State President FW de Klerk unbanned the ANC and the South African Communist Party, announced the release of Nelson Mandela, and declared the country the New South Africa.
As the news sank in and the initial excitement died down, South Africans looked around and exchanged quizzical glances. In Archbishop Tutu’s Rainbow Nation, everything was still the same - and everything was totally different. Men formerly jailed as terrorists were now hailed as heroes. People formerly separated by law because of the colour of their skin were now expected to get on like old friends.
Nobody could tell us how we were meant to feel part of the same nation when for decades, every aspect of our lives had been determined by which ethnic group the government had decided we belonged to. Nobody could tell us how to get past the small matter of more than three hundred years of conflict. And nobody could explain to us how we were meant to talk to each other when we hardly knew where to begin.
“We have no great vision to unite us, no shared myths to light our way,” protested internationally renowned Afrikaans author Rian Malan. “We can barely communicate because we have no languages in common.”
It was clear that, if the task of building a new nation from the ruins of apartheid South Africa was to be successful, shared myths – new stories and symbols – would have to be created. Nations are difficult entities to conceptualise. As Benedict Anderson famously argued, because we can never meet all our compatriots, let alone know them, nations have to be imagined. In the past, nationhood implied a shared ethnic and cultural heritage: this was certainly not an option for the new South Africa. So it was crucial that symbols be created which could represent all that the embryonic nation stood for - and few industries were better equipped to make use of symbolism and mythology than advertising.
“We have no great vision to unite us, no shared myths to light our way. We can barely communicate because we have no languages in common.”
The demise of apartheid made possible an unprecedented level of freedom of expression. Advertisers made full use of the exhilarating new climate of freedom. Nando’s used a black comedian to mimic Nelson Mandela in a call for South Africans to embrace freedom and eat peri-peri chicken. The cellular network, Vodacom, showed a simple black roadside hawker making an arrogant white city slicker look like a fool. Black and white South African men indulged in good-natured backslapping while they bonded over a Castle Lager or a Hansa Pilsener.
Critics quickly recognised the significance of this kind of advertising. Ads gave South Africans hope, promising them “a future in which black and white could laugh at each other, and at themselves, without someone pulling out an Uzi”. Others suggested that ads were subliminally educating South Africans towards cultural tolerance, by breaking down barriers between different social groups. The fact that the ads on TV were showing blacks and whites enjoying a beer together, or mocking one another without ending the argument in bullets or a brawl, made it that much easier to accept change in real life. As the South African-born novelist Justin Cartwright noted, “Advertisers quickly became adept at suggesting new world where commercial considerations were more important than race. I am sure that advertising was, like sport, a huge factor in the freeing of the South African mind.”
The advertising industry also played an important role in devising non-commercial campaigns that helped entrench a sense of nationhood in a deeply divided society. TBWA Hunt Lascaris was at the forefront of advertising’s involvement in nation-building, designing the logo for the hugely successful Peace campaign of 1992, conceptualizing the government’s Masakhane campaign designed to encourage township residents to pay for services, and coming up with the Welcome logo and campaign with its aim of encouraging South Africans to make visitors to the country feel welcome. TBWA Hunt Lascaris was also closely involved in conceptualizing two ANC election campaigns, and its founders, John Hunt and Reg Lascaris, wrote a best-selling book on how South Africans needed to define a “South African dream” for themselves. At the turn of the century TBWA Hunt Lascaris created inspiring, patriotic campaigns for South African Airways and the cellular network MTN. Now, as the agency responsible for the recently acquired South African Tourism account, it is up to TBWA Hunt Lascaris to project a new image of South Africa both to its own people and to the world.
South Africa remains one of the beacons of hope for the rest of the world, a living example of how deep and painful divisions can be resolved by peaceful negotiation rather than violence. This is not to say that the nation-building process was easy going, even with a leader of the caliber of Nelson Mandela. While a new national vision was (and remains) a work in progress, South Africans had to contend with ongoing racism, political violence and crime. There were times when it was almost impossible to believe that the rainbow nation existed at all, when it seemed more real, more tangible, on television adverts than in any aspect of real life. Some political commentators decried the “shallow rainbowism” of advertising. They found the notion that ads could depict situations that were not common in real life somehow disturbing. Yet ads depicting South Africans of all races interacting in positive situations reminded us that these were ideals to which we should aspire - and through repeated exposure, helped promote the perception that the situations they were depicting could be the norm rather than the exception.
Caste Lager’s “One nation, one goal, one beer, one soul” slogan at the time of the 1998 Soccer World Cup probably represents the apotheosis of the relationship between product and nation.
Thanks in large part to advertising, South Africans can look to a common set of images and symbols to define the nation of which they are a part. We have Nelson Mandela, our colourful flag, and – thanks to ad campaigns for SAA, Vodacom, Castle Lager and other products and services – we can visualize how we appear to the rest of the world. We also have our sports teams and the memories of sporting achievements; MTN, South African Breweries and Standard Bank are amongst those companies that have associated their names with national sports teams in advertising that has caused pride to swell in the breasts of sport-mad South Africans. Caste Lager’s “One nation, one goal, one beer, one soul” slogan at the time of the 1998 Soccer World Cup probably represents the apotheosis of the relationship between product and nation.
Post-apartheid South Africa probably represents the best example of the contribution of advertising to a nation-building project. American advertising has certainly contributed to its image – think of such icons as Ronald Macdonald and the Marlboro man – but had a well-established national identity with which to work. South Africans had to start virtually from scratch.
It has been a considerable learning curve, and South Africa’s advertising industry, like so many other aspects of our society, remains torn between the attractions of a first world mindspace and the reality of third world economics. Advertising practitioners of all races tend to be educated, sophisticated and cosmopolitan, and communicating effectively to rural, often barely literate people who do not speak English has proven to be a challenge. How best to communicate to the black consumers who now represent the greatest bloc of buying power in the country is an ongoing debate. The solutions to the challenge rely partly in recruiting South Africans from different backgrounds into the advertising industry, especially creative, partly in research, partly in sensitivity to cultural nuance.
No doubt the debate will continue for the foreseeable future, for if there is any subject on which everyone has an opinion, it is advertising. South African advertising will evolve with the rest of the society it reflects and to which it responds. If there are any lessons that the example of South Africa can share with the world, it is that communication and understanding are an ongoing process, that setbacks are inevitable – but that, with enough talking, differences can be overcome.
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