EFFORTPOST Average Enjoyer asked me some questions HOW COME ONLY BLACK PEOPLE ARE IN ADVERTS

HOW COME ONLY BLACK PEOPLE ARE IN ADVERTS:

It's funny you should mention this as in the early 2000s up until 2005 maybe there would maybe be the majority of adverts still placate whites as the most prominent middle class, and consequent source of disposable income. But as South Africa went on as a Democratic state in which all races were allowed to undergo all types of word - by the time the early 2000s, a burgeoning Black middle class had begun growing, with equivalent disposable income.

And while whites on average would dominate the Upper Middle class bracket throughout the past 20 years, black peeps would become the most numerous, and thus the ever slimy corporate world would pivot their primary marketing base gradually to be predominantly the black masses of South Africa. This was for both local and International companies, including companies run by majority white owned corporations or businesses.

Additionally as the middle of the decade rolled around, it became clear that the ANC would remain as the most absolute dominant political party, and even through corruption and incompetence, the black majority of South Africa seemed ironclad in their unwavering support - thus there came the perception that black peeps would forever more remain in power and the be the dominant powerbase ethnic group of the country. This is significant, because many people thought that the completely lopsided OVERWHELMING victory of the ANC under the Nelson Mandela administration was just a lightning in a bottle, and would consequently equalize as the decades passed.

instead it would remain the status quo for the next 3 decades. Even after Mandela retired after only one term, the ANC would remain dominant. You see many non blacks like Indians and Coloureds would soon begin to realize that black peeps were very comfortable at excluding them from power. While the ANC would never approach anywhere to the discrimination of the Union of SA days, they would still employ discriminatory standards even in places such as the BEE governmentally enforced affirmative action - you will notice BEE is known as Black Economic Empowerment, coloureds and Indians need not apply, in hierarchy of BEE, blacks come before coloureds in job security for example, which is why the Democratic Alliance has held such a stronghold in Cape Town and the Western Cape province for so long.

Point is there was a tangible and evident shift of power into the hands of black peeps - not non-white peeps including Indians and Coloureds. And though it wasn't politically correct to poibt this out, businesses could sense this.

By mid 2000s more and more advertisements from vehicles to porridge and cereal ads, the shift from 50% into the favour of black dominant actors could be seen. Many Afrikaans boomers, including my parents would b-word and moan about this sudden shift, and would have this about how many nogs there were between their ads between their movies!

By the time the 2010s arrived, it became clear that black peeps were the preferred target demographic. Wat is interesting is that compared to the rest of government,, was that there were not top down initiative or mandate that corporations should pivot so sharply into catering towards black peeps near entirely - instead it was all voluntary as they sensed or at least believed that the newly created black middle class would be the most money abundant demographic available. This is not like Blackrock trying to influence its subsidiary companies to become woke, or the Sweet Baby Inc trying to influence companies as to their pholosophy and ideology of diversity.

This was genuinely a grassroots movement gradually over time as companies believed spending their advertisement budgets catered towards blacks would yield the greatest financial return - this was a genuine grassroots slow movement, which is in sharp contrast to the manifestation of BEE in Sports and all governmental and cabinet positions in the country. Of course this did not stop white boomers from bitching when they had soo M### and K####s on screen on their televisions for every fricking ad when I visited uncles or grandparents

Like imagine this meme every time you visit grandma holy shit god help me YES grandma I fricking knowwwwwwwwwww.....

NON-WHITES ALSO B-WORD ABOUT IT:

Of course it wasn't just whites bitching about this demographic pivot in ads and coloureds and Indians would also that the shift in ad actors were changing, but ONLY towards blacks, NOT towards Indians and coloureds. In fact the ads were entirely disproportionate. And while it is true that 75-80% of the country is black and Indians and Coloureds only make 13% of the country, even with that proportion in mind, the amount of coloureds specifically in ads were very lacking, if never seldom. This would become a bitching point amongst coloureds and Indians, whom are even more prone to vote DA than even the average white in general and could similar to RSA companies, also sense this change in character from both the corporate world and the general national Government mentality.

It became clear by the time the 2005 era arrived that the ANC would exist to benefit black peeps near exclusively and coloureds could only hope for scraps. There became a common saying that Coloureds were too brown for the Apartheid government, and too white for the modern ANC government. And like dispassionate restless young poor men in all nations, the conspiracy theories in the country amongst coloured young peeps was that the ANC was manipulating the nations' businesses to cater exclusively to blacks, at the expense of all the other (non-white) minorities like Indians, coloureds and chinese.

