Does the SABC have the right to decide what is or isn’t savoury advertising? Jacquie Golding- Duffy reports on “code orange”
Before the launch of the new South African Broadcasting Corporation in February, the corporation was banning what they thought to be unsavoury advertisements. A month after the launch, the SABC continues to censor.
Prior to the launch the SABC banned an animated stand-up comic on Aids awareness and recently it covered up an amusing (to some) Grasshopper shoe advertisement featuring male streakers at the cricket.
The Grasshopper shoe advertisement has sent the SABC scurrying for its black stripes. Where viewers of the Wills World Cup had become used to bare-bottomed men gliding across the turf to the tune of Strauss’s Blue Danube waltz, they were now seeing the SABC cover-up.
The Gap advertising agency, which created the advertisement, was instructed by the SABC to withdraw the advertisement unless it removed the offensive parts. These were then covered up by a strategically placed black box and the censored version was shown during the cricket matches.
The Gap’s creative director Allan McDonald said the advertisement was intended to be amusing. “We always intended the advertisement to be lighthearted and certainly not, in any way, offensive, sensual or pornographic. We are dismayed that some people found this material distasteful, but SABC TV have not been able to give us any evidence of their complaints. The irony is that we obtained the so-called “offensive” footage from the SABC TV archives. Furthermore, we pre-screened the advertisement to a select religious and conservative audience who were in no way affronted by its cheekiness,” McDonald said.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) passed the advertisement with a “code orange” rating which is a “rating linked to taste linked to taste and [which] leaves the onus of accepting or rejecting that advertisement to rest with the medium it was supposed to be aired on”. The authority said, although it covered issues of “decency and susceptibility of consumers” with regards to advertisements, it did not seek to play the role of censor.
The SABC said it felt that viewers were offended by the streakers in the advertisement and, therefore, it chose to place a black box across the offensive parts.
The animated stand-up condom comic was an advertisement devised by Net#work advertising agency and commissioned by the Planned Parenthood Association. However, it was banned by the SABC.
Planned Parenthood Association national development manager Audrey Elste said the SABC never forwarded a formal response with regard to their rejection of the advertisement.
“I don’t think the condom cartoon was offensive. The SABC has resorted to basic censorship,” Elste said. She added that the corporation had to take risks in order to get the message across, especially to young people, that condoms were fun and that they were essential in ensuring safe sex.
“Straightforward health messages often do not appeal to young people and this ad was an attempt to attract the attention of youngsters and convince them that condoms were more fun than they thought.”
The advertisement was prevented from being flighted by the SABC’s Public Service Committee which is responsible for screening advertisements, intended for television, free- of-charge. These free advertisements are usually from groups of people that are linked to organisations like the Cancer Association and others that need to educate and inform viewers on specific issues, said Public Service Committee executive secretary Eben Brummer.
Brummer said the committee, established more or less at the time of the SABC’s inception, consisted of 10 people — four from television, four from radio, one person from group communications and one representative from Zwelakhe Sisulu’s office. “We only view ads that are for free advertising and the members decide which are suitable or unsuitable for their viewers. The advertisement in question [the condom cartoon] was deemed unsuitable,” Brummer said.
The advertisement was subsequently flighted on M-Net, said Net#work account manager Veronica King.
King said her agency approached Brummer again earlier this year in a second attempt to get the advertisement flighted, but met with no response from the SABC. “The advertisement is in English and tsotsi-taal and aims to reach as many viewers as possible and educate them on the use of condoms,” King said. She added that the SABC’s committee found the advertisement to be “unacceptable and offensive for viewers”.
Executive director of the Freedom of Expression Institute Jeanette Minnie said the Aids awareness advertisement communicated an essential message. “Condoms are literally an issue of life and death and the SABC should have seen the critical message in the advertisement. Rather than ban the ad, the SABC should have been inclined to be less sensitive to the moral objections of the ad and be more aware of the message,” Minnie said.
In the case of the streakers, Minnie said she found the advertisement “rather funny” since it portrayed a reality. “There are often streakers at these matches, it’s almost part of the game,” Minnie said.