Socially Savant

For a number of months here is in South Africa we have seen Social Media light up with rage over racial campaigns run by well-known institutions. We have seen Dove International headquarters deliver on the most distasteful adverts regarding skin tone and early in 2018 we woke up to an advert by H&M International that had people rioting and looting stores across our beloved country. We also still have adverts where black women are dancing as if that’s all we do all day. But let’s take a step back a little bit. What is advertising? The way I see it, it’s a tool to reach far and wide and sell the product or services you have to offer. So from really dry and dead advertising that looks like it was done by a 5-year-old on a word document to aesthetically pleasing adverts with all the correct language and well-researched adverts. Advertising had been a form of reaching us anytime as long as the setting or platform is right ie: TV and radio. On the brink of political turmoil...

Dear black child, you wake up to too much every single day. Do not lose heart. It won’t be like this forever. We are here to reclaim our dignity one ad at a time. Kind regards a fellow black child. This is a short letter to all black people and the future black child. We won’t always have the most disturbing and antagonising adverts, brought on by agencies and creative directors who feel they can do whatever they please in their positions power. Whilst it’s said that Dove has made a distasteful advert apparently it’s not the first time. Six years prior to this advert they had another racist and disgusting advert. Meaning that six years ago we might not have been as “woke” as we are now, since we don’t remember dragging them on Social Media. But I would much rather think we were not as vocal as we are today. We were still in our passive slumber and not willing to unpack racism as we are now. Now we see people writing books and realising albums depicting the very essen...