Of course there have never been evidence for this, as I said all of this was genuine gradual corporate lowest common denominator grassroots movement amongst businesses who just deemed that the pivot towards catering towards mostly black peeps would give the best returns on their advertising costs.

INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES ARE R-SLURRED:

Of course the coarseness of the Corporate world also sometimes failed to cater to black South Africans - especially International companies, who tried to advertise to black South Africans same way they did to whites, and completely blew it They basically just race swapped actors and ironically this would often backfire, as black safricans tended to hold different cultural norms to their hearts.

So even with the massive pivot towards black peeps, many companies ironically didn't fricking make enough returns on investment to actually warrant the shift, at the expense of alienating their coloured and white customer bases entirely! Here is an example article below.

https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/423/17229.html

====(from article)

The strong South African economy and the growth of the black middle class have been responsible for many opportunities for South African companies. These opportunities have also seen advertisers caught with the need to attract new black consumers without isolating and losing their traditional white market. Unfortunately most companies are getting caught with their pants down – choosing middle of the road campaigns that fall into the void of untargeted advertising.

Effective advertising and marketing communication must take into account people's race, culture and social dynamics. Tailor made communication, sent through targeted media channels, talks to segmented target groups in a tone and manner that they not only understand but also appreciate. This will ensure that the product has an emotive link with the consumer.

Africaness:

Recently a white marketer put to me that when a black South African acquires a higher living standard, they become westernised and lose their Africaness, their desires and needs suddenly shift to be those of their white counterparts and they consume the same products as whites. This shows a complete misunderstanding of Africaness.

If we look deeper we realise that a black/white member of the higher LSM might be in the same income bracket but they are also very different. They come from different backgrounds and cultures and the experiences that have shaped their lives are far from identical. Although I agree that some experiences are intrinsically human, their Africaness sets them very much apart.

Research conducted by the Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing and Research Surveys among “Black Diamonds” showed that 75% of them believed in slaughtering cows to thank their ancestors. The research also stated 86% of its respondents said they still believe in the practice of ilobolo. According to an article “Witness The Birth Of the Black South African Middle Class”, published on the Unilever Institute website on 26 March 2006, nearly half of the surveys respondents believed in the role and function of traditional healers. [So medicine adverts catering to black peeps, like headache Disprins, would fail badly!]

Very different answers

There is no debating that white consumers in the same LSM rating would have had very different answers to these questions (if they even understood the questions.) We have to wake up to the fact that black people are not the same as white people no matter how much money they have in the bank.

=====

Mataboge also notes that “SA's black middle class was a very complex group to understand because they lived in two worlds. The modern and traditional.”

We know too well of advertisers/marketers that insert black faces in ads that were initially targeted at their white consumers. This disrespectful and ineffective advertising is being rolled out by misinformed marketers who are under the impression that the black middle class aspire to be white and that a black face in an ad conceptualised originally for a segment of the white market is enough.

There are also those who make the mistake of lumping all blacks together as if they were all Black Diamonds and live the same lifestyle. Lazy advertisers who don't take time to conduct research about their target markets also contribute a great deal to this tragedy.

=====(end article)

Anyways the rest of the article bitches about how diverse the country and that all advertisers should try to make demographically oriented ads aimed at specific groups, but adknowledges that budgets force businesses to aim towards the maximum potential customers, thus leaving the ads to be very washed out and generic.

CULTURAL UNDERSTANDINGS IN ADS:

Anyways, the point of the article was to show that the massive "blackwashing" of all ads on the media, from basic shopping chains showing a generic good looking couple smiling with butter and bread in their hands, to clothing chains showing women in the latest fashion, didn't even appear to have such a concrete effect on black peeps in south africa, whom were culturally very different from the Burgerland black peers, whom were fully westernized. And thus just switching white actors into black actors, with westernized clothes ironically didn't show such an increase in revenue as they thought.

Example: many large shopping chains would be turbo cucked by local afrikaans butchers when it came to selling meat to Zulus, Xhosas, Sothos and lesothos, the ads didn't do shit in terms of getting them to buy meat, as they didn't celebrate westoid holidays and buying large quantities of red meat for the celebration of things like Easter or Christmas like whites.

However, afrikaners and boers who live in proximity to Zulus and sothos, were aware of the practice of ilobolo (ceremonies), and the high value of ancestor-worship which tribes like the Sothos have regarding funeral services, and the cultural need to slaughter cows on important days, and would place the most basic ads for their butcheries next to funeral homes or municipal notice boards, and black sothos would swamp these local butcheries and basically keep them from being overtaken by the much larger chain shopping stores, which had even larger butcheries and amenities, but basically would end up being associated with white middle class shoppers.

https://www.derebus.org.za/the-recognition-of-customary-marriages-act-and-the-practice-of-lobola-through-the-lens-of-the-sca/

The irony of the racist boers having a stronger cultural understanding than international corporations trying explicitly to placate them. A black guy on the shop for festival meat doesn't care about a Globohomo ad trying not to offend anyone, but a boer butcher who comprehends the importance of the specific cut of meat, or the type of cattle blacks prefer, would become immediately evident towards them with regards to the boer using phrases present in the practice of ilobolo (The custom involving the provision of marriage payments in cattle or cash, from the groom's family to the parents of the bride) and how they would like it to be slaughtered.

By this I don't wish to imply that no black-oriented ads ever work towards Safrican black peeps, or that they are somehow a bunch of savages who can't even comprehend medicine ads and instead use ritual junk to cure themselves, or that Safrican blacks do not wear western clothing, but merely that the cultural separation can be so strong, that ironically an offensive advert in the Globohomo style would end up less than useless, even as it attempted to pander to them in the most egregious sense.

THE BLACK MIDDLE CLASS:

Now back to Ben10Enyers question, as far as I'm aware there aren't exclusively black peeps in modern adverts anymore, it's still dominated of course, but has ironically become more diverse and even handed, or as even handed as generic featureless corpo crap ads can be.

Since the 2005-2015 period onwards, corporations would change their tactic to be more inclusive, it was believed that the Black Middle class was less stable than their white peers. While the current black middle class have grown to outnumber their white middle class by a factor of 2-3, depending on city, most Black middle class peeps have been found to be very unstable, because it's mostly in debt. White middle class had financial inter-generational wealth, and in comparison basically owned what they owned, where as black middeclass owned high class cars and homes onnly through debt which they paid on monthly credit disproportionally!

https://www.jstor.org/stable/48614444

Even worse, many economic investigations by university proctors have deemed that as much as a third of all Middle Class black peeps are only wealthy because of political connection and corruption meaning that it was only through political connections that they were middle class - aka they obtained jobs or positions through nepotism. Disregarding the nepotism, the economic problem for the economy is that they are not a stable middle class, as their positions are not guaranteed based on their merits, and they could thus lose their politically connect jobs through a change in leadership, and thus lose their wealth, and thus their capacity to be middle class and contribute toward the economy and tax-base!

https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/705879/south-africas-middle-class-is-drowning-in-debt-and-stresses-are-mounting/

Many white people in comparison, whom had come from intergenerational wealth, even the middle-class, could in comparison spend their wealth more "wisely", but so many black peeps since democratization in 1994, would be new to the practice of being able to obtain loans from the banks, and falsely interpreted the concept of loans as fricking free money. Many black peeps, even those currently in the Middle class bracket failed to understand that loans have to attained strategically, and often for the objective of enhancing your future business or state in life, and that most importantly that you FRICKING PAY INTEREST.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-09-29-sas-black-middle-class-has-grown-considerably-in-10-years-but-still-playing-catch-up/

The point being, is even as of 2022, post COVID lockdowns, in comparison to the black economic Middle Class, the white middle class, though not too great either, is much more stable, and often responds to targeted westernized adverts much more tangibly than their black countrymen, the same can be said for South African Indians and coloureds, whom are also much more westernized than their black peers.

Corporations and businesses have noticed this, and have consequently changed their depictions of actors and the races have been much more proportionate, at least WITHIN south africa.

I believe @AverageBen10Enjoyer probably mostly saw International ads, directed by international corporations not based within SA. Now those adverts would probably be 100% black, with the most corpo Globohomo possible variant of ads, showcasing only black peeps which the brainless suits of their organization deemed would make catering exclusively to black peeps would give the best return on investment, in spaces like SuperSport international stadiums

Probably these fricking corpos don't even know coloured people or whites even exist in RSA

Anyways I went very long on this one question, GOOD NIGHT